Category: Film Review

MONEY MONSTER: A Review by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Caitriona Balfe, Giancarlo Esposito
Director: Jodie Foster
MPAA Rating: R (for language throughout, some sexuality and brief violence)
Running Time: 1:38
Release Date: 05/13/16

Money Monster wishes to place the financial crisis of 2008 into the spotlight and subsequent microscope of a hostage situation with an audience. That decision is a surprisingly effective one on the parts of screenwriters Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore, and Jim Kouf because the apparent madman with a gun is actually a person with whom the real audience (the ones watching the film in a theater) and the fake one (those witnessing it as it unfolds over an eventful afternoon onscreen) can empathize. The victims of the situation, then, are the sleazy, conniving people against whom, it is easy to believe, those audiences would definitely side. The least effective stretch of the film, then, is during and after the process by which those roles are reversed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The wielder of the gun (and a bomb) is Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell, whose solid performance outshines the two movie stars with whom he shares the screen), who forcibly overtakes “Money Monster,” a financial news program hosted by the arrogant and charismatic Lee Gates (George Clooney), in order to find out why I.B.I.S., a program that handles the people’s finances, lost more than three-quarters of a billion dollars overnight. He himself had a pretty penny invested in the company on Lee’s own, problematic advice on-air a couple of weeks previously, so as Kyle demands that Lee, the various crew onset and in the control room, and show-runner Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) remain where they are and live on the air, investigations are launched into the “glitch” that lost I.B.I.S. CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) a considerable fortune.

There are three modes in which the film operates here. The first is as a comedy, though not as the satire it has been labeled in the days leading to its release. There are satirical elements, such as the argument regarding censorship when Kyle begins to utter a string of four-letter profanities and variations on them in front of and at the cameras. It’s more of a comedy of human nature featuring wealthy, sarcastic people in their element, stubborn, wealthier people refusing to bend, and the employees of the news station, one of whom, it is heavily implied, might be standing at attention for the entire duration of the events. It’s funny stuff until it isn’t, and that kind of control of tone is crucial.

The second mode is the foremost one, and that is as an indictment of corporate culture without much in the way of exposition, although there is a fair amount of explanation regarding the “glitch,” which of course turns out to be something else entirely of the corrupt variety. The CCO for I.B.I.S., Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe, who wins every award for Awesomest Name), is at first merely a parrot for the company lines involving a “mistake” and a weak explanation without any answers or solutions. There is a bit of information involving Kyle’s character kept close to the chest that kind of comes off as cheating, and the ultimate motivation of the sort-of-antagonist seems fairly rote in the big picture.

But when Money Monster works, it works very well, and that is largely due to the third mode in which the screenwriters and director Jodie Foster (who, along with cinematographer Matthew Libatique, takes great advantage of making a moderately sized studio feel cinematic) are working: that of a thriller from the 1990s that happens to be set in today’s world. The police are brought in, standoffs ensue, and the whole thing reaches quite the level of genuine tension (A suspension of disbelief is also required, although that should be assumed immediately). The point might be unsubtle, but that means the point is clear: If there are greater fools, there have to be lesser ones, too. It only makes sense, right?

B Movie Glory with Nate: The Box

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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The Box is a moody little crime drama thriller starring James Russo, whose appropriately brooding persona lends itself to grim neo noir films such as these. He’s an actor who has almost entirely worked in B movies for a long time, and while you have to watch out for most as they are usually geniune piles of dog shit, this one is a jewel amongst the rubbish. Russo plays Frank Miles here, an ex con trying to go straight, sticking with the dead end job his P.O. has given him to stay out of trouble. Soon he meets beautiful waitress Dora (Theresa Russell) who falls in love with. The two of them try to start a new life together, but as we all know sometimes it’s very hard to run from your past, and soon enough trouble comes looking for them. Frank tries to get some money owing to him from his sleazebag of an ex-associate Michael Dickerson (a detestable Jon Polito) and things go wrong. Violence ensues, and Frank finds himself in the possession of a mysterious box which he can’t open and hasn’t a clue about. Dora has a scumbag boyfriend in club owner Jake Ragna (a terrifying Steve Railsbac) who I’d dangerous, volatile and obsessive about her. Soon, an evil corrupt Police Detective named Stafford (Michael Rooker) makes their lives hell as he searches for the box. Frank and Dora take refuge at the home of Stan (Brad Dourif, excellent), Frank’s former cell mate,  friend who is now a weed dealer. Even this may not be enough to keep them safe, as the long arm of the crooked law probes, and Stafford gets closer and closer. It’s a depressing situation forged by bad decision and the perhaps inescapable knack for trouble that some people tend to have, whether it’s coincidence or a measurable character flaw is eternally up for debate. The pair try so hard to fix their lives and still seem to be headed for a tragic dead end. Russo has sadness in his eyes in every role, as well as a boiling anger to match it, he fills out his protagonist very well. Rooker and Railsback make scary work of the two villains, especially Rooker who uses the kind of blatant brutality and abuse of power that are essential ingrediants in very dangerous men. Dourif is Dourif, which is never not mesmerizing, and Russell does the wounded angel thing down to the bone. A sad story, with a dream cast (for me, at least), a downbeat reflection on lives gone down the wrong path, a diamond in the rough noir thriller of the best kind.

