Room - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Room  

Director: Lenny Abrahamson

Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridges, Joan Allen, and William H. Macy

Young children can make the most simple and meaningless objects come to creative life, their imagination transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary. At the core of Lenny Abrahamson’s film “Room”, based off the critically acclaimed novel by Emma Donaghue, is a story about the relationship between a mother and child. It also happens to be about a horrendous seven-year long kidnapping. Though the surprise is that at moments the terrible crime being portrayed on screen, in a tiny single room, takes a back seat to a heartfelt and sincere portrayal of a child encapsulated in a one-room world with his mother. For the child the room holds every memory and is the definition of safety and love. For the mother the room holds the exact opposite sentiments, her only reason for living being the child she is trying to save. “Room” is filled with moments of gut-wrenching emotion, it’s a terrifying captivity tale, a profound example of resilience and survival, and displays the bond of codependency that exists between a mother and child.

Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is celebrating his 5^th birthday with Ma (Brie Larson). Their little family lives in a little shed, the victims of a kidnapping by a sexual predator nicknamed Old Nick (Sean Bridges). The two live a life within four walls; every moment of the day is lived through the illumination of a singular skylight. Ma smiles for Jack through the lingering pain of a life taken from her seven years prior. Jack’s lively imagination and Ma’s unwavering love keeps Jack from realizing that anything is out of the ordinary. After an altercation with Old Nick, Ma devises a plan to escape which leads to Jack’s harrowing journey into a world he has never seen. The narrative at numerous times in the film is constructed from Jack’s point of view. We see the familiar world through his eyes, but also the changing world once the film moves away from the imprisonment. Jack often refers to this living place simply as “room”, almost as if it were a person instead of a place; it’s a poignant narrative touch. We also see the changing character of Ma, a kidnapped mother forced to build a life in seclusion with her child and then as a post-traumatic suffering survivor dealing with the world she once knew, a world still messy and complicated.

Lenny Abrahamson directs “Room” confidently throughout, painting a world that is at one moment a simple and minuscule process and then opening into broad and complicated form. The camera utilizes close-up framing of objects to make the world seem larger than it is, but also to display the grandeur of Jack’s imagination. When Jack makes the escape, wrapped in a rug with only a circular viewpoint to see glimpses of the new world, the camera is in constant motion and changing focus, a correlation to how Jack is processing the new world in its startling brightness. Unfortunately this amusing technique only lasts for a few quick moments, the world that Jack is experiencing is quickly substituted for standard dramatic elements. Seven years in captivity changes everything, while the world remains new for Jack, Ma is thrust back into a life that has been damaged by the tragic event. While this offers an interesting perspective for Ma, the character is somewhat glazed over in the end.

Still, Brie Larson is simply fantastic. An impressive leading performance that is heartbreakingly subdued yet in other moments filled with undeniable passion. Jacob Tremblay gives the film its life; his performance is filled with energy and a sensibility that can only be defined as pure. Together the two actors have incredible chemistry. Ms. Larson and Mr. Tremblay are a primary reason to see this film.

“Room” is a very good film with even better performances. The film handles subject matter that can be difficult to watch at times but the narrative consistently displays the strength of the characters and the resiliency to show that a “home” is wherever love exists, even if it’s in the confinement of four walls.

Monte’s Rating

4.00 out of 5.00

Rock the Kasbah - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Rock the Kasbah  

Director: Barry Levinson

Starring: Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Leem Lubany, Arian Moayed, Scott Caan, and Danny McBride

100 Min

Open Road Films

The title for director Barry Levinson’s new film “Rock the Kasbah” will make music fans recall the similarly titled song by “The Clash” off their 1982 album “Combat Rock”, an album that split critics but found commercial success for the beloved punk-rock band. The film “Rock the Kasbah” may unfortunately split many viewers as well. Barry Levinson has an impressive catalog of films under his near forty-year career and with a cast of exceptional actors, “Rock the Kasbah” moves in the right directions in the first few minutes. But even the charisma of Bill Murray can’t hold up the many flaws that continuously hamper the progression of this film.

Richie Vance (Bill Murray) is a rock n’ roll talent manager on his final hurrah, with his final remaining act (Zooey Deschanel), on a USO tour in Afghanistan. Things take a bad turn when Richie’s client leaves him stranded in Kabul without any money or a passport.  Richie begins to look for any method that could get him back to America, options that involve dealings with weapons suppliers (Scott Caan and Danny McBride) and negotiations with a prostitute (Kate Hudson). Just when things can’t get much worse Richie stumbles upon a young woman with a beautiful voice from a small village.

It’s seems highly unlikely that anything could go wrong with a film when Bill Murray sings “Smoke on the Water” the only way Bill Murray could sing “ Smoke on the Water”. But it unfortunately happens here. There is a lot of material being promoted and employed through the narrative; an aging agent desperate to live up to the hype he is selling, depictions of a conflict-ridden territory, commentary on culture and tradition, all wrapped up in a comedy that tries to balance between being superficial and profound. There are subtle moments when some of these elements work but they are usually undermined by poorly executed comedy or misguided character motivations.

The sliver of a saving grace comes from the cast that is talented enough to keep things interesting even when it looks like they are just going through the motions. If you put the camera on Bill Murray long enough and let him talk his way through a scene you are bound to find gold sooner or later. And in some scenes this is the case, look no further than the deadpan patience and panic seen in the backseat of a convertible on the night streets of Kabul with the energetic gun suppliers Scott Caan and Danny McBride. There isn’t enough done in this direction, or in any other direction for that matter, instead everything is proposed but never followed through. Making an appearance as well is Bruce Willis who plays the role he’s been portraying for some time now, basically John McClane from the “Die Hard” series reinterpreted older and grumpier.

“Rock The Kasbah” never finds its pacing but instead trudges in one direction and then in another until the neatly, emotionally forced ending. The film garners a few laughs, mostly because it keeps a misguided humorous undertone throughout. The unfortunate result of “Rock the Kasbah” is less classic rock and more forgettable pop.

Monte’s Rating

2.00 out of 5.00

Bone Tomahawk - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

‘Bone Tomahawk’ tosses an exceptional, gritty and gory western onto big and small screens  

Writer/director:  S. Craig Zahler

Starring:  Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson, and Matthew Fox

During a time just after the U.S. Civil War, “Bone Tomahawk” presents the small western town of Bright Hope as a peaceful community.   Well, peaceful is a relative term.  Small municipalities on the American frontier in the 19^th Century were anything but peaceful.  This was the Wild West, and the land bled violence.  In this respect, Bright Hope is no different than any other place during that era.

It is a place where Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) will shout - to an unknown person hiding in a barn - “If you don’t say who you are, I’ll shoot you dead.”

It is a place where the drinks from the local saloon, The Learned Goat, will make you feel “like a tree fell on you.”  If it is not the alcohol, a mysterious gunfighter could shoot you down in a blink of an eye.

Soon, however, a few of its residents will face a formidable group of people who will terrify the most rugged fragments of their souls.  In writer/director S. Craig Zahler’s exceptional debut feature film, four brave men cross a desolate landscape for days to rescue two townsfolk and a drifter from a frightening community of cannibalistic cave dwellers.   Zahler certainly weaves a distinct twist on the American western by adding the aforementioned antagonists.  Some moments in the picture clearly feel, look and sound like horror, but about 90 percent of the film successfully plays like a western, and at times, a sensational one.

The picture depicts a violent, primeval tone right away as the camera focuses its opening shot on the face of a sleeping stranger as someone grabs his throat and uses a large, dullish knife to dig, cut and slash into it.  From the get-go, one knows this movie will earn its R-rating.   This event and another ugly sequence eventually lead this someone - a murderous thief named Purvis (David Arquette) - to Bright Hope, and he unknowingly leads a small band of cannibals with him.  The group of outsiders kidnap Purvis and two others, so Sheriff Hunt (Russell), his deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins), an insensitive gunfighter (Matthew Fox), and a cowboy (Patrick Wilson) head out on a “suicidal” rescue mission.

The film places a key life obstacle in their way (which I will not reveal) as well as plenty of problems from Mother Nature on this doomed trip, and although the movie carries an undertone of dread, Zahler’s brilliant writing offers lots of humor, which provides intermittent bouts of relief for the audience.  For example, Jenkins’ Chicory steals several scenes, and every on-screen minute with him is a joy.  Chicory, an elderly deputy who leans on his sheriff to do most of the thinkin’, constantly babbles, asks obvious questions and uses inappropriate comments.  When Brooder (Fox) calls him an imbecile, Chicory responds by claiming his wife called him that particular label for years.

Many of the scenes in Bright Hope (prior to the big ride) also contain moments of levity.  For instance, The Learned Goat’s piano player charges three cents per song, but three songs will cost a dime.  When Brooder asks why the upcharge for three songs, this rural pianist says that he gets tired when playing three.  The script is laced with both subtle and blatant humor, and they add a richness to the story and a sense of comfort with these characters.

The four characters - admittedly - are one-dimensional within their respective silos of expertise, but together they form a terrific team.   Their underdog role is obvious, but through their verbal jousting and forced bonding due to unenviable circumstances, these talented actors let their characters gel as a unit, and we, the audience, are thankful.

