Like The Insider and Erin Brockovich, Peter Landesman’s Concussion (B+) depicts an individual’s courage in standing up against a real-life institutional cover-up. In this case, it’s an immigrant pathologist versus the National Football League in terms of who knew what and when on the issue of head trauma to players causing specific and unusual side effects at a relatively early age. It’s a film the NFL doesn’t want you to see. Despite its takedown of one of the nation’s pastimes, it is nonetheless a film about faith and the American dream. Smith’s sensitive doctor communes with the dead through his job at the Philadelphia coroner’s office, and his perpetual attention to detail prompts him to look deeper into the case of a famed football center who lost his mind before dying. From there, his findings escalate. Lifting this effort above its message movie trajectory is an absolutely exemplary performance by Will Smith that plumbs notions of science, spirituality and destiny. Like Liev Schreiber’s character in the recent Spotlight, he’s the outsider it takes to reveal an inconvenient truth. Albert Brooks and Alec Baldwin are strong as unlikely allies, but it is Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the female lead who helps anchor the film’s emotions brimming under the surface. Her character as well as Smith’s reflect an admirable stoicism against the odds they face, rendering the powder kegs that threaten to pierce their armor all the more dramatic. The film doesn’t break much new ground in its cinematic storytelling, but it will definitely color the way you watch tackles in football if the mounting facts over the past years haven’t altered your perceptions already.
Thanks to The Sistah Chick for sharing this review on her popular news compilation Web site.
Yoav and Doran Paz’s JeruZalem (B) is a welcome addition to the found-footage horror genre, with a compelling female-centric viewpoint, a mysterious setting and a surprising portal for storytelling. Two traveling American females winningly played by Yael Grobglas and Danielle Hadelyn meet a young anthropologist, the charming Yon Tumarkin, on a plane to Israel and divert from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for what becomes a vacation to the gates of hell. In addition to the novelty of on-location shooting in the Holy City, the film’s revelation is that it’s seen through the eyes of a Google Glass type application. Facial recognition, virtual reality avatars, photo freeze-framing and links to popular social networking sites rendered right in front of Hadelyn’s character’s line of sight add a compelling mind’s eye viewpoint into proceedings both commonplace and apocalyptic. Tom Graziani is also a delight as the Arabic host who turns the travelers on to hostels, hummus and hash before the quartet all face horror together. A sinister and sly story for the selfie age, the film suffers a bit when it veers too sharply into the conventions of its genre, and there are missed opportunities to plumb some of the film’s potential religious ramifications; but high production values and a smart POV ultimately win the doomsday.
Bill Pohlad’s Love and Mercy (B) is the unconventional telling of the life of musical wunderkind Brian Wilson, the producer mastermind behind The Beach Boys and one of the most acclaimed albums in history, Pet Sounds. Akin to Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not Here, which famously showcased a parade of performers playing the musician, this Wilson narrative casts its subject in two parts, representing a personality in fissure – Paul Dano as the crazed savant in his creative experimental peak in the ’60s and John Cusack as a man medicated into oblivion searching for redemption in the ’80s. The Dano sequences of Brian-Past are by far the strongest as the phenomenal actor displays the spark of creation, the cusp of genius and the brink of madness. He is vulnerable to his own demons and the fear of an abusive father and stunningly alive as a genius savant. Cusack doesn’t stand a chance in the weaker parallel plotline. The film is at its best putting music front and center and posits that the musician summons songs and sounds as a way to cope with and corral the voices in his head. For Wilson, the studio itself becomes a critical instrument that helps heal his soul. Paul Giamatti is effective as a stern therapist and Elizabeth Banks a delight as the love interest of Brian-Present. Flashbacks and fancy film stocks help buoy the character’s misunderstood vibrations. Music lovers will revel in the film’s unusual portal to finding rhythm, and admirers of good acting will enjoy the yin and yang harmony of the Dano/Cusack portrayal. A bit like A Beautiful Mind put to melody at the pace of West Coast cool, this biopic is definitely worth a spin.
There’s one great line in Jason Moore’s Amy Poehler-Tina Fey comedy Sisters (C) when a character remarks that she could use a little less Forever 21 and a bit more Suddenly 42. There’s likely a film buried deep within this one that addresses the angst of aging when you really don’t want to grow up, but Moore’s movie rarely scratches the surface below the bawdy laughs. Party girl Fey and straight-laced Poehler switch roles as they throw a party in their about-to-be-sold childhood home; and through the highjinks of the bash as Fey is designated “party mom” and Poehler gets to let her freak flag fly, they learn more about each other. The funny ladies have winning chemistry and lots of sassy lines especially at the expense of frenemy Maya Rudolph; but the film’s signature party is a rather one-note and overlong cavalcade, and it’s just not consistently funny enough to cover any new ground. Still, these snappy siblings have their moments.