PTS Presents Artisan Workbench with RYAN WARREN SMITH

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Podcast

RWS POWERCAST

unnamedPodcasting Them Softly is extremely excited to present our latest Artisan’s Workbench chat with special guest Ryan Warren Smith, who served as production designer on this spring’s indie sensation Green Room! Our love for Green Room is seemingly endless, so it was a special honor to speak with the guy responsible for making that film look and feel so scuzzy and nasty! Some of Ryan‘s other fantastic credits as production designer include the brilliant and heartfelt indie Wendy and Lucy with Michelle Williams, The Motel Life from the Polsky brothers, and the Sundance film For Ellen, wich was directed by So Yong Kim, and stars Paul Dano. Ryan got his start in the industry as an on-set dresser on films like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, which we’re both massive admirers of, Gus Van Sant’s Restless, the intense drama The Burning Plain, and he served as property master on the phenomenal if underseen western Meek’s Cutoff. We also get a chance to hear about his upcoming projects which sound very exciting. We hope you enjoy this terrific conversation!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR – A REVIEW BY J.D. LAFRANCE

by J.D., posted in Film Review

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It has been said that 2016 marks the deconstruction phase of the comic book superhero genre what with Deadpool turning it on its ear with a healthy dose of postmodern irreverence. It also saw two movies that addressed the very heroic nature of these larger than life characters, first with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and then Captain America: Civil War. Both movies featured iconic superheroes in conflict with each other while also addressing the effect they have on the world. How does the general populace react to them and, more importantly, how do those in positions of authority react to them? The latter in both movies – not so well. Should superheroes be governed and if so by whom? Should they be held accountable for the massive destruction incurred from their world-saving battles? These two movies address these questions in very different yet intriguing ways.

Civil War takes the basic story from the 2006-2007 Marvel Comics limited series of the same name, written by Mark Millar and penciled by Steve McNiven, and uses it as a springboard to address narrative threads introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Civil War intertwines two primary storylines: Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) track down elusive assassin the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and the continuing animosity between Cap and Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), which finally reaches a critical mass when they disagree over the creation of an international governing body to watch over and control the Avengers, splintering the team into two camps – those on Cap’s side and those on Iron Man’s. This culminates in an epic battle between both sides.

Civil War starts off with a bang as Cap and his new Avengers team comprised of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Falcon and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as they track down and stop Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo), the Hydra agent who has now become supervillain Crossbones, from stealing a biological weapon in Lagos. For Rumlow, it’s a personal vendetta as he blames Cap for almost dying in the collapse of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in The Winter Soldier. This is a recurring theme throughout the movie: deeply personal motivations for why characters do what they do.

Meanwhile, the individual human cost of battles like the one in Sokovia at that climax of Age of Ultron weighs heavily on Tony as do the people that died during the Crossbones mission on Cap. To make matters worse, United States Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) meets with the Avengers to inform them that the United Nations is preparing legislation that will sanction their future actions. He considers them all dangerous and is concerned that they continue to operate unchecked, showing them a greatest hits montage of carnage that ensued during their battles. He gives them a choice: come on board with this legislation or retire.

Tony feels guilt over the ramifications of his actions – what with helping to create Ultron and all – and that of the Avengers and backs the sanctions along with Vision (Paul Bettany), War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Black Widow. Cap argues that signing this legislation will take away their right to choose. What if the U.N. sends them somewhere they don’t want to go or shouldn’t go? Where does it all end? Things for Cap only get more complicated when the Winter Soldier, who is actually Cap’s childhood friend Bucky now a brainwashed killer, is responsible for the death of T’Challa a.k.a. Black Panther’s (Chadwick Boseman) father. Meanwhile, the mysterious Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) is quietly plotting something big and it involves the Winter Soldier.