I am also thankful that Zahler took much care in capturing the right concoction of sights and sounds on the open range.  With no population centers between “Here” and “There”, the film truly portrays a clear sense of vulnerability due to the raw and unforgiving terrain.  Death by outlaws, opposing tribes, the heat, scarcity of water, and/or four-legged or no-legged (snakes) critters are all possible on the way to fight an unknown group of cannibals, and long brutal shots in the beating sun and cold spaces in stark darkness do not furnish warm, fuzzy feelings.

From a sound-perspective, silence surrounds these four in the great outdoors, and many times we only hear the crunching of desert plants underfoot, the clogging of hoofs or the crackling of campfires.   With most of the film captured in the wild, these specific moments – which break the silence - do not appear by happened circumstance but are completely purposeful.

Be warned:  As the many ways “Bone Tomahawk” offers welcomed western traditions, the ultimate fight with the cannibals defies convention.  Although these scenes are short-lived, they are grotesque and beyond brutal.   One specific 20-second, monstrous visual has unfortunately seared into my brain for all of eternity.  (Help!) Undoubtedly, the last 30 minutes of this picture are not for the weak of heart and/or stomach, and quite frankly, some moments are more than unnecessary.   On the other hand, the film’s celebration of the American western and its unique, gory turn leave a lasting cinematic experience.   Bright Hope might be typical and ordinary, but “Bone Tomahawk” is not.  (3.5/4 stars)

“Bone Tomahawk” opens at AMC Deer Valley (and is available on iTunes and VOD) on Oct. 23.

The Last Witch Hunter - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“’The Last Witch Hunter’ adds good ingredients but undercooks the brew”  

Director:  Breck Eisner

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, Rose Leslie

“The Last Witch Hunter” - Within the first 10 minutes of this Vin Diesel action-picture, a warrior from the 13^th Century named Kaulder (Diesel) wields a sword that is also lit on fire while battling a terribly-mean and heavily-scarred witch.  Yes, his sword is lit on fire.  Ultimately, this entertaining, medieval fight – for reasons I will not give away - left our hero immortal.   Fast-forward 800 years, and Kaulder – now comfortably living in The Big Apple in 2015 – spends his working hours extinguishing witches’ spells, but not necessarily extinguishing the witches themselves.   A truce between witches and humans was made, and now, Kaulder catches the sorceresses (and sorcerers) who are acting badly and turns them over to a governing body called the Witch Council.  The witches are then imprisoned, which makes Kaulder the Last Witch Bounty Hunter, rather than the Last Witch Hunter, but hey, plain old “Hunter” sounds better, right?

Director Breck Eisner has a history with horror (“The Crazies” (2010)) and adventure (“Sahara” (2005)) films, and in “The Last Witch Hunter” he combines both genres.  Although the film offers an intriguing premise – as a gifted, eight hundred-year-old being opposes modern-day necromancers – the film’s execution falls victim to clunky storytelling and editing.  Fortunately, the filmmakers did not edit out a key supporting player, Dolan 36^th (Michael Caine).  Dolan 36th is the 36^th person to assist Kaulder over the years, and he is the Witch Hunter’s handler, confessor and friend.   Caine plays a solid confidant to Kaulder, and very quickly, the comparison between Dolan 36^th and his portrayal of Alfred from Christopher Nolan’s recent Batman pictures becomes impossible to ignore.   Whenever Caine appears on screen, he seems to give instant credibility to the movie, and he is joined by Elijah Wood and Rose Leslie, who play two sidekicks, like Robin and Batgirl.

As Kaulder attempts to save humanity from an immortal witch, all of the actors do a very good job of putting their best feet forward to play convincing and likable roles, but unfortunately the story’s construction has two left feet.     First of all, the film sets up a world where witches live among humans in peace and offers a pseudo-“Men in Black” vibe, but other than one curious scene in a pastry shop – in which you really do not want to know the ingredients – it never really explores this intriguing plot point.   The audience never gets to meet a plethora of unusual characters that the movie initially promises, and instead, sees a few glimpses of magic, such as a group of rotten crabapples pretending to be gummy bears.

Speaking of broken promises, the Witch Council has jailed hundreds or thousands of witches over 800 years or so, but we never really see them either.   Eisner does show us a “batcave” in which they are imprisoned, but we see exactly zero caged green ladies with pointy hats.    Instead, Kaulder plays detective towards clues we really do not understand, makes a new witch friend (Leslie) with whom he suddenly bonds with like magic (pardon the pun), casually talks about how he will save Dolan 36^th, and attempts to kill an immortal witch in the movie’s final act.

How exactly does one kill an immortal witch?

If you asked yourself that question, you are not alone.   That’s what I clearly wondered and said out loud in a packed, but confused movie theatre.    With good performances placed in an undercooked brew, “The Last Witch Hunter” - unfortunately - doesn’t create enough magic.  The movie, however, is not a complete waste of time.   Hey, there is a sword, and it is lit on fire!  (2/4 stars)

Interview with the Director of Room by Jeff Mitchell

Interview - Lenny Abrahamson, the director of “Room” (2015)   

In director Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room”, he tells the story of a young mother (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son (Jacob Tremblay) who reside in a very cramped, one-room space.   The movie initially presents the circumstances of their odd living situation as a confusing puzzle, but eventually, the secrets of “the room” are revealed.   Lenny chatted with the Phoenix Film Festival – in an engaging discussion - about his new movie, the relationship with Brie and Jacob and their characters’ connections.  There is one spoiler which came up during the last question of the interview, but I will warn you ahead of time.  “Room” won the People’s Choice Award at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, and it opens on Oct. 23.

PFF:  The film did a masterful job of slowly revealing the secrets of the room.  It certainly is a mystery at first, so how important was it to present one day in the room – specifically Jack’s (Tremblay) birthday – as an initial setup?

LA:  Very important.  The big part of the first phase of the film is that first day, because I wanted to gradually show the audience the full extent of the situation, and that took one 24-hour period.  You get the entire routine, and it was also important for the reveal to be slow because I wanted the information to flow to the audience as it flows for Jack.  The room is a place of routine, safety and comfortableness with his mother.  It’s all he knows.  (I am) just tracking their lives “naively” as a filmmaker.   I am a huge fan of an implied filmmaker who tries to understand, rather than desperately project a whole series of experiences that are prepackaged.  That’s pretty much how I did it. 

PFF: I appreciated the contrast between Ma and Jack.  There were differences in a many areas, but the two which stood out to me

were resiliency and optimism, because of their different life experiences.   When do you think we lose resiliency and optimism as adults?    Do you think Ma lost them prior to her situation in the room?   

LA: That’s a really interesting question.  That’s not one I’ve heard before, but it is really at the heart of the film.   “Room” is about a relationship, so I can particularly talk about each of them in relation to the other, but in this situation, the mother has two definite faces.  She has the face that she turns towards Jack, which is reassuring, which is fun and one which tells him all the time that nothing is wrong and everything is okay, and then you have the face when he is not looking at her.  You feel what she is really going through.  

We all do that with our kids.   We create a bubble around them, we are warm and we are as optimistic as we can be, even when stuff is going wrong in our lives.  I think what is fascinating is that bubble is never complete.   I think, very quickly, kids do sense the shadows in their parents’ lives.   It is a slow process of the demythologization of moving to the reality, the complexity and the shadowiness of the adult world.  I think Ma was probably this pretty ordinary teenager.   Very self-centered, still not really a full-adult, but I think in a way, her development is arrested when she goes into that place (the room).   

PFF:  One of the pleasures of the film is Jack’s narration, as he explains the way he sees the world.  What lessons can adults take by looking at life through a kid’s eyes? 

LA:  I think the main thing is he is not aware that he is missing anything, and that allows him to make the absolute most out of the small amount of stuff that he has.   I think we learn something as parents from this, which is we obsess about our children’s lives.  We want them to do all of these extracurricular activities, we obsess whether they are watching too much TV, whether they have enough music lessons, and all this stuff that we get into as parents, and most of which has very little bearing.  Mostly it’s just about providing them with love and a sense of safety, and kids can do the rest with very, very minimal resources. 

I think for adults as well, we fantasize ourselves into ideal other lives all the time.  This film says to you, “Well, there is probably a tremendous amount (of goodness) in the life you’re leading.   If you just calm down and take a look at it, it is wonderful.”  I think that’s a good thing to keep in mind. 

PFF:  Brie and Jacob shared plenty of on-screen, mom/son chemistry.  How did they spend time together prior to shooting? 

LA:  We did get them together for – in film terms – a lot of time.   We had three weeks before we started shooting with both of them together.  Some of that time was taken up with wardrobe settings and wig-work, but the bulk of the time – certainly the first week – was just hanging out.  All of us (hung out), so Jake (Jacob) wouldn’t feel pressure to form a friendship with this person.   He’s a smart kid, and he knew this was the person with whom he would be acting with for quite a long time.  

We just went out for pizza, and we all sat around together.  He gradually started asking Brie questions.   What her favorite “Star Wars” character is?  Does she prefer dogs or cats?   He gradually just started opening himself up to her, and she’s such a warm person.  It was lovely to watch the bond form.  Once they were comfortable, then I brought them onto the set.  They made some crafts together (and the crafts were included in the movie), so Jake would have a connection to them.  

PFF:  (SPOILER) A significant portion of the film takes place in one room, but I found myself paying attention to other rooms in the movie.    Did you deliberately film the movie - in such a way - so the audience would compare and contrast other rooms with the room, or am I just reading into it?  

