Sonic the Hedgehog - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

James Marsden and Ben Schwartz in ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’.

Directed by: Jeff Fowler

Written by: Pat Casey and Josh Miller

Based on “Sonic the Hedgehog” by: Sega

Starring: James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Tika Sumpter, Jim Carrey

Jeff Fowler, director of “Sonic the Hedgehog” has his work cut out for him.

Not only does he have to deliver a movie based on a beloved video game character, but that character, as many people complained about after the first trailer premiered had to look good.

The film, which opens this weekend, delivers on both in most respects.

Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz looks good. Real good.

The film, which is a road trip in disguise, is a lot of fun too, but is not without its potholes.

Sonic has a gift, one that if found out could be used for evil. As played here, Sonic is a teenager, full of vinegar and ready to test the world. Early in the film, we see him zoom across the screen like blue lightening. Under the watchful gaze of Longclaw his caretaker, his cavalier respect for his powers earns him unwanted attention, forcing him to Earth.

The script by comedic duo of Pat Casey and Josh Miller quickly establishes Sonic as an isolated creature who . . . lurks about Green Hills, Montana, a sleepy little town just as isolated as Sonic feels. Fowler creates an environment in which Sonic thrives . . .  on his own.

Isolation and a lack of friends gives Sonic a reason to taunt Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), the sheriff who thinks he hasn’t contributed enough and wants a shot at some real action. Tika Sumpter plays his wife, Maddie, a veterinarian who fully supports her husband’s decision to abandon the good people of Green Hills.

Sonic attracts the attention of one Dr. Robotnik, played with utter glee by Jim Carrey. Robotnik, a neurotic quack, is on the government’s “speed dial” when what looks like an E.M.P. knocks out power to most of the west coast. His knack for “getting his man,” is what gives him the edge over the military.

That and his wonderful array of floating toys.

Carrey is menacing and maniacal at the same time as he not only deals with his own high IQ, but also with the constant attempts to outwit Tom, a no non-sense type of individual, who eventually crosses paths with Sonic and realizes the little fella needs his help.

Fowler injects a good deal of action in the form of car chases, most of which defy physics and, certainly in the case of downtown San Francisco, sheer space. But, that doesn’t mean that the action isn’t any less exciting.

The humor is on point too, especially the ongoing banter between Robotnik and Tom and an ongoing feud between Rachel (Natasha Rothwell), Maddie’s sister and Tom, whom she believes is a terrorist in disguise.

There is a real sense of kinship between Sonic and Tom that does not feel forced; Fowler ensures that the basis for their friendship especially that of an ongoing ‘bucket list’ is solid. That’s the  strongest element in favor of keeping “Sonic the Hedgehog” moving at a supersonic 99 minutes. There are times where that run time feels just a bit too long, but then Robotnik makes an appearance and all is well.

“Sonic the Hedgehog” is a fun and faithful to the game, the revamped Sonic character looks amazing on the screen and if nothing else, you get to see Jim Carrey rock out for a few minutes as his diabolical plans come to fruition. It isn’t without its bumps in the road.

Then again, if art imitates life, then “Sonic the Hedgehog” has that game in the bag.

3 out of 4

The Photograph - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae in ‘The Photograph’.

Romance is a bit fuzzy in ‘The Photograph’

Written and directed by:  Stella Meghie

Starring:  LaKeith Stanfield, Issa Rae, Chante Adams, Rob Morgan, Y’lan Noel, Lil Rel Howery, and Chelsea Peretti

“The Photograph” – Location, Location, Location. 

If you live in Mesa, AZ, would you take a job across town in Buckeye?  According to Google, the cities are 53 miles apart, and at 6:00pm on a Thursday, the one-way commute is 1 hour and 18 minutes.  Unless you have a How to Learn French in 500 hours app, a pile of gas money, a reliable, late model Honda or Toyota, and are born with oceans of patience, handing a tattoo pen to your 6 year-old son and asking him to draw a permanent rubber ducky on your forehead seems like a more sensible idea than starting at a new company with 13 hours of driving time every week.