While this movie seems plot-heavy, it moves along briskly, punctuated with kinetic action sequences, like an exciting chase through the streets of Bucharest as Cap tries to capture Bucky alive while preventing Black Panther from killing him. It starts off as a dynamic foot race and then ramps up to vehicles that rivals the chase early on in The Winter Soldier. Much like with that movie, directors Anthony and Joe Russo have a real knack for orchestrating kinetic action sequences that create an almost palpable sense of danger for our heroes because so much is at stake. It doesn’t hurt that they wisely enlisted the help of Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, directors of the dynamic action revenge thriller John Wick (2014), to choreograph some of this mayhem.

This culminates in the epic airport battle teased in all the movie’s trailers and ads. It is everything they promised and more. This is easily the best action sequence in any of the Marvel movies since The Avengers (2012). It’s epic, visceral and loaded with several mini-battles as hero fights hero. We also get to see the new Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and he’s everything you’d want him to be – full of funny quips, nerdy and more than capable of holding his own with the likes of Cap and co. only he lacks the battle-hardened experience. This is easily the best cinematic incarnation of the webslinger since Spider-Man 2 (2004). On Cap’s side, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) pops up to lending a helping hand and offer a slew of his own funny one-liners and a cool surprise in the heat of the battle.

There are deeply personal stakes for several of the characters in Civil War, from Black Panther’s desire to get revenge for the death of his father, to Tony’s guilt over the death of a young man in Sokovia, to Cap and his friendship with Bucky. All of these things are powerful motivators for what they do in the movie and supersede accords and sanctions. Initially, there was some concern that the inclusion of all these characters would create an overly stuffed movie but on the contrary the Russo brothers found a way organically integrate newcomers like Black Panther and Spider-Man and use their appearances as a springboard for their upcoming standalone movies.

In a nice contrast to past Marvel villains, Zemo is a more cunning, understated menace whose endgame isn’t readily apparent and only reveals itself towards the end at a crucial moment just before the exciting climax where Cap and Tony have it out one last time. The filmmakers mess around with the formula on this one. Whereas Age of Ultron featured yet another super baddie bent on world domination, Civil War features a villain that wants something that isn’t on an epic scale. He wants revenge and has a very definite agenda that only gradually reveals itself over the course of the movie in a wonderfully understated way that makes quite a gut-punching impact when it is finally unveiled to our heroes.

DC – this is how you do a battle with superheroes. Once again, Civil War demonstrates how far behind DC is from Marvel in terms of superhero movies on every level. Unlike Batman v Superman and even their own Age of Ultron, the filmmakers of Civil War do a great job of juggling this large cast of characters, giving everyone their moment to say something cool/funny and do something cool or significant without forgetting that the movie is ultimately about Cap and the arc of his character so that he goes from being a patriot in The First Avenger (2011) to an insurgent in Civil War. It’s his story and it’s a personal one. It is really a marvel of narrative juggling that succeeds where even the overstuffed Age of Ultron came precariously close to collapsing under its own ambitions. It is quite an accomplishment and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely should be commended on a good job.

So many movie trilogies tend to end a weak third installment that tries to tie up all the loose narrative threads created in the previous incarnations while going bigger in scale while losing sight of what made them so good in the first place (i.e. Return of the Jedi, Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight Rises). At the heart of Civil War is Cap’s friendship with Bucky. It’s a thread that has run through all of the Captain America movies, culminating with this one where it is put to the ultimate test. This relationship is also the most satisfying aspect of this excellent movie because it is also the most compelling thing about it. Civil War manages to be simultaneously epic in scale in terms of how what happens affects so many characters and intimate in the sense of Cap’s journey over these movies. The filmmakers never let us forget that at its heart, the movie is about Cap and Bucky’s lifelong friendship. That gives us something to care about amidst all the carnage.