LA:   No, you are right.  For example, a lot of thought went into the hospital room, because I thought of various ways to play it.  Some places, some locations (we looked at) were nursing homes, where it would be possible for the characters to go.  These were a little bit brown, a little bit dull, and I thought that’s one way to go:  to say we are in this amazing world, but – you know what – it is just less interesting than the one we left (the room).  

In the end, we went for something which was highly different and highly charged and somehow spoke of a space that Jack thought the world was, like a “2001” interior.   Once you make a film like this, every place you go to is significant, so you cannot not think about it.   The vertical white bars in the living room were just this fascinating little metaphor for imprisonment, so absolutely, we did think about it.   Never have I thought so hard about locations.  Every aspect of this film was so charged, because the story itself is so charged.  

Steve Jobs - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“A well-designed ‘Steve Jobs’ leaves the audience wanting a future release”  

Director:  Danny Boyle

Writer:  Aaron Sorkin

Starring:  Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels

“Musicians play their instruments.  I play the orchestra.”

Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) gives this answer to fellow Apple founder Steve Wozniak’s (Seth Rogen) cynically-asked question:  What do you do?

We do know: Jobs and Apple orchestrated a revolution in the way human beings - in 2015 - work, socialize, shop, cultivate information, make decisions, and live.    Oh, I forgot to mention the way we listen to music too, among a laundry list of other specific activities.

The vast reach of Jobs’ impact is incalculable, so constructing a biopic on the man seems nothing short of a daunting and puzzling task.   Where to start?  What to cover?   How do you tell the man’s life story inside of two hours of screen time?   Enter cinematic heavyweights, director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting” (1996), “127 Hours” (2010), “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008)) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network” (2010), “Moneyball” (2011), “A Few Good Men” (1992)) to solve the dilemma.  Sorkin especially is a well-chosen person for this job with his previous work on contemporary and complex social phenomenons like Facebook and modern baseball statistics, and also with politics and the media in television’s “The West Wing” (1999-2006) and “The Newsroom” (2012-2014).

Both men succeed in constructing a film about Jobs which not only gathers and presents frank insight into how he thinks and interacts with his closest confidants, but the picture also entertains and provides authentic drama.

Construction is the key word, as Sorkin takes a sizable amount of risk by structuring the movie in an unexpected way.   I do not wish to reveal – and spoil the surprise of - how the foundation of a 2 hour and 2 minute film supports a razor sharp and highly-charged script in which Jobs verbally jousts with a collection of players like Wozniak, Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), technical guru Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), and marketing director Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet).

This A+ cast beautifully choreographs their characters’ 98 mph verbal volleys around intricate office politics and power plays with natural ease.

Rogen’s Wozniak jealously marvels at Jobs’ visionary charisma, while he wishes for a tiny fraction of his fame.

Daniels’ Sculley stands atop the corporate pyramid and dances the “idea machine-waltz” with Jobs at lofty philosophical and political levels.

Stuhlbarg’s Hertzfeld plays the brilliant engineering-type who deals with Jobs’ eccentric and, sometimes, unrealistic demands, and Winslet’s Hoffman is Jobs’ most trusted ally while always giving him cold and hard facts, whether he wants to hear them or not.

These relationships - portrayed in the film – seem to form a clear picture of the man.

Of course, Fassbender exists in the extreme center, offers a fearless dive as Jobs and delivers a masterful performance with intensity, thoughtfulness and depth which humanizes the mythology of one of the great visionaries within the last 100 years.   There is a moment in the picture when Jobs states that the two most important events of the 20^th Century are:  when the Allies won the war and the launch of the Mac personal computer in 1984.    Well, I cannot agree with that statement, but Jobs surely reached elevated historical status with Apple’s creations over the last 10 years.

There is much responsibility on the shoulders of Sorkin and Boyle when presenting such an important on-screen biography.   The film’s spirit seems spot on, but on the other hand, due to its narrative choices (which I, again, will not reveal), it also – unfortunately - feels incomplete.    Now, within the confines of the movie’s structure, it does satisfy.   “Steve Jobs” does tie the loose ends that the plot pulls on throughout the film’s runtime and offers a satisfying amount of emotion with one particular character (which I did not previously mention for a reason).   As the movie ends, however, it does not feel that we – as an audience – received enough.    Too much of his life felt left on the cutting room floor or not written at all.

As the credits rolled, I had more questions that I wanted answered and hoped for a message – in bold white text on a black movie screen - which said:  “STEVE JOBS PART II” COMING SOON!

No such luck.

Well, I suppose when a highly-skilled orchestra ends an inspiring two-hour performance, one is left with wanting more.   (3.5/4 stars) 

Bridge of Spies - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

Bridge of Spies  

Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda

Director: Steven Spielberg

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

In the 1950s Americans lost their collective minds looking for communists. Many innocent people were caught up in the “red scare” and Joseph McCarthy’s televised witch hunt. Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies is not about one of the innocent victims of the era, but an actual communist, a spy sent from the Soviet Union to steal American secrets in the event of — gulp — nuclear armageddon.

The Cold War does not have the sweeping appeal of World War II, or its tanks and soldiers blasting away at each other on panoramic battlefields, but it’s stories are just as revealing about the soaring heights (and plunging depths) of humanity, and the morality of a silent warfare that turned American against American.

In 1957, the United States government reached out to attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer in Brooklyn. They asked him to take the case of Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a KGB infiltrator caught spying for the Soviets. They have Abel dead to rights, but they need a talented lawyer to defend him rigorously to keep up appearances that, indeed, America is a bastion of democratic, Constitutionally sound values and principles. Donovan agrees and is quickly stonewalled by a biased judges, a kangaroo court, an overzealous prosecuting attorney and a pitchfork-wielding public that sees Commies in its soup.

Presented as a legal procedural, the early segments of Bridge of Spies are expertly choreographed and fascinatingly presented. Here’s Donovan, doing Uncle Sam a favor, being spied on by Uncle Sam. Hanks, at his most feisty, has a great sequence with a CIA agent, who asks Donovan to violate attorney-client privilege by revealing what Abel actually did for the Soviets. The lawyer bristles at the request, and pounces. “Don’t nod at me and smile you son of a bitch,” Donovan tells the American spy. It’s wickedly fun, and Hanks hits all the right notes to get the audience on Donovan’s side, regardless of what his client has been accused.

In a concurrent sequence of events, four young pilots are being briefed on a new mission, one that will take them 70,000 feet up over Soviet Russia in a U2 spy plane. Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is one of the pilots, and on his first flight encounters the loving embrace of Mother Russia. Powers and Abel quickly find themselves as pawns in a political game of chess that has global stakes. The players in the game are proxies, stand-ins who don’t have official status: for the Soviets it’s several communist-friendly power players, and for the Americans it’s Donovan, a pudgy Brooklyn insurance attorney whose wife thinks he’s fishing in England.

If you know history, you know what happens next, and it’s fascinating stuff, particularly when Donovan heads to East Germany to negotiate with his counterparts on the other side of the still-forming Berlin Wall. These scenes on the other side of the Iron Curtain are photographed in gloom, with cold colors and chilly concrete. The setting must have felt hopeless for Donovan, who’s robbed by a street gang, jailed by border guards and tactically outmaneuvered by an array of communist bureaucrats with conflicting of agendas.

Spielberg is known for his big movies — Raiders, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan — but I would argue that his smaller character-driven pictures show just as much mastery of the medium as the blockbusters. Here he tells a story about a man fighting for American ideals that America itself doesn't want to be bothered with. Hanks is terrific — when is he not? Rylance as the Soviet spy Abel is especially electric. He has a refrain that appears frequently, “Will that help?” You don’t seem worried about the death penalty, Donovan tells him in court. “Will that help?” Abel is a curious character, one that Rylance wraps in mystery and self sacrifice. Few actors can keep pace with Hanks, but Rylance does, and with apparent ease.

Mostly, though, Bridge of Spies is a collection of tiny victories: the lighting is nuanced and effective, the camera work is modestly unassuming, the sets and locations invoke the paranoia of the time and place, and the small details of East German life, such as an indoor hallway for bicycle messengers, gives the film its unique cinematic identity.

Spielberg makes too few movies, and it’s movies like Bridge of Spies that makes me yearn for more.

99 Homes - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“The foreclosure film ‘99 Homes’ serves stressful theatre”  

Writer/director:  Ramin Bahrani

Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern

A bank foreclosing on a family’s home is a stressful nightmare for the household members in question.  Not keeping up on mortgage payments, waiting for dreaded phone calls and staring at eviction notices plastered on one’s door is quite the opposite of dreams coming true.    Even worse, the actual eviction – in which a real estate broker with two police officers suddenly appear at the front door and instruct the (now) former homeowners that they have two minutes to gather their belongings and leave the premises – is beyond gut-wrenching.

This is the early premise of “99 Homes”, and over the course of the 1 hour 52 minute film, it takes the audience on an even more traumatic ride.    Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) – a 30-something roofer who struggles to make ends meet in a difficult job market – is thrown out, along with his mom (Laura Dern) and son, of his modest Orlando home by Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) in the aforementioned life event.    With shoddy credit and nowhere to turn except an equally shoddy motel, the Nash family begrudgingly accepts their new fate in a 500 square-foot room in a noisy and less than desirable area of town.

With no job prospects and his financial hole growing by the day, Dennis makes the truly unthinkable choice of working for Rick to make ends meet, which, quite frankly, feels like an inmate on death row making best friends with his executioner in the afterlife.