No, location might not be a critical factor for every decision, but pragmatists rightfully consider it when looking for a job.  

In writer/director Stella Meghie’s “The Photograph”, Christina Eames (Chante Adams) is a straight-thinking realist too, but she also has a passion. 

The year is 1984, and Christina is about 18.  She lives in Louisiana, loves to take pictures and dreams about moving to New York City to work as a photographer, but her boyfriend Isaac (Y’lan Noel) has no interest in relocating.  Isaac loves Christina, but not enough to follow her across the country.  She’s staring into a massively divisive crossroads, but when the heart wants what it wants, a 1,300 mile life-journey to The Big Apple is not an impossible, overwhelming idea.  She might set love aside and pursue her professional goals.

Fast forward 36 years, and Christina’s daughter Mae (Issa Rae) loves her job as a museum curator, and for reasons that will not be discussed in this review, journalist Michael Block (LaKeith Stanfield) is writing a story about Mae’s mom.  Naturally, he meets his subject’s daughter.

Since “The Photograph” arrives in theatres on Valentine’s Day, one might anticipate that Meghie’s film is full of romance. 

Not so, and throughout most of its 106-minute runtime, “The Photograph” has all the fervor of calculating your federal income taxes, two months ahead of the April deadline on a lazy Sunday morning.  Make that coffee extra strong, and did you save that 10 dollar receipt for those Girl Scout cookies?  That counts as a charitable donation, right?

Anyway, Mae and Michael are both single, successful and attractive professionals and begin dating.  They have dinner at a fancy restaurant, listen to Al Green records, receive relationship advice from family and friends – including some hilarious one-liners from Michael’s brother (Lil Rey Howery) - but they are both hesitant about taking the next step.   Well, Michael wants to take the next step, but since most of his relationships haven’t lasted more than 12 weeks, he probably doesn’t exactly know.  Mae and Michael are a bit emotionally unavailable, and she’s terrible at first dates, per her own admission.  (To be fair, how many of us are?)

Mae and Michael don’t have terrible chemistry, but they talk, chat, expound, and rationalize their way in and out of this possible relationship - and run through some false starts - throughout most of their on-screen time.  Thankfully, the narrative regularly flips between present-day and the 1980s, so we can spend some quality time in the past.  Hey, Christina’s impending career decision versus a life with Isaac carries genuine gravitas.  This couple formed a settled bond that could break, rather than Mae and Michael’s constant speculation if they should seal theirs.

Meghie definitely plays with parallels between the two time periods, and 2020-Isaac (Rob Morgan) connects them and delivers the film’s most emotional beats.  She continues the resemblances between past and present but forces a Mae-Michael plot point with a shoehorn, crowbar and sledgehammer.   Well, rather than take Al Green’s advice that they “ought to stay together”, maybe Mae and Michael should be sound pragmatists, do the math and split. 

Eh, either way is fine.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  

(2/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant in ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’.

Written and Directed by: Céline Sciamma

Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adéle Haenel

A very simple question about a painting opens Céline Sciamma’s exquisitely intoxicating “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

As with the painting, the answers offer more detail than the artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is willing to share. At first.

In order to answer the question, we are whisked away to late eighteenth century Brittany, an island with a storied castle and an unintended, yet passionate romantic interlude awaits us. The island is the site of one of Marrianne’s earliest commissions, that of Héloise (Adéle Haenel), a betrothed woman of means, intellect, yet very little desire.

Marianne encounters resistance in getting Héloise to pose for the portrait. Marianne knows how to fend for herself; she is a very worldly individual. As such, Sciamma builds the intrigue through a game of “cat and mouse” as Marianne indulges in Héloise’s world.

