Drive

      Drive is a film about which I’m not sure how I feel.  It is nothing what I expected, but it held my interest the all the same.  Seeing the trailers, I expected something along the lines of ‘The Transporter’ or maybe even something akin to Steve McQueen’s 1968 classic ‘Bullit’.  The film didn’t resemble either of those two.  Reading some other reviews, many critics compared it to Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man with no Name’ Spaghetti Westerns due to the lead character’s mysterious personage.  I see what they are talking about, but as the film progressed, I thought what it was most comparable to was the hit TV series of the 1980’s, ‘Miami Vice’, but not in a bad or cheesy way.  The film is highly stylized and it values  visual aesthetics over dialogue.  This sounds like a bad thing, but artistry in films does not always have to come from the story.  A skilled film maker can sometimes paint a vivid and intriguing atmosphere with a minimalist dialogue or plot.  Sometimes the viewer gets a more satisfying experience by filling in the story themselves while being swept along by the film’s beauty.

The hero of the story is simply known as Driver (Ryan Gosling).  He drives for hire, whether as a stunt driver for movies during the day or as a getaway driver for heists at night.  He is mysterious and his impassive face betrays no hint of his past or where his life is heading.  He is the best and anyone who meets him knows it.  Ryan Gosling is someone I have raved about this year (and it seems he is in almost every movie this year as well).  He is an incredible actor whose choice in roles are very odd yet respectable, but they haven’t made him a household name yet.  Many of the movies he has done I have not liked, but I really respect his incredible talent.  I feel he was snubbed for an Oscar nomination in ‘Blue Valentine’ and I feel his work in ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ should be required viewing in any acting class (it was too small and quirky of a film to catch national attention, but if you get the chance, see it).  This movie, once again, demonstrates his ability.  Under a lesser actor, the character of Driver would have all the depth of a cardboard box.  Gosling infuses worlds of meanings into an emotionless character who usually responds with monosyllabic responses. The camera lingers on his emotionless face and the audience project their own feelings onto him as they try to decipher what’s going on behind his stoic eyes.

As I stated earlier, this is an exercise in style.  The visuals are not a typical action film palette of quick change jerky camera angles or 360 degree pivots.  The film takes it’s time and allows you to take in the nuances, right down to the subtle creak of Driver’s gloves.   I sometimes think that European directors make unorthodox choices when they try to do action films (this time not in a good way) and the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is no exception.  The movie is oddly paced to say the least and the soundtrack is completely inappropriate to what we are seeing on screen.  Where Quentin Tarantino is able to skillfully choose unorthodox music that fits perfectly, the music in this film felt overly synthesized and a throwback to 1980s genre films.  I felt it really detracted from the film.

Back to the story; Driver lives a solitary life of driving for hire.  It is not until his neighbor Irene (the vulnerable Carey Mulligan) and her son enter his life that he begins to soften.  The imminent release of her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), from jail changes their dynamic and Driver attempts to retreat back into his life of solitude.  Unfortunately, Standard brings his troubles back to his family and when Driver realizes the whole family is in jeopardy, he offers his driving services for a heist to help Standard square away his mob debt.  The heist goes horribly wrong and Driver finds himself in a situation where the mob is after him and Standard’s family.

Albert Brooks (Defending Your Life) does a great job playing out-of-character as a local mob boss.  Brooks is known for his comedic acting, but he plays the gangster Bernie Rose as an affable, yet definitely slimy and sinister person.  Ron Pearlman plays his partner with equal menace.  If we are talking sheer acting, then I want to spotlight Driver’s down-on-his-luck employer, Shannon (Bryan Cranston).  Once I thought Bryan Cranston would be a pigeon-holed comedic actor due to his work as the bumbling father on ‘Malcom in the MIddle’.  His work since then has been nothing short of extraordinary.  He made a dramatic name for himself on the ground breaking TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ and he further proves his abilities in this film.  Shannon was once a former stunt man himself, but since falling on the wrong side of the mob he is a broken man who runs a garage repair shop and helps Driver find driving gigs.  He is a tragic character for, while he tries to look out for Driver, his loser nature causes nothing but problems.  He can’t help himself, it’s who he is.  