Writer/director Ramin Bahrani does not pull, but yanks on our empathy strings, as he portrays a man in desperate need of immediate solutions, but, unfortunately, only one ugly one appears in his narrow view of the world.    While Bahrani sends Dennis on a questionable new career, he also presents a frank and brutal picture of the real estate business during the recent housing collapse.   According to Rick, in a world of winners and losers, America is about bailing out and celebrating the winners, and he intends – using legal and illegal methods – on financially keeping his victorious standing in a sick market.

The filmmakers perfectly casted Shannon as Carver.   He has a knack for playing off-center, caustic characters, and with Rick’s morally bankrupt (pardon the pun) persona mixed with a bit of sociopath, Shannon plays a fearsome and distrustful on-screen villain.   For example, when a random foreclosed homeowner takes his own life, Rick nonchalantly shrugs, “I can’t bring him back to life.”

For Rick, he simply is a vulture praying on the dead carcasses in any Orlando subdivision and insists he owns the moral high-ground, because he did not create the problem.   For Garfield, this is his first film role since he lost his Spidey-suit in “The Amazing Spider-Man” series, but he clearly has a bright future ahead.   He is highly-effective in delivering nearly two-hours of Dennis’s self-doubt, anguish and pain, and it leads with the film’s first 10-15 minutes when the camera is transfixed on his face.  His character feels completely powerless inside his own home and then standing outside of it, and we feel it too.

Bahrani makes other smart decisions by featuring timely close-ups of Dennis’s mom, son and Rick, as the actors and director work in concert to present the lambs experiencing the slaughter at the hands of the Big Bad Wolf.    “99 Homes” is a nerve-racking story which kept this critic’s palms sweating for almost two hours, and the end result works as an emotional, although also unpleasant, movie experience.

With Dennis making three key mistakes down this inexplicable road, Bahrani spins a yarn that seems destined for doom.   “99 Homes” reminds me of 1998’s “A Simple Plan” where the leads make one terrible decision, and it snowballs into an avalanche of tension with an apparent date with ugly destiny.   With a great script, elevated performances and Dennis’s simple – but wrong-headed – plan, the film creates havoc on our sensibilities about a time – in the not too distant past – that made very little sense.  (3/4 stars)

He Named Me Malala - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“He Named Me Malala” features an extraordinary woman in a less-than-perfect documentary  

Director:  Davis Guggenheim

Starring:  Malala Yousafzai, Ziauddin Yousafzai

To say that Malala Yousafzai is an extraordinary person is an understatement.    For speaking out in support of Pakistani girls’ rights to an adequate education, the Taliban shot her in the head when she was only 15 years-old.   She survived the murderous attempt, continued to speak out for girls and won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize at the tender age of 17.   When asked if she was angry at the man who fired a bullet into her head, she responded, “Not one atom (in her entire body).”

This individual truly is one in a billion, and in the documentary “He Named Me Malala”, director Davis Guggenheim tells her amazing story by exploring the origins of her resiliency while also capturing frank discussions with her family.   Some of the film’s best moments are when Guggenheim focuses his camera on Malala’s home life in the Yousafzai family’s new household in England.  The audience sees Malala playing card games and laughing with her younger brothers around the house.   She also begrudgingly talks about boys in the same way that the average American teenage girl might refer to boy bands on the front pages of “Tiger Beat”, and all of these scenes truly enforce the fact that Malala is still just a kid.

At the same time, she speaks as a woman way beyond her 18 years.  She opens our eyes as she explains that a significant percentage of Pakistani women grow up illiterate, and her father – Ziauddin – mentions that their 300 year-old family tree did not contain one female name.  Not one.  That is until he proudly added Malala to it.  Guggenheim shows her father’s eye-opening influence as a driving force behind Malala’s progressive beliefs.

The film, however, does not stay put too long, and unfortunately, this is a significant problem.   The movie’s flow feels very choppy and disorganized, as it constantly jumps between shots of Malala’s home life, video footage of her in Kenya or Syria providing support for women, meeting with various world renowned leaders (including President Obama and Hillary Clinton), cute photographs of her as a child, and reenactments via animation.   A documentary does not need to follow a completely linear flow – like the recent docs “Amy” (2015) and “Senna” (2010) - but “He Named Me Malala” follows no such pattern.     The result is not exactly a confusing film, but a frustrating one.

The aforesaid animation is another distraction.   When a documentarian wants to explain past events without possessing the basic visual footage, he or she can film interviews in which the interviewees converse about them.  The filmmaker can also shoot reenactments, show still photos or offer animation.   Animation can be an effective tool, but Guggenheim takes too much liberty.    At first, the animation engages.   For example, one animated sequence explains the origins of Malala’s name, and it takes a spirited and celebratory tone.   In another scene, the film creates good feelings, as it plays out the happiness of Malala’s birth.   A little animation can go a long way, but the film repeatedly dives – throughout the entire 1 hour 27 minute runtime - into one “cartoonish” moment after another, and very quickly the technique becomes tiresome.

The picture also misses an opportunity to interview various political leaders about Malala’s impact on the world community.   We see the aforementioned footage with government heads of state or important organizations standing with Malala, but I do not recall one sit-down on-camera interview with one.    The consolation (and, admittedly, it is a very good one) is we do get to hear Malala’s feelings, believes and also her struggles with her injuries straight from the woman herself.   Malala has heaps of thoughtful discourse for a world stage, and this film provides a terrific platform.   Sitting through “He Named Me Malala”, I cherished those moments.  I only wish the movie’s structure and technical choices lived up to the woman featured in the title.  (2/4 stars)

The Final Girls - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

The Final Girls  

Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Alexander Ludwig, Nina Dobrev, Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, and Adam DeVine

So you want to spoof a horror film? Well, there are already a few examples, some successful and some not so much, on how to do this already available. “Scary Movie” took the horror genre into overboard goofy and slapstick spaces. “Shaun of the Dead” played it straightforward with a near pitch perfect mix of comedy and horror that appeased horror fans and crossed over with appreciation from non-horror fans as well. “Scream” played the genre against itself, establishing horror film rules and mixing it with great subgenre slasher elements, making the Wes Craven film a horror classic. Of course there are others that could be discussed, early Abbott and Costello and the Universal Monsters or the 1981 spoof “Student Bodies”, but director Todd Strauss-Schulson’s film “The Final Girls” is an impressive edition to consider. With a PG-13 rating, don’t turn away just yet hardcore horror fans, Mr. Strauss-Schulson hits nearly every mark with a mix of clever comedy and horror tropes that all audiences will appreciate. It’s safe horror for the masses and that’s not a bad thing.

Max (Taissa Farmiga) is a teenager who reluctantly attends a tribute screening of a 1980’s movie called “Camp Bloodbath”, a film that features her deceased mother in the starring role. During the screening of the film a fire erupts in the audience, leading Max and her friends to escape by cutting their way through the movie screen. In a twist, the group of friends are transported into the movie. In order to escape the group of friends must survive the blood-thirsty killer and make it to the end of the movie.

These kinds of films are difficult to make. Film audiences are smart, especially horror fans, and when making a film that spoofs their beloved genre it doesn’t take much to turn them away. So it’s relieving that “The Final Girls” remains completely satisfying from start to finish. A major component of what keeps things together is the clever narrative. The comedic tone is playful throughout, largely because of Adam DeVine, who steals many of the scenes as a stereotypical chauvinistic jock, but also because the genre characteristics are utilized ingeniously. For instance in one scene the lead camp counselor explains the legend of the killer, as the film transitions into a flashback Max and her friends experience the changeover from color to black and white. All of it is done with a grin and smile, which is where one of the minor problems will exist for some dedicated horror fans. The bloody payoff, meaning the result of the stalking killer’s primary motive, isn’t very satisfying. There is very little gore in the film and much of the violence happens so quickly it’s hard to distinguish anything, for some viewers this comment will sound odd but for horror fan this is a primary reason to go to these films, to see the exploitive visceral elements.

“The Final Girls” would be a great film to take someone on a date to or to introduce someone who may not like the genre, the film is very much humor before horror. While more attention to the bloodier, gorier aspects would have more than likely lost the PG-13 rating, cutting out the large audience the film is focused towards, “The Final Girls” is still an entertaining film that every taste of horror can appreciate in some way, big or small.

Monte’s Rating

4.00 out of 5.00

An interview with the director and cast of Big Stone Gap by Jeff Mitchell

Interview – Adriana Trigiani, Jenna Elfman and Paul Wilson of “Big Stone Gap”   

In writer/director Adriana Trigiani’s “Big Stone Gap”, she weaves a warm, small-town story of Ave Maria Mulligan’s (Ashley Judd) quest for answers and a new life after she discovers a family secret.    Since Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, VA, making a movie about her hometown truly was a labor of love for her.   After watching the film, I felt the cast - including Judd, Jenna Elfman, Patrick Wilson, Paul Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Krakowski, Anthony LaPaglia, and Jasmine Guy - seemed to have an equally strong labor of love for Big Stone Gap as well.   Adriana, Jenna and Paul stopped by Scottsdale to promote a “Big Stone Gap” screening, and the Phoenix Film Festival sat down with the three and enjoyed an engaging chat about their movie.     Kyle Wilson of NerdRepository.com also sat in the discussion and contributed to this interview.    “Big Stone Gap” opens on Oct. 9.

PFF:  Food seems to be a major character in “Big Stone Gap”.  Mentions of apple butter, red pepper sandwiches, pineapple upside-down cake, hot dogs at the Hob Knob, and many other staples were included in the film.   Why is food such a big part of this movie?