Best known for directing Will Ferrell larks, director Adam McKay sets his eyes on a work of gravitas by tackling the American housing market collapse through the eyes of a few investing misfits who saw it all coming in the wry dramedy The Big Short (B). Treading familiar territory of big data chic honed to more entertaining effect by the same author’s Moneyball, this film suffers from a paucity of likable protagonists. That’s likely intentional but unfortunately undercuts the film’s sharpness. Steve Carell, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling are standouts as guys who hope to strike it rich by betting against America and its institutions. The ultimate story is an important one to tell, and McKay sprinkles in some meta flourishes to ensure viewers can keep up. A civics lesson wrapped in the arch of a paranoid thriller, it’s close encounters of the earned kind. It’s a lot of exposition for the plaintive payoff.
Andrew Haigh’s bittersweet British drama/romance 45 Years (B) continues the talented director’s intimate character studies into complex people, examining their public and private lives with sophisticated perception. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay give outstanding late-career performances as a couple grappling with a relationship-altering revelation the week before they partake in a milestone party celebrating their marriage. Deliberately paced and quietly observed, the film ponders the “what if” of what could have happened if a loving couple had followed different parallel paths. Rampling is particularly marvelous as a woman coming to grips with demons of the past that could jeopardize legacy and the very nature of her near-half century love affair. Tiny details simmer to the surface in this slow-burn melodrama that mostly sidesteps conventions. The film is small in scale but big on ideas and will reward intellectual film-goers in search of meaningful stories.
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant (B) blends western epic, revenge thriller and Christ allegory to often stunning effect on a blood-drenched American frontier. Leonardo DiCaprio gives new definition to suffering for one’s art as he undergoes a cavalcade of emotional and physical scars in an extremely gory story. In the grunts and groans of passages that feel like a silent movie with music, the expressive actor doesn’t miss a beat. He is a veritable force of nature, even if this isn’t the best use of his talents. Tom Hardy is very effective as the hero’s morally challenged foil. Iñárritu’s direction borders on overlong and overindulgent, but it’s hard to argue with all the lush camera work and scenery chewing when the stakes are this high. The spare dialogue serves to frame what is ultimately a man versus nature and man versus man battle. A little of this onerous oater goes a long way; and despite the palpable effects of all the violence and vistas, it doesn’t tread that much new ground.
Quentin Tarantino’s hybrid western mystery gangster epic The Hateful Eight (B+) has all the trappings of the writer/director’s best work from outstanding ensemble acting to wicked dialogue to twisty plot conventions to pulpy action and inventive use of music. To some extent, it’s at times a bit too much of a retread of his most common conventions. Filmed as a Cinerama presentation in classic 70mm Panavision with gorgeous Ennio Morricone overture and an intermission, the saturated colors of this post-Civil War tale come vividly to life. Unlike his experiments with grindhouse double features, this homage to cinematic history pays off. As long as it is, it’s a film that nonetheless will reward repeat viewings. The pre-intermission proceedings appear to be too preoccupied with exposition and campfire tales before Act Two truly delivers the mixtape of Agatha Christie style mystery and vicious bloodbath that fans of the auteur will crave. Kurt Russell is impressive as a villainous vermin channeling John Wayne on a bad day, and Samuel L. Jackson steals the show as a charismatic bounty hunter with a surprising past and nearly all the film’s most iconic lines. Walton Goggins is a revelation as the sheriff of Red Rock with unlikely cunning, and Jennifer Jason Leigh unfurls a crackerjack of a performance as a duplicitous prisoner. Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Channing Tatum are all effective in their roles. The only weak link, possibly from misdirection, is Demián Bichir. Expect extreme language and violence and vintage Tarantino. It falls just short of some of his tighter and tidier work, but it’s more splendid fire in his canon.
The repeated refrain, “There’s a good story in there somewhere” is extraordinarily prescient in Jay Roach’s Trumbo (C), a rather tedious true story that finally gets compelling in its final act. Bryan Cranston plays the titular protagonist, an eccentric blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter and family man who improbably manipulated a Tinseltown underground to coax the powers that be out of their heavy-handed paranoia. Cranston shape-shifts into the role with wild abandon as a veritable Gandolfian gadfly and sly provocateur. Diane Lane gets the thankless spouse role and Dame Helen Mirren is wasted in her annual Golden Globe bait performance, in this case as a sassy socialite. Roach meanders and holds tight to too chronological a narrative, blunting the impact of the proceedings and clamping down on fruitless nuances. The tone never really gels. Some of the best bits involve actors playing real-life stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, who factor into the controversy. Ultimately far less than the sum of many interesting contributions, the film is an okay biopic that has a lot to say a little too late.