That indulgence is carried through Claire Mathon’s exquisite cinematography, which has a painterly quality to it. Sun drenched walks along the rocky coastline give way to fire lit discussions: intense, purposeful and emotionally charged designed to draw us further into their affair. Sciamma is sure to infuse small details which help us to recall their relationship, bits that inform each character as uniquely as their story does.

The early indulgences lead to the first pose. The room is bright and airy, allowing for the idiosyncrasies of  each character to show; neither is quick to reveal much about the other, yet both are keenly aware of the unspoken attraction. Sciamma’s attention to detail in these early scenes are magnetic, almost electric oozing through the screen.

Marianne’s assumptions and observations get the better of her though as the first painting is largely an intended failure. As observed by Valeria Golino’s Countess, Héloise’s mother,

The isolation of the island itself is a key to the outcome of the film; Sciamma does not hold back the inevitable, framed only by the fact that the events we witness are as a memory. That isolation is further cemented by a lack of characters, other than the live-in maid, Sophie (Luàna Bajrami).

Sciamma’s centerpiece isn’t so much the affair as it is the conflict that arises from the affair. Both Marianne and Héloise are passionately in love, yet they are aware that their affair cannot continue. Neither is willing to pull away.

Their hand is forced first through feelings of mistrust over the nature of the portrait, revealing an unsustainable affair. Second, and more important is a reflection of “Orpheus and Eurydice” in both the dialogue as an argument and then later at a fireside gathering full of women singing and dancing. This is the pivotal moment where vulnerability is revealed in a series of images that haunt Marianne. The love is still there as is the passion, but the reminders are such that they must move on.

When Marianne and Héloise finally do separate there is a tinge of regret that nothing further would come of the interlude. The memory of what was, the details Sciamma carefully built into their respective characters, is an eternal marker of a flame that will never die.

That love lives through “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” not just the movie itself, but the painting that was carefully created throughout the production. Sciamma’s talented eye and instincts won her the Queer Palm at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Screenplay award.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and while that might feel a cliché way to express my adoration of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” it only scratches the surface of what Céline Sciamma’s film achieved.

4 out of 4 stars

The Traitor - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Pierfrancesco Favino in ‘The Traitor’.

Directed by: Marco Bellocchio

Screenplay by: Marco Bellocchio, Valia Santella, Ludovica Rampoldi, Francesco Piccolo, Francesco La Licata

Story by: Marco Bellocchio

Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino, Maria Fernanda Candido, Fabrizio Feracane, Fausto Russo Alesi, Luigi Lo Cascio

The trailer for Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” preceded a film in early December and from its tight editing, it presented a very taut tale of intrigue and deadly adventure for one Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) as an informant on La Cosa Nostra.

The movie that famed Italian director Marco Bellocchio delivers is a sprawling story based on the real-life figure of Tommaso Buscetta, a Sicilian Mafia boss who sought to repent for their misdeeds. In that very real regard, Favino delivers an exquisite performance, a solemn face with eyes emoting at every turn.

Bellocchio was also not afraid to bask in the locations afforded his production – you truly feel like you’re in Italy or Brasil as Buscetta’s life catches up with him. Vladan Radovic’s cinematography beautifully captures these locales, framing Buscetta’s emotional struggles against the wrongs he commits.

In relocating to Brasil, he makes the mistake of thinking that his former associates could not get to him or to his family. Bellocchio’s level of violence is not over the top – it is tastefully done in the way that shooting someone can be portrayed on screen. There is a level of dark humor imbued in these assassinations as a way of counting towards the inevitable.

Though as the story goes, and based on the real life of Tommaso Buscetta, he develops a conscience, though as the screen play frames it, he is set up. It leads to an interesting relationship between the prisoner and the jailer as Buscetta returns to Italy to offer the State testimony in exchange for protection.

A rather poignant relationship forms between Buscetta and Judge Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi) as the two men bond over the emotional struggles to bring to the world stage the players of La Cosa Nostra. The film itself is set in the 1970’s and moves through time, but Bellocchio and Radovic never lose the rich visual style, which as time progresses so too do the locations from exterior to interior. The interior scenes in the courtrooms were bright and, dare I imply spacious.