In deference to the critics, I can see the connection that could be made to the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns, but other than the silent loner who saves the day for ordinary people from oppressive bullies plot, I did not see much more in common.  Sergio Leone’s movies were almost operatic in nature  (the Ennio Morricone soundtracks certainly helped).  Drive does not have that feel.  It’s more of a fashion show.  Striking camera shots and daring (yet realistic) choreography.  Don’t go to this film if you are expecting an action movie.  This movie doesn’t spoon feed you the story, it makes you add your own meaning and dialogue.  It’s worth seeing, but is not necessarily a satisfying movie going experience.

I give this film *** (because I give credit for uniqueness)

Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star

      Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star is my nomination for the worst movie to come out this year (that I’ve seen).  I really, really wanted to like this film.  I appreciate Happy Madison films (Adam Sandler’s production company), I love Nick Swarsdon’s stand-up comedy.  It’s great to see 80’s icon Don Johnson in a out-of-character type comedic role, and quite frankly, the premise of this movie tickled my arrested developed funny bone.  The story is about a naive bucktoothed midwesterner who decides to go to Hollywood to become a porn star after he discovers his parents were marginally famous pornstars in the 70’s.  Despite being woefully under-endowed and a virgin, he is convinced that it is his family destiny.  I thought, this HAS to be funny, or at least have some good laughs.  Much like when I thought my parents would love the movie ‘Pee Wee’s Big Adventure’, I was wrong.

The movie is a one joke premise that is played over and over which by the end of the movie we realize it wasn’t all that funny to begin with.  Creative comedic minds like Adam Sandler or like Mike Myers once came up with concepts and characters that resonated with the movie going public.  It made them rich men.  Unfortunately, for every ‘Waterboy’ or ‘Austin Powers’, there is a ‘Little Nicky’ or ‘The Love Guru’.  Their characters and humor miss more often than not.  Bucky Larson has Adam Sandler’s humor written all over it (he was a co-writer) and it just missed it’s mark (I’m not even sure he was facing the target).  I will still say I respect the kind of creativity it takes to come up with these stories and movies, but it is like mining for gold.  You have to sift through a lot of mud and sludge and you only occasionally hit gold.  This movie falls into the sludge category.

What’s so depressing is that there is a lot of talent and potential in the movie.  Don Johnson, playing out-of-type as the once great porn director; Miles Deep.  Don shows that he is not just another pretty face (albeit aging one).  He really showed some comedic timing and was probably one of the only highlights in the movie.  Christina Ricci played the requisite love interest attractively and capable.  I think the reason she was really cast is she is one of the few actresses shorter than Nick Swarsdon. Even Stephen Dorf (the “never was one” actor) playing porn legend Dick Shadow channeled Brett Michaels humorously. Also, the usual cast of support actors that are in most Sandler movies all do their usual interesting job.  Despite all of this (and even smiling through a good portion of the film), I felt this was just an awful movie.  The gags were self congratulatory for no reason and just not funny.  There was a scene when Christina Ricci’s character Kathy compared a burly biker looking guy in a restaurant to Chewbacca from Star Wars.  There was plenty of pause in the dialogue to allow for the audience to laugh.  I could hear crickets during the awkward pause as we waited (not exactly with bated breath) for the dialogue to resume.  I have to confess that the endless parade of spoof porn titles throughout the movie was always good for a smile, but not much more made me laugh.

I wish I could go into plot points, but the first paragraph of this review pretty much sums up the entire movie.  This reminds me of one of those Saturday Night live skits that they turn into movies without the benefit of ever having been on SNL before.  Mike Myer’s struck gold with Wayne’s World and now everyone thinks they can all strike gold with these type of character sketch comedies (even the Waterboy was based off a SNL skit).  Bucky Larson MIGHT have been funny in a two minute sketch format, but I wouldn’t bet money on that.

The movie was directed by Tom Brady (not the football player although I think he couldn’t have done a worse job) and I have a feeling this will not exactly enhance his career.  I hope that Nick Swarsdon gets his big break someday because I do feel he is a comedic talent, but much like the late great John Candy, I think his niche is supporting comedy.  I don’t think he is leading comedic man material.  Hey, that’s not so bad.  It’s worked for John C Reily and you can have all the benefits of a movie career without all that pesky fame bothering you.