Adriana:  “It’s the gift of the South.  It’s southern.  It’s sustenance.  It’s the table.  It’s sharing.  It’s one of the ways that people come together in a community and share, so it’s really important.  

Jenna:  “They (The townspeople) were offering home-cooked meals to me via Facebook.   When someone cooks or bakes something in their home and offers it to you, to me, it’s symbolic of them giving you their heart.  

Paul:  “It’s a symbol of love and kindness.”

PFF:  The cinematography of the film is gorgeous, and the city itself is almost a character as well.  

Would you have made this film the same way if you weren’t able to shoot on location? 

Adriana:  The reason it took so long to get this film made is because I insisted it be made there, because I believe that films are living art forms.  I know when I watch an American movie made in Canada, I know it is Canada.  I know the people are Canadian.  You cannot fool me. 

Jenna:  What are you talking “abooot”?  (Everyone laughs.)

Adriana:  I know that they are Canadian, and that’s fine.  I love Canadians, but don’t try to sell me that it’s Big Stone Gap.  I felt very strongly about that.   I wanted (this movie) to be shot in my hometown for many reasons, but first and foremost, for artistic reasons.   We got an A-list cinematographer (Reynaldo Villalobos) and an A-list cast, so you are going to get the best possible version of Big Stone Gap.

Paul:  It (Big Stone Gap) had a starring role.  We couldn’t have recreated Wood Avenue.   The town itself plays such a key starring role, as it’s holding everybody together but also breathing life into all the eccentricities, realities and relationships.    There is an organic authenticity that could have never been recreated. 

Jenna:  There’s real texture in this movie.  I felt it (while) filming it.  You felt like you were living in a painting.   Many times on the weekend – and I had my kids with me – we’d go driving and exploring, and my breath would be taken away.   I couldn’t believe I was looking, with my own eyeballs, at something so glorious and not through some cool lens that made it look that way.  

PFF:   Adriana, “Big Stone Gap” is obviously a very personal film for you, but for you too, Paul.  (The Wilson family has real-life roots in Big Stone Gap, VA).    Prior to filming this movie, when was the last time you visited Big Stone Gap?  Also, during the filming, what memories did it stir up?

Paul:  The last time we were in Big Stone Gap was burying my grandmother who died 9 months before we began filming.   Prior to that, the first time the entire family – at the same time – was in Big Stone Gap was for her 90^th birthday in 2012.   She lived in (her) house since she was 18 years-old and married my grandfather.   She lived past 90 and was Adriana’s biggest fan!   We couldn’t even drop our luggage in the house – when we would go see her – and she would say, “We got to tell you about Adriana!  Sit down.”   My grandmother loved her and loved the story, and I think there was an authentic connection with Adri, because she – like those people – loved that town.   Not everyone can relate to a small town, but everyone can relate to their hometown.    

To stay on Wilson Road - in the house that my father was raised - was our kind of Disneyland as kids.  We learned to fish there.  Big Stone Gap was that emotional maypole we always could come back to. 

PFF:  Well this film is obviously such a labor of love, but there are other books in the series.   Do you feel like this movie should stand alone, or do you feel like doing some screenplays for the next couple of films?

Adriana:  I think that the people will tell us.  I always let the audience decide everything.  If I write sequels, it’s because there’s a clamor for it.  Whatever they want, they get from me.  I really feel that my job as a novelist – and truly as a director – is a service job.  I’m here to serve these actors.   That’s really why I’m there.  If I serve them, then I’m telling a great story. 

PFF:  I read that Adriana said that Jenna “transformed herself into the sexiest bookmobile librarian in America” for this movie.  Iva (Jenna’s character) is well-read (pardon the pun), gives good advice and is a solid friend.   All of sudden, Iva fell for Lyle (Paul’s character).  What was the attraction to Lyle?  Was it because he was from out of town?  Was he mysterious?

Jenna:  There is this little moment where I (Iva) first sees him and goes, “Huh,” (breath taken away).   I think it

was just his Jade East cologne. (Paul and Jenna laugh.) There’s a charisma about Lyle, and she thinks he is a character.  I think Iva sees a fellow character, a fellow person who celebrates living the way she does, and I think she saw a kindred spirit with him. 

PFF:   There is a scene where Jack (Patrick Wilson) and Ave (Judd) notice the moon on their date.   Was that scene an ode to “It’s a Wonderful Life” when George wanted to lasso the moon for Mary, and if not, was that movie an inspiration for you?

Adriana:  Everything that Frank Capra did was an inspiration.   That was an inspiration to me.  Absolutely!   One of the most important things about Frank Capra was his use of real people in cinema.   When I (zoom) in on the people in Big Stone Gap, it’s to remind (the audience) that we are telling a real story about real people.   Don’t forget that.  Of course, he’s Italian, so I share that with him too.  

Mississippi Grind - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“Mendelsohn and Reynolds are a pair of aces in ‘Mississippi Grind’”  

Writers/directors:  Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Starring:  Ben Mendelsohn, Ryan Reynolds

Gambling is as American as hot dogs, muscle cars, blue jeans, and football on crisp autumn weekends.    Beautiful multi-million and billion-dollar casinos dot the nation’s landscape in every direction, and, of course, there is a good reason why these gaming houses resemble prosperous palaces:  The house always wins.

Despite this known and obvious fact, this does not deter millions of Americans from partaking in the recreation of gambling.   For Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) - a struggling real estate agent - gambling is not a leisurely recreation, it is his life’s obsession.    Texas hold ‘em poker is Gerry’s game of choice, but he is more than happy to fill his time by placing some cash on an Hawaii vs. Gonzaga college basketball game, playing the ponies or betting $50 that the next guy walking out of the bathroom will be wearing glasses.    Gerry is a skilled poker player and very careful to mask his tells, but every molecule of his 44-year-old being screams (to everyone) a message of:  Life has stomped me into the ground for decades, and I’m here to beg for another helping of the world’s size-14 boot.  

Gerry is a beaten man, but believes his luck will change when he befriends Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) at a random Dubuque, Iowa poker table, and suddenly, an extremely well-acted and completely intriguing buddy picture is born.  Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck wrote and directed a terrific gambling road movie, however, it does not dabble in glitzy high-stakes with posh surroundings, limousines, baccarat, and martinis shaken not stirred.  On the contrary, Boden and Fleck do not mind delving into – and, in fact, enjoy bathing in – the messy and sobering world of the degenerate gambler.  They take Gerry and Curtis on a blue-collar trip down the Mississippi River, and they hit home games, casinos, horse and dog tracks, and grind their way towards a final destination of New Orleans.   Driving 1,000 miles in a 2003 Subaru does not appear like the easiest path to success, but when one starts with just $2,000 of seed money, plodding a route to The Big Easy seems like the only course of action.

We root for Gerry and Curtis, but they are not heroes.   Curtis – a good-looking 35-year-old with a spring in his step, several funny gambling stories, an eye for the ladies, and a good supply of cash in-hand – seemingly has his act together, but playing poker at a random Iowa casino on a weeknight certainly raises suspicions.   It is obvious why Gerry would glom onto Curtis as a friend, but why does Curtis want to make friends (and take a trip) with Gerry?

Gerry owes a lot of money to “Everyone” in town, and with excuses like “I just need a couple of weeks” and a looming visit from an unseen ruffian named Tim, one wonders if he might double-cross Curtis at some point.   These men have a sickness and a case of arrested development, but the script and performances can win your affection.  Mendelsohn is simply astonishing as Gerry.   With a crop of disheveled hair from a style last seen 20 years ago, a constant and heartbroken look in his tired eyes and a mopey frown pulled down by years of disappointment, Gerry is a man who needs a rainbow containing good fortune.  The lingering wonder, however, is:  any success he might enjoy seems doomed in a future decision of “let’s go double or nothing.”

Using this dynamic, Mendelsohn pulls us into the center of Gerry’s lost soul and generates massive hope that Lady Luck and good decision-making will finally reach him.    Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of a Toronto banker turned compulsive gambler in 2007’s nerve-racking “Owning Mahowny” was my favorite gambling performance of all-time, but I believe Mendelsohn topped it.  Mendelsohn delivers an Oscar-worthy performance, as he reaches into the core of a desperate man whose only way out of a gigantic financial hole is to recklessly look for ways to scrape enough cash and continue his destructive gambling patterns.  At the same time, we see small glimpses of Gerry’s best side in unexpected ways and periods of joy with his new friend close-by, and these moments help us feel good as his cheering section.

Reynolds adds plenty of depth and mystery to Curtis’s character.  As a partner-in-vice – with a mostly sunny and somewhat level-headed disposition - we hope Curtis is the lucky charm Gerry insists that he is.  Unfortunately, we know Gerry’s track record in judgment, so the ultimate destiny for these two is in serious doubt and is the perfect concoction for a tension-filled and captivating road picture.

Unlike 2013’s “Nebraska” in which the countryside between Montana and Nebraska becomes a living and breathing character in the film, the actual topography of this journey seems rather ordinary.  “Mississippi Grind” gives us some glimpses of St. Louis, Memphis and other places along the way, but does not take enough advantage of the natural settings in the heartland.  I suppose when a majority of the action (pardon the pun) takes place inside casinos or smoky bars, plenty of beautiful countryside shots might take a back seat.

