Lennie James – Podcasting Them Softly

I can understand why there are some people out there who don’t like this movie. In 1982 Blade Runner wasn’t made for the masses. It was an expensive arthouse sci-fi neo-noir detective story that critics loathed and most couldn’t make heads or tails of. Only over time and through multiple cuts did the movie gain the legendary cult status it carries today. Blade Runner 2049 feels cut from the same cloth. It’s not for everyone, there are those who have seen it and don’t like it, and there will be others who join them over time. Like its predecessor, it’s not an easily accessible movie that everyone can sink their teeth into and enjoy. It’s less easily categorized by younger overtly politically correct audiences that brand everything in sight with unnecessary dehumanizing labels, and given the reputation of its predecessor, it doesn’t much matter who loves or hates it. This movie is for Blade Runner fans, made by a man who calls Blade Runner his favourite movie, likely to grow into a legendary cult status just like Blade Runner before it. It’s better this way.

Blade Runner 2049 follows K (Ryan Gosling), a Blade Runner for the LAPD. It’s his job to track down Nexus 8 replicants and retire them, and he’s quite good at it. He uncovers information that could spark a war between replicants and humans, and sets out to find the long missing, rumored dead Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), the legendary Blade Runner from the original film. That’s as far as I’ll get into plot details, it’s obviously better to know little about the actual plot of this movie, despite the plot being pretty easy to piece together. Anyone familiar with film noir ought to know by now that the plot of a noir is never the focus. In noir, plot is a McGuffin, something we the audience chase, much like Sam Spade trying to find the Maltese Falcon, and while the pieces usually fit together rather nicely by films end (unless we’re talking about Night Moves, the 1975 Gene Hackman starring noir detective yarn), the plot is never why you watch a noir, such is the case here.

For the last few years it has said a lot to me when I can count the number of problems I have with a movie on just one hand. In the case of Blade Runner 2049, there were two performances that felt culled from a totally different, and weird, movie. But I chose to overlook those while I was watching the movie, because one performance occupied just one scene, while the other only took up three long scenes (it might have been four, but I could be wrong). Nothing else sticks out in my mind.

Roger Deakins has outdone nearly his entire filmography of gorgeous, spellbinding cinematography, save for The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, which still might be his finest work to date. With the exception of the two performers who will go unnamed, the rest of the cast provided their best performances to date, especially Gosling, Ford, Ana de Armas, and Dave Bautista. And Denis Villeneuve, working from a great script by original Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher, and Michael Green (watch American Gods, the Starz series he collaborated on with Bryan Fuller and author Neil Gaiman), and with original director Ridley Scott producing, has crafted a worthy sequel to Blade Runner that captures everything I love about the original yet also feels new, fresh, and exciting.

I don’t know if there’s a such thing as a perfect movie. Maybe there is, and if that’s the case then I’ve seen quite a few. Lawrence Of Arabia, The Godfather Part II, Jaws, and L.A. Confidential, to name a few. And if there’s no such thing as a perfect movie, and if that should be the case then I’ve seen ample imperfect movies that somehow seem perfect amidst whatever flaws others have found in them. I could complain about the first roughly two hours of 2049 feeling like one drawn out (but so damn good) tease leading up to everything I really wanted to see (which takes place in the third act of the film), but I enjoyed all of it so much, so why bother?

When the year started and I had the first teaser trailer for Blade Runner 2049 to watch on a loop, I hoped it would live up to my own expectations. I wasn’t hoping for a movie that would blow my mind six ways to Sunday and change my life somehow. I wasn’t hoping for some easily categorizable, digestible, flawless masterpiece. All I wanted and hoped for was a sequel that would feel like the natural progression of the story I love so much in Blade Runner, that would look born from the same universe yet unique to itself, and would make me feel the way I do when I watch Blade Runner: The Final Cut: awestruck, mesmerized, subtly moved. What I watched Sunday night did exactly that for nearly three hours, and won’t soon be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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LOW WINTER SUN came and went quickly but it packed a heavy gut punch. It was AMC’s remake of the BBC show of the same name that starred Mark Strong as Detective Frank Agnew. Strong reprises his role for the AMC remake. The show was a conventional, dark cop drama that lasted one season. Strong’s performance as the stoic detective put this show over the top, and Strong was able to show his range as an actor. He wasn’t just another archetypal cop, he was deeply layered. As the show ran its course, we would get glimpses into what made him the man he was.

The storyline was just as layered as Strong’s character. The show starts with his partner (played perfectly by Lennie James), killing a fellow detective, and staging it as a suicide. Agnew was coerced into this by his partner who had told Agnew that the detective they killed, had killed Agnew’s Russian escort of a girlfriend. The first shot we see of the show is a tight closeup on Strong’s face, he is looking into the camera with a tear streaming down his cheek. We can hear his thought: I am not a bad man.

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The show progresses with multiple story arcs of police corruption, a young gangster on the rise, and Agnew’s “missing” girlfriend who was presumed dead. The show never overreaches, and all the story arcs are taut and perfectly executed. The build up pays off remarkably in the two part series finale. Strong, who played it calm and cool in the show, spirals out of control so fast, you can’t believe everything you are seeing in the final two episodes.

The first part of the series finale has a remarkable segment. Distraught, Agnew travels to see his ex wife, who we had previously knew nothing about. She’s remarried and has a kid. The latter is as a surprise to Agnew as it is to the audience. This is Agnew’s last stop. He’s lost control of the beast of a situation he helped create. He recounts to his ex wife their previous relationship. He remembering of their marriage is sweet and loving, something he holds very dear. His ex wife corrects him. She tells it like it was, not how Agnew re-remembered it. And there we have it, it’s all out on the screen, it’s the price that Agnew paid for his stoicism.

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LOW WINTER SUN ends on a perfect note. While I would have loved to have seen a second season to see where the characters progress onward, the arc is neatly buttoned up, and Agnew’s season long journey has come to a close. This show is a slow burn. It’s brooding and dangerous, and Mark Strong gives the finest performance of his career in an amazing tour de force.

LOW WINTER SUN is available to stream on Netflix.