I give a hats off to Don Johnson, but other then him, this movie is a colossal waste of time and money (for both me and the studios).  I hope the studio exec who previewed this and said; ‘Yeah, let’s release this’, loses his job.  I really have only myself to blame as I tried to talk myself into seeing ‘Contagion’ this weekend, but I convinced myself this would be a better time than watching a plague movie.  Once again;  I was wrong.

My first ever zero stars

The Debt

The Debt is a taut well crafted cold war era espionage thriller.  The film focuses on the lives of three Israeli Mossad agents in 1997.  They are lauded as the daughter of one of the agents publishes a book about their heroic exploits in tracking down the infamous Surgeon of Birkenau.  The film exposes that all is not as it seems and transports us back to 1966 to examine what actually happened.  Like any cold war spy thriller, the plot twists and turns and choices are made and questioned.  The movie does an effective job weaving the present and past as it searches for the truth.

The three agents are Rachel, Stephan, and David (played in 1997 by Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, and Claran Hinds respectively).  Their younger selves are played by Jessica Chastain, Martin Csokas, and Sam Worthington [also respectively]).  If there is a seemingly petty critique I  have of this film, it is that I did not always suspend my disbelief that the younger selves were actually the older selves.  None of them really looked like their older selves, nor did they bear any similar personality traits.  This is essential if we are to have a seamless transition between the two time periods.  This is an exceptionally difficult task when the two sets of characters are constantly compared and super imposed.  The film did not achieve this transition effectively.  However, the film still had strong merits and I was able to adapt to if not overcome this flaw.

  

I found it particularly interesting how the film opened with Rachel reliving the heroic capture and eventual resolution of the evil Nazi Dr. Bernhardt (played by the eternally evil Jesper Christenson) during a book reading of her daughter’s book about their exploits.  The film flashbacks as Rachel reads the chapter to a group of admirers.  However, with the mysterious suicide of David and the discovery of an article from a hospital in the Ukraine , we begin to learn what we saw and believed is not actually what happened.  The journey begins to discover the true nature of the mission and how Rachel and Stephan will cope with the truth that has lain dormant for almost 30 years.

The Director, John Madden, does a more than competent job at recreating the events and infuses his scenes with excruciating suspense.  Unfortunately, the younger characters are infinitely more engaging than the older versions of themselves and I found the jumping back and forth in time to be a distraction as my interest was squarely focused on the events from 1966.  Stephan was and is the leader of the group, but you can sense his fear every bit as much as the others as they track down the boogey man from their past.  Their fear is trumped by their anger that the Nazi surgeon who killed and maimed so many Jews is leading a normal life as a German gynecologist.  The film's intense scenes were enhanced by the POV camera angles and the suspense is worse than the reality.  This is what makes film so effective, the ability to paint emotions and feeling as well as images.  Rachael’s fear is unbearably palpable as part of their capture plan involves her posing as a new patient.  Imagine the courage necessary of being examined while in stirrups by a man you consider the epitome of everything evil.

Unlike many spy thrillers, their plans are not executed flawlessly and the audience shares their panic as events go awry.  They are forced to adapt even as they see no way out.  Much of the film dwells on the characters'  dynamics as they are forced to interact with their now captive monster.  Not just the interactions with him, but the tensions with each other.  As I stated earlier, Jesper Christenson is a Danish actor who plays evil as good as anyone.  His conversations with his captors almost rise to the level of Hannibal Lector creepiness.  It is easy to demonize him, but he doesn’t let you.  He shows that he is very much human even as he displays that he is a monster.  That is the rub that really hits home.  We tend to look at people who do unspeakable things and slap the label of insane on them as that allows us to marginalize them.  It allows us to sleep believing they are an exception to humanity that can be wiped out.  Dr Bernhardt poses the correct question; there were millions of Nazis, are you saying they were all ‘insane’?  It raises the fear that it is something we are all capable of given the right circumstances.

I cannot go further into detail without revealing plot spoilers, but I will say that this movie is not a typical cold war spy thriller.  It examines the nature of truth and perception and the lies we tell ourselves and others.  It asks if truth is more important than perception and does telling the truth trump everything else.  There are no easy answers, but a good film does not always have to answer these questions.  Sometimes raising the question is what good film making and art is all about.  The Debt was a good, intense thriller for anyone who misses the days of cold war stories.  

I give this film ***1/2 stars