No, the strength of this involving character study is with the lead performances.  With Boden and Fleck also adding several small, but memorable, exchanges with bit characters who embrace a casino-lifestyle, dispense advice like, “a man alone is half a man” and drink bourbon in smoky lounges, the film’s obvious downtrodden and desperate tone is set.   It is not a glamorous trip - and quite frankly, it’s a sooty one at times - but Boden, Fleck, Reynolds, and Mendelsohn offer a rich, entertaining and sometimes painful story down America’s most famous river.   Whether or not Gerry and Curtis win, I’ll bet on “Mississippi Grind” as the best gambling film I’ve seen in years.  (3.5/4 stars) 

The Walk - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

The Walk  

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, Clément Sibony, César Domboy, Ben Schwartz, and James Badge Dale

123 Minutes

Sony Pictures

Everyone has a dream, an ambition that drives a person to pursue a goal regardless of the obstacles. Dreams come in many shapes and sizes, for some it may be traveling to a foreign land while others it may be an occupation. Some may stand behind you with support throughout the journey while others may stand in front and discourage you every step of the way, but regardless the dream belongs to you and you are the one who must take the steps to make that dream a reality. For Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, his dream was to place his beloved walking wire between the Twin Towers of World Trade Center and make beautiful art. “The Walk” is a film that portrays the process of making this dream become reality for the young artist, however illegal or dangerous the risk. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the mind behind such memorable films as “Forrest Gump” and “Back to the Future”, “The Walk” brings the audience onto the wire with Petit for every nerve-wracking, nail-biting step.

As a young man Philippe Petit performed on the streets, juggling, riding a unicycle, and performing as a mime. Petit was also an aspiring wirewalker, starting in his backyard between two trees and moving higher and higher off the ground. Guided by a Czech circus master named Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), Petit became more ambitious. It wasn't until he unexpectedly opened a magazine that he found his dream. An article about the building of the World Trade Center in New York called to him, for between the Towers was where his greatest performance would take place, across the void of two of the biggest buildings in the world.

Looking at the progression of work done by Robert Zemeckis will display an artist who wholeheartedly embraces new advances and approaches to filmmaking but still understands the importance of character. “Forrest Gump” comes to mind as an example of character and filmmaking techniques coming to cooperation. Zemeckis attempts the same with “The Walk”, meticulously rendering a grand stage for Petit to perform his greatest act. The rendering of the Towers is beautiful and the imminent walk that the film builds towards is jaw dropping and incredibly composed. Philippe Petit is a strong character to begin with, motivated and determined beyond any reasoning to accomplish the goal he is pursuing. However, the film doesn’t try to hide the arrogant, stubborn, and uncomplimentary attitude of Petit; it’s almost infuriating how demanding he can be at times. The film recreates the walk between the towers in stunning fashion; it really is the whole reason to go the film. Unfortunately for much of the introduction, and well past it, the film wobbles and teeters around like a wirewalker on the verge of falling. There are too many forced ploys at work, both visually and narratively. The meeting of Petit’s muse Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) is a heavy handed romantic angle and the transition between Petit’s narrations, which takes place on the torch of the Statue of Liberty, becomes distracting. The wheels finally start turning once the team reaches New York City and “the coup”, a term Petit uses for the performance, begins to operate like a crime caper.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is good as Petit, accent and all, and the rest of the cast, specifically the underutilized Charlotte Le Bon, do a great job of playing their role for Petit’s performance. If you can tolerate the lackluster start of the film there are some great character aspects about Petit that take hold, you can begin to appreciate the ambition that motivates Petit to utilize his skill to make art. There is also a poignant story about New York City and the Twin Towers that Zemeckis weaves into the story. This is one of the few films that I recommend seeing in IMAX 3-D. The finale is completely accommodated by the technology; it’s hard not to become a little apprehensive when Petit makes his first step onto the wire. “The Walk” is Robert Zemeckis continuing his exploration of the potentials of filmmaking.

Monte’s Rating

3.25 out of 5.00

The Martian - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

The Martian  

Starring:  Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Kate Mara, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Matt Damon, Sebastian Stan, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Mackenzie Davis, Michael Pena, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Director: Ridley Scott

Release Date:  10/2/15

By Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Ask a man to run a 5K. Snap a picture of the reaction on his face. When he’s done with that, ask him to run a 10K. Snap a picture. Half marathon. Snap. Marathon. Snap. Triathlon. Snap. Ultra marathon. Snap. Now you have a series of pictures, a flipbook version of Ridley Scott’s grueling new sci-fi juggernaut The Martian, a movie about one man’s epic endurance battle with science, space and the limitations of duct tape.

Matt Damon is the Martian, and he’s stranded on the Red Planet after a violent dust storm has swept him away from his NASA team as they are aborting their 30-day mission early. They rocket away thinking he’s dead, but the next day he claws from the soil very much alive and very much screwed. “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this,” he says in an instantly iconic line that will be on every Matt Damon clip reel from here on out.

What a fascinating time to be making science fiction films. Gravity and Interstellar were terrific warm-ups to this, and the three films make an amazing trilogy about discovery and survival in the endless vastness that is our universe. Scott’s an old pro at this, having already made Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus, each with their own distinct visions of the future. Here, though, he sticks closer to the “science” versus the “fiction” and the story thrives because of it.

The film presents Damon’s astronaut Mark Watney — and by extension us — with a never-ending string of problems. The Mars base was designed for 31 sols, or Martian days, and now must last upwards of 800 to sustain its solitary inhabitant. Food is in short supply. Plants have never been grown in Martian soil. Water is running low. The communication system is broken. The rover has limited range and abilities. On and on the list goes, each new item more challenging than the one before it. Each one has its own gratifying solution that seems either based on actual science or at the very least plausible.

The Martian finds its footing almost instantly by starting on Mars a dozen or so days into the mission. It doesn’t waste time introducing an endless stream of supporting characters, because Watney’s ordeal allows that to happen naturally. It drops all the setup and goes right to the meat: Mark is struggling to stay alive, the crew is grappling with their decision to leave what they presume is a dead astronaut back on the Mars, and NASA engineers back on earth begin assessing what went wrong. It feels very procedural, and that’s part of the charm because it allows the snappy editing and concise presentation to build the film from the ground up.

The film has also found the right cast, especially with Damon as the resourceful botanist. He’s likeable and genuine, and he does things that we can relate to, like when he mouths a great big “WTF” in the initial days after he’s marooned. Damon also works because he’s believable as an inventive science geek. It wasn’t a stretch when he was a genius mathematician in Good Will Hunting, and it’s not a stretch here to see him as a NASA wiz-kid. You’ll cheer him on when he creates an ASCII-to-hexadecimal code board, or he tears through poop pouches to get fertilizer, or he rigs up an explosive hydrogen tent to create water. There is so much to see, and so much for Damon to do, that there is never a dull moment, even when the film is in its most reflective, existential state.

Now, to be sure, this is a terrifying ordeal. And The Martian spends a lot of it kicking its hero when he’s down. Your heart just aches for him with every setback, and there are many. Drew Goddard’s script, from an Andy Weir novel, has this devilish ability to prepare you for the worst over and over again. So many awful events happen to Mark Watney that you start planning for them. At one point when he was driving the rover through the rocky landscape, he starts rubbing his eyes and yawning. The movie had conditioned me for disaster, and I was ready for it, whether it was coming or not.

Led by a strong team of actors — including Damon, Jessica Chastain as the mission commander, Jeff Daniels as the NASA director, Sean Bean as a flight specialist with a classic Lord of the Rings zinger, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as mission lead — The Martian takes a captivating tale of survival and gives it an immediate presence with strong writing and expert execution. It’s photographed gorgeously, with a fun mixture of documentary-like POV shots and epic Martian panoramas, and edited so precisely that you would be hard pressed to find a single frame that’s been wasted. I simply can’t say a bad thing about it because it’s one of the most entertaining movies of the year.

Sicario - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Sicario  

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Jon Bernthal, Maximiliano Hernández, and Jeffrey Donovan

120 Minutes

Lionsgate

The analogy of a pack of wolves is utilized in Denis Villeneuve’s drug cartel film “Sicario”. It’s a good analogy for the characters in the film that are a mix of operatives working against and with one another for some sense of control amidst chaos and violence. Villeneuve makes films about violence and the people that are administering and receiving the abuse. The film focuses on the American drug problem and the cartels that operate along the border of Mexico. “Sicario” is a tense and foreboding film, one that drops the viewer in the middle of everything that is happening and moves them along for the journey. Villeneuve is an exceptional director and “Sicario” is a wonderfully constructed film that composes an atmosphere of consistent dread with characters forced into a struggle of morals.

Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is an idealistic FBI agent vigilantly working a deadly case against the war on drugs. After raiding a house filled with corpses an explosion kills members of her team. She is enlisted by an elite government task force fronted by a secretive official (Josh Brolin) and partnered with a mysterious liaison named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). Kate volunteers for the task force and is immediately taken to the El Paso/Juárez border for a secret mission.