LILI FINI ZANUCK’S RUSH — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Wow. I had totally forgotten about the blistering and intense and raw 1991 undercover cop film Rush. It’s positively insane to think that this was the debut film for a filmmaker (Lili Fini Zanuck, wife of famed movie producer Richard Zanuck) and the ONLY(!) film that she ever made. It had to have been a personal choice not to direct again, because Zanuck displayed so much inherent greatness as a filmmaker that it boggles the mind to think that she only felt the need to direct one feature film. After this film the scripts had to have been piling in. From the opening stedicam shot all the way to the amazingly nihilistic ending, this is one of the best cop films I’ve ever seen, sitting right next to The French Connection and Narc as one of my absolute favorite genre entries.

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Based on the novel by Kim Wozencraft and adapted for the screen by Pete Dexter (Mulholland Falls), this cut-from-reality suspenser stars an outstanding Jason Patric as an ultra-committed, morally ambiguous, and likely in-too-deep narc who recruits a young rookie (Jennifer Jason Leigh, absolutely fantastic in this film, conveying both naïveté and grit, sometimes in the same scene) straight out of the academy to assist him on long-lead undercover work. Their goal: Bring down a local Texas drug lord (musician Gregg Allman, exuding sleazy menace in a nearly wordless performance) by scooping up various scores from the underlings in the area, with the aim of mounting enough evidence to topple the local empire. The time period is the early 70s, and the two officers become romantically involved and hooked on the drugs they’re trying to take off the streets, and the film slowly becomes a story of addiction and withdrawal while still being a riveting policier with terrific twists and turns embedded into the believable and organic plot.

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With a sensational score by Eric Clapton and featuring a slew of fantastic classic rock hits on the soundtrack, Rush possesses a druggy aroma and atmosphere at all times, especially through the use of the great music and the vivid, heated imagery from cinematographer Kenneth MacMillan (Henry V, Of Mice and Men), which makes smart use of space within the frame, and which relies on some extremely effective close-ups and camera placement for maximum dramatic effect. Sam Elliot, Max Perlich, and William Sadler all show up for memorable supporting turns, and the cast is generally filled with realistic looking druggies and sleaze-balls who all seem way too comfortable portraying these nasty people. The final, overwhelmingly awesome and powerful moments of this hard-core movie are the stuff that quickens the pulse and raises your internal core temperature.

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The film was a flop in theaters, grossing less than $10 million domestically, despite solid critical notices from Roger Ebert, Janet Maslin, Owen Gleiberman, Variety, and The Washington Post, to name just a few. It’s yet another film that was overshadowed by more “important” films at the time, and now that some years have elapsed and we’ve been given so few truly great cop films, it’s fascinating to look back at something as harrowing and disturbing as Rush, where a filmmaker took bold chances and told a gripping story about two fractured people who have an intensity that never lets up for one moment during the two hour runtime. And after watching Patric give a devastating performance in this film, his casting in Joe Carnahan’s Narc feels all the more inspired and meaningful. Kino Lorber thankfully released this neglected piece of cinema on the Blu-ray format last year.

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Moscow Zero: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Moscow Zero is a chilly little subterranean ghost story, and a favourite for me. It god critically shredded by the few people who did see it, and quickly forgotten. I think this may be because of odd marketing,and the cultural rifts in different areas of both the world, and cinema. It was marketed in North America as a supernatural shocker starring Val Kilmer, which was a cheap shot to fans and in fact false advertising. Kilmer is in it, for maybe ten minutes, and is very good, but the story isn’t his. It’s also supernatural, but in a far more subtle, ambiguous and inaccessible way that the ADHD-ridden audiences over here just aren’t used to. In short, it’s very European, and they just seem to have a better handle on the intuition it takes to make an atmospheric chiller than anyone else, also seeming to be more connected with ghost lore and the spirit realm. The story concerns a priest named Father Owen (hollywood’s resident alien Vincent Gallo, playing it dead straight here). He has traveled to Moscow I hopes of finding his friend Professor Sergey (Rade Serbedzija), who has descended into ancient catacombs and endless tunnels below the surface of the city in hopes of finding a lost artifact hidden during wartime. He joins up with a group of guides and Moscow natives including the beautiful Lubya  (Oksana Akinshina) and a tracker named Yuri (Joaquim De Almeida) to traverse the underside of the city and find his friend. There are long, eerie scenes of Sergey wandering around the dimly lit labyrinth, pursuing his scholarly goal and talking to himself as strange shadows and far away whispers follow him around, gradually letting the viewer know that he’s not alone. Owen and his team rendezvous with Tolstoy (Joss Ackland) the elderly leader of a tribe of tunnel dwellers who won’t go below a certain level of the catacombs, who provides a map. Then they go deeper. Kilmer plays Andrey, a Russian dude who runs a gang that are in control of opening and closing a deep fissure gate that is said to lead to a hell like place. He’s relaxed, in both demeanor and the Russian accent, but he’s clearly having fun in one of his more character type roles. The catacombs have a haunted feel to them, and indeed there are ghosts, but not presented in the way you might think. The way the human characters see them is quite different from how they see themselves, and how the audience sees them, which is a nice touch. The story keeps itself mysterious, right up until it’s puzzling, creepy conclusion, buy I prefer that open ended, almost experimental style over desperate attempts to scare us. It’s atmospheric, strange, unique, thick with ideas and altogether a bit of brilliance. Definitely an aquire taste, though.