“Sicario” is structured with a heavy dose of suspense and an atmosphere that lingers with fear. It’s quite an effective composition that is accomplished by impressive design elements and a narrative that places the viewer at the center of a scenario that is already in motion. Written by Taylor Sheridan, the script operates from mainly one perspective, following Kate into the fog of this secretive operation with ambiguous operatives. In one scene Kate is swiftly taken into a tactical meeting, told to blindly follow orders from a mysterious man who doesn’t fit the mold of the group, hastily transported into Mexico to extract an informant she never gets to look at, and forced into a gunfight at the border. It’s paced almost frantically, switching views from inside the crammed caravan of vehicles to high above the crowded city. Behind the camera is Roger Deakins, a master of photography who composes “Sicario” as a visual descent into darkness, a reflection of the characters in the film whose only obsessive focus is the mission and nothing else. The finale takes a turn towards pure vengeance, an exploitive measure that offers a moment of forceful justification played solely for sensation, which somewhat upends the meticulous pacing and procedure established at the beginning of the film.

Emily Blunt does a great job portraying the morally torn agent, split between doing what is right by the law and what is right for the law. Josh Brolin plays vague with arrogant glee. Wearing sandals in the office and sleeping soundly on plane trips only to turn around in tactical gear and night vision goggles, Brolin pulls it all off with ease. Benicio Del Toro plays a more complicated role, a man with a tragic past doing terrible acts for whoever calls for him. Del Toro has played this version to greater and lesser degrees in films before; still he adds something unique and intriguing to the role.

The treatment of the war on drugs in this film is one of disenchantment, a no-win situation with a faceless monster. It’s one of the main reasons why “Sicario” feels so bleak. Even when action leads to resolution it’s never satisfying but instead is portrayed by ongoing gunfire blasts seen in the dark or heard in the distance, a war with no victors but rather a continuous carousel of chaos. To this point “Sicario” has completely succeeded.

Monte’s Rating

4.25 out of 5.00

The Intern - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

The Intern  

Director: Nancy Meyer

Starring: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm, Zack Pearlman, Linda Lavin, and Andrew Rannells

121 Minutes

Warner Bros. Pictures

Twenty-five years ago this week “Goodfellas” was released in theaters, it marked another career defining role for Robert De Niro to add to his already impressive list of characters. This week Robert De Niro is in another role, one that probably won’t crack the top ten in his career but is notable because it is far less threatening and intimidating than most of the roles he is known for. De Niro plays a retired senior citizen looking for a meaningful opportunity that will keep him away from the tiresome retirement routine of daily coffee shop visits and far too often funerals. Director and writer Nancy Meyer, “Something’s Gotta Give” and “It’s Complicated”, has built a career off heartwarming and sentimental storytelling. With “The Intern” it’s more of the same repeated material, with dramatic and comedic setups that sometimes work and other times don’t, the result is simplistic and unchallenging storytelling, a quality some will undoubtedly enjoy.

Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) is an overnight success in the e-retail fashion market, building a company filled with young employees and guided by Jules’s “take no prisoners” approach. Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a 70 year-old widowed retiree who has traveled the world, visits his son and grandchildren, and maintains a strict schedule of daily activities to fill time. Still, Ben is eager for a change and submits a video application to Jules’s company for a senior internship. Ben gets the job and is assigned to Jules.

Ms. Meyer operates the script with a clear emphasis on two different kinds of characters, the independent, hard-working entrepreneur mom and the gentleman standard of yesteryear. Jules is a combination of different issues, playing the role of self-confidence and independence in the professional world and the guiding hand of nurture and love as mother and wife, all while trying to balance the daily trials of being a woman in the 21^st century, judged and maligned around every corner by blatant and unexpected foes. Ben is a man from a different mold, a hardworking, wake-up early, dress-for-success era of men who lived by a basic set of family and work values. In “The Intern” Ben is surrounded by the current trend of men who don’t tuck their shirts in, welcome unkempt facial hair, and dance around issues with women rather than taking a forward attempt at chivalry. Ms. Meyer takes hold of these issues and fashions them with varying forms of success, while Jules mostly comes off admirably with influential and self-assured qualities, she is also undermined with questionable choices that would make one utter “how has she made it this far”. Ben’s honest ideals and charming virtues are justly arranged some moments, while in other moments they seem lost in the changing tides of societal and economic structures. Many of these insights will be overlooked because “The Intern” is superficially appealing with humorous setups and a great choice by Ms. Meyer to cast Robert De Niro.

Mr. De Niro is in complete control, guiding the performance with grinning, better to call it smirking, optimism without turning into a begrudging old man who yells at the kids on his lawn. Anne Hathaway plays off Mr. De Niro throughout the film. Jules’s slow appreciation of Ben comes about with a mix of paternal admiration and then unlikely friendship, it’s unfortunate that most of her character is merely a shell of self-defeating ideas. Still, without these two actors the film wouldn’t be as successfully executed.

“The Intern” seems like it wants to say much more about age, work culture, gender differences, and feminism but instead, and perhaps rightly so, takes the easier route by diligently composing a film that forces viewers to leave the theater with warm feelings and a smile.

Monte’s Rating

3.25 out of 5.00

The Intern - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

“The Intern” offers sugary-sweet smiles but crashes in the third act  

Writer/director:  Nancy Meyers

Starring:  Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro, Rene Russo

Release Date: September 25,  2015

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what About the Fit is made of.   Well, that is not exactly true, but the tone of the Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro comedy, “The Intern”, certainly feels that way.   What is About the Fit, you ask?   It is Jules’s (Hathaway) internet clothing business which has exploded from just a laptop on her kitchen table to a bustling 220-employee company located in a picturesque, remodeled warehouse in Brooklyn.

About the Fit is company where 20-somethings smile, laugh, type, and swipe on their PCs, tablets and phones while helping market the perfect outfits to an ever-growing, national customer base.   Jules dresses for success, is always working and bikes (yes, bikes) in between a constant flow of five-minute meetings within the office.   With sunshine beaming through the massive windows into a space of mortar, brick and bright white walls – which contain a flow of happy job-lovers - I certainly wanted to connect my LinkedIn account with everyone in that office!   Okay, I am being a bit sarcastic, but after about 15 minutes of this rainbows and lollipops atmosphere, I stopped rolling my eyes and bought into the fun.   Written and directed by Nancy Meyers (“Something’s Gotta Give”, “It’s Complicated”), she found the right level of movie magic to turn smiles on even the grumpiest of cynics.   Just about everything in this film is cute and sweet from Jules’s six-year-old daughter to video-game driven millennial men who ask dumb questions about love.

With “love” spread in every direction, the film’s tension comes in the form of 70-year-old Ben (De Niro).   About the Fit “accidentally” creates a senior intern program but not seniors in high school or college.   They hire three seniors in life, as three senior citizens become six-week interns.    They might not have   LinkedIn or Facebook accounts, but they own real-life experience, and Ben was a seasoned and disciplined executive.   While retired, he kept looking for a reason to put on his dress shirt, tie and suit to continue to make a difference in this world.   He may be a former exec, but not the cutthroat type.   Ben is a nice guy, and he wants to put his best seven-decade foot forward.

Meyers, of course, includes plenty of age-gap gags between Ben and his new co-workers, but the differences melt away as this senior and the “kids” bridge their differences and learn from one another.    In fact, Ben and his three new sweatshirt-wearing compadres pull a hilarious heist in a major comedic high-point of the movie.   Jules and Ben’s friendship and working relationship has the potential to grow too, but hey, we tend to expect that with a predictable, but entertaining story arc.

Speaking of story arcs, for me, the film falls down a quite a bit in the third act.   After buying into the movie’s light tone and enjoying the ride, the script takes a completely unnecessary left turn and introduces a sudden and unpleasant plot point.    I shook my head in massive disapproval when this unattractive nugget of conflict presented itself on the big screen.  I did not object because it was a “too difficult to swallow” moment, but because it shook the entire upbeat tone of the picture into unwanted areas of forced struggle.   The film also ties up some other loose ends within the last 10 minutes, and with a running time of 2 hours and 1 minute, one wonders why the “cut and throw away” button was so amiss in the editing room.

Still, “The Intern” is mostly a pleasant time at the movies, and Hathaway and De Niro have their charm dials set to 11.   I enjoyed this film but also left disappointed.    In this particular case, the script should have allowed sugar and spice to sweeten the picture from the opening credits to its fade to black.  (2.5/4 stars)

A Brilliant Young Mind - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

A Brilliant Young Mind  

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Eddie Marsan, Rafe Spall, Sally Hawkins, Martin McCann, Christina Low, Alexa Davies

Director: Morgan Matthews

Release Date: 09/25/15

By Michael Clawson  of Terminal Volume

It’s entirely possible that the world’s most brilliant mind is in the body of a child. And also imprisoned behind a veil of paralyzing awkwardness.

In A Brilliant Young Mind we’re introduced to a number of worthy candidates, all of whom are trying to out-awkward each other with cold facts, debilitating shyness and enough social tics they could be charted into “trigonometric identities,” or whatever that is.

Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is one of these young people. The British lad sees the world in geometry, algebra and calculus. He’s by all estimates a genius, yet he can barely function in the real world. When his mother orders take-out if the fish sticks and chips aren’t positioned symmetrically and in prime numbers then he flips out.

He’s guided by teacher Martin Humphreys (Rafe Spall, son of Timothy), who suggests he participate in a mathematics olympiad for the most brilliant young pupils. Nathan takes the test, passes and soon finds himself in Taiwan studying with other mathletes his age. He gets a crude wake-up when his fried prawns are delivered in an eight-count container … so close to a prime number, but yet not.