Antoine Fuqua’s The Replacement Killers: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  

Antoine Fuqua’s The Replacement Killers is one of the most stylish and visually synergistic action flicks ever made. It’s like John Woo meets John Wick, and seriously has some cool to it. Chow Yun Fat, that effortless, laid back badass, plays lethal hitman John Lee, who suffers a crisis of conscience at the worst professional crossroads. When Detective Stan Zedkov (Michael Rooker adds to the noirish feel) kills the son of powerful Chinese crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang), he and his family are marked for death by the syndicate. Lee is employed to take out his young son, but holds back in the last moment, making a split second decision to defy Wei, take a rogue’s path and create a huge problem for everyone involved. Now, Wei has replacement killer after not only Lee, but Zedkov again and anyone unlucky enough to get in the way. Lee teams up with sexy identity forger Meg Coburn (love me some Mira Sorvino) and the two evade bullets, bombs and multiple murderous assassins all in the highest of style. Chow is the perfect action hero, with a mournful like ability and stoic streak that’s never too serious and always punctuated by his baleful sense of humour. Plus the guy can make bloody magic with two handguns in a career of epic stunt work that is almost as big a feat as that of the characters he plays. Sorvino also has a downbeat energy, adorable self deprecation and tough chick sarcasm that she masquerades with to hide the bruised girl beneath. They are a wonderful team, and I like that the film never outright forced any romance, but rather let the performances subtly suggest it via the absence in the script. Rooker holds up his end with endearing toughness, especially when forced to work alongside Lee and Meg to save their asses, a perfect character arc that he really sells.Jurgen Prochnow is deadly and devilish as Michael Kogan, the only German mercenary I know of that works for a Chinese crime syndicate lol. Danny Trejo and Til Schweiger are hilariously over the top as two silent monster assassins, leather clad death angels hired by Wei to hunt our heroes. The action really steps it up into comic book mode when they show up. Keep any eye out for Frank Medrano, Patrick Kilpatrick and a young Clifton Collins Jr as a street vato named ‘Loco’. Epic cast, unmatched visual style, an action gold mine. 

BARRY LEVINSON’S TIN MEN — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Barry Levinson has made so many great, underrated little gems. Tin Men is one of those. Released in 1987 and starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito as rival and eternally battling door-to door aluminum siding salesman and the always terrific Barbara Hershey as their mutual love interest, the film is part of Levinson’s quartet of Baltimore set stories, with other entires including the classic ensemble comedy Diner, the masterful Jewish-American experience drama Avalon, and the absurdly underrated Liberty Heights. Tin Men shows real and honest affection for its characters, with Levinson finding all sorts of humor, big and small, loud and soft, to factor into almost every scene, even during the more quieter moments. The plot moves in ways that don’t seem initially obvious, and the way that the love affair blossoms between Hershey and Dreyfuss unfolds in some unexpected directions, with the material taking on shades from Glengarry Glenn Ross in numerous instances. A terrific supporting cast was on hand, including Bruno Kirby, John Mahoney, Jackie Gayle, Michael Tucker, Seymour Cassel, and J.T. Walsh. Featuring an awesome score by Fine Young Cannibals(!) and smooth and silky camerawork by Peter Sova, this is a film that really, really deserves a higher profile.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – A REVIEW BY J.D. LAFRANCE

by J.D., posted in Film Review

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A lot was riding on Mission: Impossible (1996) for Tom Cruise. Not only was it the first film he produced (in addition to starring), it was also his first attempt to kick start his own film franchise. And what better way to do this than resurrecting a classic television show from the 1960s? Cruise, always the calculated risk taker, wisely surrounded himself with talented people: Robert Towne co-wrote the screenplay, Brian De Palma directing and the likes of Jon Voight, Jean Reno, and Vanessa Redgrave in the cast. At the time, the James Bond franchise was in a transitional period and didn’t produce a new film until the following year. Mission: Impossible was a huge box office success spawning a franchise that continues to produce installments.

Jim Phelps (Voight) leads his group of IMF agents on a mission to intercept Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iures), a traitorous attaché, who has stolen a list of the code names for all of the CIA operatives in Europe. He plans to steal the other half of the list with their real names from an embassy in Prague. One by one, members of the team are killed off by mysterious assailants. Only Ethan Hunt (Cruise) survives the bungled mission and rendezvous later with his superior, Kittridge (a wonderfully twitchy Henry Czerny) in a restaurant. Over the course of their conversation, Ethan realizes that he was set-up and that another team was shadowing his own. Kittridge reveals that the embassy debacle was actually an elaborate scheme to expose a traitor within the IMF organization and he believes that it is Ethan and that he also killed his entire team.

De Palma conveys Ethan’s growing sense of paranoia and panic in this scene through increasingly skewed camera angles as the magnitude of what has happened begins to sink in. Henry Czerny plays the scene beautifully as Kittridge talks to Ethan as a parent might scold a child. The conversation between them culminates with a daring escape as Ethan causes a large aquarium to explode, using the ensuing chaos to make his getaway. This scene was Cruise’s idea. There were 16 tons of water in all of the tanks but there was a concern that when they blew, a lot of glass would fly around. De Palma tried the sequence with a stuntman but it did not look convincing and he asked Cruise to do it despite the possibility that the actor could have drowned.

Ethan regroups at a safe house where he meets Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), another surviving member of his team. He must find out who set him up and retrieve the list. To aid him in his endeavor, Ethan enlists the help of Claire and two other disavowed agents (Ving Rhames and Jean Reno). The film really gets going once Cruise hooks up with Reno and Rhames (playing an ace hacker no less) and they decide to break into CIA headquarters for what is Mission: Impossible’s most famous set piece. This impressively staged sequence is cheekily dubbed the “Mount Everest of hacks” by Ethan and is masterfully orchestrated by De Palma. The heart of this sequence is nearly soundless proving that one doesn’t need a ton of explosions and gunfire to have an exciting, tension-filled action sequence (Michael Bay take note).

Paramount Pictures owned the rights to the television series and had tried for years to make a film version but had failed to come up with a viable treatment. Cruise was a fan of the show since he was young and thought that it would be a good idea for a film. The actor chose Mission: Impossible to be the first project of his new production company and convinced Paramount to put up a $70 million budget. Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner worked on a story with filmmaker Sydney Pollack for a few months when the actor hired Brian De Palma to direct. They went through two screenplay drafts that no one liked. The screenwriting team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) wrote a draft and then David Koepp (The Shadow) was reportedly paid $1 million to rewrite it. According to one project source, there were problems with dialogue and story development. However, the basic plot remained intact. De Palma brought in screenwriter Steve Zaillian (A Civil Action) and finally Robert Towne to work on the script. According to the director, the goal of the script was to “constantly surprise the audience.”

Amazingly, even with all of these talented screenwriters working on it, the film went into pre-production without a script that the filmmakers wanted to use. De Palma designed the action sequences but neither Koepp nor Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne helped organize a beginning, middle and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. The director convinced Cruise to set the first act of the film in Prague, a city rarely seen in Hollywood films at the time. Reportedly, studio executives wanted to keep the film’s budget in the $40-$50 million range but Cruise wanted a “big, showy action piece” that took the budget up to the $70 million range.

The script that Cruise approved called for a final showdown to take place on top of a moving train. The actor wanted to use the famously fast French train the TGV but rail authorities did not want any part of the stunt performed on their trains. When that was no longer a problem, the track was not available. De Palma visited railroads on two continents trying to get permission. Cruise took the train owners out to dinner and the next day they were allowed to use it. For the actual sequence, the actor wanted wind that was so powerful that it could knock him off the train. Cruise had difficulty finding the right machine that would create the wind velocity that would look visually accurate before remembering a simulator he used while training as a skydiver. The only machine of its kind in Europe was located and acquired. Cruise had it produce winds up to 140 miles per hour so it would distort his face. Most of the sequence, however, was filmed on a stage against a blue screen for later digitizing by the visual effects team at Industrial Light & Magic.