The film dips into darker territory as the characters open up and reveal their even more fragile cores. One boy, Luke, is likely autistic, which leads to bullying even in these nerdy circles. A Chinese student that Nathan is paired with is harassed because her uncle is the director of the team. Nathan’s issue is just communicating on a basic level. He mumbles, recoils at the lightest touch and his eyes reveal sparkles of brilliant pain. This wounded kid is thrown into a new culture and he remarkably thrives, which breaks the heart of his mother (Sally Hawkins), who can’t seem to understand why he’ll open up to everyone but her.

Of course, the film all boils down to the math olympiad, but then it’s not that simple. It’s written with care and truth, and no “big game” sports climax will ever solve all the issues swirling around in this layered and pristinely textured script by James Graham. There is some cliche, including a “surprise car crash” still in the clamshell packaging and a race to the train station to get the girl, but even those conventions are given new spins, fresh perspectives.

The math is dense and confusing, and is barely explained outside of one sequence in which Nathan turns a card trick into a binary matrix. In other scenes the equations are just glossed over in broad strokes. I knew it was complex stuff, though, because the math problems had more letters than numbers, and brackets within brackets within brackets. “If truth is beauty and beauty is truth, then surely mathematics is the most beautiful thing in the world,” says an olympiad leader played by the great Eddie Marsan. I’ll take your word for it.

Although the surface of this coming-of-age story is rather blandly paced and acted, there are deeper currents of emotional agony that are running through this film. Scratch but a tiny bit down and it opens some terrifying places related to love, family, success and acceptance. But in the end, like math, it has an inherent beauty to all of it.

Interview with Oren Moverman, director of Time Out of Mind by Jeff Mitchell

Interview – Oren Moverman, director “Time Out of Mind” By Jeff Mitchell

In director Oren Moverman’s latest film, “Time Out of Mind”, the camera follows the painful life of a homeless man named George (played by Richard Gere).   Moverman  - who also wrote and directed “The Messenger” (2009) and “Rampart” (2011) - provides the audience a front row seat to George’s difficult daily existence on the streets and in the shelters of New York City, and his film offers an eye-opening, big screen experience on the plight of the homeless.    The Phoenix Film Festival spoke to Mr. Moverman about “Time Out of Mind”, and we had a thoughtful conversation about George’s state of mind, some key learnings about homelessness and how the general public actually ignored Richard Gere during the filming because he played a homeless person.  “Time Out of Mind” opens on Sept. 25.

PFF: Even though George (Gere) is surrounded by life in every direction in New York City, he is an isolated individual.  Isolation is probably a common occurrence for the homeless in any city, but does NYC bring a different dynamic?

OM: I think it does.  Generally, isolation is at the root of a lot of problems in life and definitely for homeless people.  New York is quite an overwhelming city in terms of the mass volume of humanity in your face all the time.  The more people there are, the more alone you can be.  When you have so many people (in one place), then they (simply) do not see each other.  So, I think the state of homelessness - that kind of isolation - leads to deprivation of very basic needs.  The lack of eye contact or human contact just makes the problem worse for sure. 

PFF: Wherever George went – whether he was in a shelter or on the street – he hardly ever had silence.   Was silence as important to him as finding something to eat or a place to sleep?

OM:  Yes. When you think of silence, the first thing that comes to mind is peacefulness.  There’s no rest for him in this movie.  He is constantly bombarded by the sounds of the city that just keep going.  All of these stories (conversations of thousands of people) are happening around him – and (the impact of the noise) is very much a reflection of his mental state.  He cannot get to a place of privacy, silence and a quiet mind.  It’s actually quite turbulent.    

PFF:  Why do you suppose George kept refusing medical care even though he clearly needed it?  Is it because he was singularly focused on the basics first? 

OM:  Yea, there’s something “off” about him.  We don’t call it by name, but there is definitely something off about him.   He struggles with even the idea of existence.   He doesn’t allow himself to be called homeless until very late in the movie.  He doesn’t want to acknowledge his state in life.   In his mind, he’s living the life he was living before, but now he’s gotten off track a little bit.  He doesn’t have a lot of self-knowledge and understanding of what can make his life better, so he is just wrestling with that.  I think all that’s on his mind are very basic needs like food, shelter, warmth, a place to be, a place to rest, and everything else just falls by the wayside. 

PFF:  I was shocked to discover Kyra Sedgwick and Ben Vereen played George’s “friends”, because they were unrecognizable to me, especially Sedgwick.    On the other hand, Gere was easily identifiable.  When Gere was on the street and in character, did people recognize him during the filming?  

OM:  That was our biggest worry:  Are we going to get away with putting Richard Gere in this environment.  We tested it.  What we discovered – when we hid the camera, because we didn’t want the camera in people’s faces to give away the fact that we’re shooting a movie - is they didn’t recognize him at all because they didn’t look at him.   It was a very deliberate, very understandable, very human, and a very New York approach.  Urban dwellers would just walk past this homeless guy, and maybe someone would pay attention and maybe someone would give something, but ultimately no one looked him in the eye.   It wasn’t as if he was unrecognizable as Richard Gere.  He was unrecognizable as a movie star, for sure.   He was unrecognizable in his clothes because that’s not how you would expect to see Richard Gere.  The fact that no one looked him in the eye, it was a lesson for us when someone in that position becomes quite invisible to the people around him.   He did get recognized twice in Grand Central Terminal when two people walked by him and said, “Hello”.  It wasn’t sort of “Oh my God, it’s a movie star.  Let me take a picture.”  It was more like, “Hey, he looks like Richard Gere. It looks like he is having a hard time.” 

PFF: Did you interview homeless people - either prior to shooting or during the filming – and what did you learn about the plight of the homeless?

OM: A lot, actually.  The whole movie is based on conversations with homeless people and the people who work in the shelters.  For me, it was a huge education on a personal level where I’ve learned about all of these stories, and I saw things that were next to me for many years, but I never really noticed.  It changed my perspective, and it changed my outlook and my engagement with homeless people.   I do think that the acknowledgement and the engagement (of the homeless) is a short step in dealing with this problem.  I’ve learned how to engage with people who are in this situation and listen to what they need.

PFF:  I really liked how you filmed George behind glass or behind a guarded gate(s).  He seemingly was on the outside looking in, and when he was inside a shelter, at times, it felt like a prison.    Coming away from this experience, are there any solutions to grant these individuals their dignity back?

OM:  Absolutely.  The truth of the matter is we know that homelessness could be ended.  We know the key to the solution is to support housing.   We know we have to come together and provide people with housing.  Not only housing, but support services that deal with the problems of homelessness which are mental illness, domestic abuse and HIV.  All of these things are key issues that contribute to homelessness on top of housing.   We have programs around the country, and the best example of this is what’s happening with veterans.   We are on the road to dealing with the homelessness problem in the veterans’ community.  That was one issue that Republicans and Democrats could agree upon and provide what’s known as “housing first” programs where people get vouchers.  (Once) they have their own space, their own mailbox and their own dignity, then they can start dealing with other problems to get them reintegrated back into society.  To have a place that is your own is the key to that, and it just takes political will, which really is the difficult part. 

(Photos courtesy of IFC Films)

Black Mass - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Black Mass  

Director: Scott Cooper

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Johnny Depp, Dakota Johnson, Juno Temple, Joel Edgerton, Kevin Bacon, Sienna Miller, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll, Jesse Plemons and Rory Cochrane

Release Date: 09/18/15

by Monte Yazzie

In the 1970’s and 1980’s James “Whitey” Bulger was one of the most notorious criminals in Boston, running an organization known as the Winter Hill Gang. Bulger operated in all manners of criminal activity but the most unusual of his dealings was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an informant. Over the course of his infamous tenure Bulger brought drugs into his beloved South Boston neighborhood and murdered many who defied him. Director Scott Cooper brings this gangster story to life in “Black Mass”, a gritty and hard-edged crime film that mostly succeeds because of the exceptional performance of Johnny Depp who is mesmerizing and intimidating in the lead role.

James Bulger (Johnny Depp) is a loyal son of the South Boston neighborhood he grew up in, a man who amongst his unsavory actions takes time to look after an elderly woman, compassionately care for his sick child, and boast about the importance of friendship and family. William Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a Massachusetts politician and brother to James; in one instance William talks about cleaning up the streets of Boston only to turn a blind eye to his brothers negative behavior. The Bulger’s childhood friend John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) has set himself up nicely with the FBI, trading freedom for James in exchange for information about the local mob operating in Boston.

The film is framed with a narrative that begins in an interrogation room, with James’ former accomplices spilling information about their boss. From this point the film jumps around with different characters, moving the story from point to point based on questions asked of them during the interrogation. Cooper directs the film, which is based off the book of the same title, with style and characteristics similar to other crime films that have come before it, think “Goodfellas” or “The Departed” as examples. Using these films as a reference for style immediately places the viewer in a familiar position, in a sense working to quickly establish the environment and understand that danger and a double-cross aren’t far away. While the storytelling design works initially, once the film breaks away from James’ composition and begins to focus on the alliance with the FBI or a pointless journey to Florida that serves as a side note to the extending reach of Winter Hill Gang, the narrative begins to fall apart.

The character of James "Whitey" Bulger is treated initial as a sort of local hero, a sharp-as-nails tough guy with a blue-eyed stare and ambiguous smirk who spouts tough guy talk as good as the best of these kind of characters. Johnny Depp is simply impressive, one of the strongest performances from him in recent years. There is no underlying comedy, no humorous gesture to break the tension, just pure, unadulterated intimidation. Depp for most of the film speaks in a soft whisper, allowing his eyes to do the most meaningful communication.