The filmmakers delivered Mission: Impossible on time and under budget with Cruise doing most of his own stunts. Initially, there was a sophisticated opening sequence that introduced a love triangle between Phelps, his wife Claire and Ethan that was removed because it took the test audience “out of the genre,” according to De Palma. There were rumors that Cruise and De Palma did not get along and they were fueled by the director excusing himself at the last moment from scheduled media interviews before the film’s theatrical release.

In some scenes, Cruise has a tendency to over-emote, like when Ethan is reunited with Claire after their entire team has been wiped out. Sleep deprived and paranoid, Ethan yells at Claire, “They’re dead! They’re all dead!” It’s an embarrassing bit of overacting on Cruise’s part but the actor redeems himself somewhat later on in a cheeky bit of acting when he cons Reno over a CD of vital information through a clever display of sleight of hand.

The film’s overriding theme is one of deception, a world where nothing is what it seems. The prologue has a disguised Ethan trick a captive man into giving up a name of a key operative. This is only one of many disguises (created by make-up legend Rob Bottin) he adopts throughout the film in order to obtain information or trick an opponent. The prologue also cleverly serves as a metaphor for filmmaking. The spy trade, like cinema, is all about creating an illusion and pretending to be something that you’re not. In addition, several members of his team are not who they appear to be as well and this keeps the audience guessing as to who is “good” and who is “bad.”

mi_still02The common complaint leveled at Mission: Impossible was that it was hard to follow, fueling speculation that De Palma’s original cut was non-linear in nature and that Cruise re-cut it after disastrous test screenings. Regardless, if one is paying attention to what is happening and what is being said (or not being said, in some cases) it isn’t difficult to navigate the film’s narrative waters. The script is lean and unusually well-written for a big budget action blockbuster, which is quite amazing when you consider how many writers worked on it. Make no mistake about it; this is a paycheck film for De Palma. However, being the consummate professional that he is, the veteran director still delivers an entertaining film with some nice stylistic flourishes. What more could you ask for from this kind of film?

SARAH POLLEY’S AWAY FROM HER — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Sarah Polley’s devastating directorial debut Away From Her is a quiet, emotional powerhouse of a drama that most people will probably never see. A tough, honest, and sad film about growing old and losing one’s sanity to Alzheimer’s disease, Away From Her is perfectly written, acted, and directed. Already an accomplished actress, Polley confidently established herself as one of the best up and coming filmmakers working today with this film, while her second film, the absurdly underrated Take This Waltz, reconfirmed this fact in a totally different style and fashion. Her writing is sensitive yet never maudlin and her low-key, well-observed directing style has much in common with fellow Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), who served as a producer on Away From Her. Julie Christie, in an astonishing performance, is Fiona, a sweet-natured wife whose world comes crashing down around her as the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s start to appear. Her loving but conflicted husband Grant (the amazing Gordon Pinsent) doesn’t want to send his wife to a nursing home but knows that he can’t take care of Fiona alone. They haven’t spent more than a day away from each other in close to 45 years and one of the requirements of the hospital is that no patient receives visitors for the first 30 days. Once admitted, Fiona starts to lose herself to the disease even further, while she develops a unique friendship with another patient that has ramifications on the lives of both Grant, and a set of their friends. The story zigs and zags and never feels contrived, with the story’s progression coming at a smart pace.

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This is not an easy film to watch as it goes to some very upsetting places, and I can think of few other situations that a loving married couple could find themselves in that would be worse than this. The depth of the story and the tenderness of the writing lend Away From Her an edge over other stories dealing with similar conceits; Polley has a naturalistic way with her actors that clearly stems from her own effortless acting abilities. Released in 2006, the film felt like some sort of companion piece (though not nearly as funny) to that year’s great black comedy The Savages, which was another film that deals with old age and tough family decisions. But Away From Her works as an intimate drama more than anything else, with Christie lighting up the screen with reserved panache and sad grace. Pinsent, an actor who I’d never see before viewing him in this crushing film, registers just as strongly in a slow-burn performance filled with guilt, sadness, and finally, redemption. Away From Her is a frightening movie in many ways, and you get the sense that this sort of story is happening right now, around the corner and down the block from your own house, and all over the world. This is the sort of film that reminds you to grab life by the horns and live it to the fullest, and embrace all of those around you who are special. There are no guarantees. This is a great film and a total knock-out of a debut for Polley, who I hope is fast at work on her next project.

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