A curiosity as the venues change in the film, they seem to get less spacious and more tight as if to convey that for every time Buscetta opens his mouth, the noose of La Cosa Nostra gets tighter; it is more than that. Buscetta is constantly fighting his own demons as his stature and his resolve to be honest and forthright becomes more apparent. As a double entendre, Bellocchio  uses the visual to support the emotional change in the character.

If “The Traitor” is guilty of any crime, it is that the run time makes its presence known. Much like La Cosa Nostra, it lurks in the shadows of great performances and a struggle rarely seen. The longer run time does not take away from the performances, but there is a certain point where there is too much exposition.

Understanding that this is a key piece of history, and a beautifully shot movie, taking elements out of the film might have negatively impacted the experience: in the end, “The Traitor” is as much an experience of one man’s life, culture and fortitude, as any film of its ilk.

"The Traitor" does not betray the honor of its subject. Rather, it honors Buscetta as a man of integrity. The cost to that integrity justify the means to those ends.

2.75 out of 4

Birds of Prey - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Margot Robbie in “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’.

Dir: Cathy Yan

Starring: Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Chris Messina, and Ewan McGregor

When you think of iconic superhero villains it doesn’t take very long to recognize the clown prince of crime, The Joker. Immortalized throughout cinema by actors like Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and Joaquin Phoenix, The Joker is chaos, carnage, comedy, and cream cosmetics wrapped into one complicated bad guy.

Perhaps it’s time to clear some space for another villain, or even better a villainess, painted in the vein of The Joker. Harley Quinn made her first appearance in the DC Comics movie misstep “The Suicide Squad”, but Harley, played by Margot Robbie, was the highlight of the entire film, even overshadowing a new performance from Jared Leto playing The Joker.

“Birds of Prey” or “Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” lets Margot Robbie loose with a zany, messy, comical, clumsy comic book movie that relishes in its cinematic mayhem. What transpires is less a superhero quality and more a straightforward action film with a group of tough-as-nails ladies standing up to a world dominated by loathsome men.

Harley (Margot Robbie) has a story to tell, one that only she can tell, and it involves bad breakups, murderers, new friends, and a lost diamond. Harley is moving on from Mr. J (her pet name for Joker), trying to make a new path in Gotham City but not realizing how many bridges she has burned while living freely in love. Now, she’s a wanted woman, specifically by a new bad guy in Gotham named Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor).  Harley, being hunted by every person she wronged while dating the Joker, is forced into finding a young pickpocket named Cass (Ella Jay Basco) who has stolen something very valuable.

“Birds of Prey” is an R-rated romp in overindulgent style and over-the-top comic book antics. It’s cluttered in parts, specifically during the chaotic back-and-forth storytelling style where Harley narrates her version of the events leading towards the finale, but also exceptionally fun, like when Harley unleashes her fighting flair with a baseball bat or chats cute with her pet hyena.

Margot Robbie seems tailored for the role of Harley, she composes a playful sensibility from the beginning, almost shedding the villain quality completely in favor of a powerful woman who will not be told what to do and how to live. Whether giggling maniacally, screaming obscenities or spouting big intellectual psychology comments, Ms. Robbie completely owns the character.

The supporting cast helps the sloppy narrative. Rosie Perez, tough and showing wonderful attitude, plays an underappreciated cop who is chasing all the loose ends perpetrated by Harley. Jurnee Smollett-Bell is a welcome addition playing a lounge singer with a powerful voice and Mary Elizabeth Winstead does a great job of being nervously awkward as a crossbow-wielding assassin. Ewan McGregor plays the big bad with a confident quirkiness, while it doesn’t always work it seems Mr. McGregor is having lots of fun with the role.

The film, at times, feels too deliberately wacky and purposefully cartoonish, but the madcap quality does have its benefits in keeping the tone very lighthearted and focused on creating something of a crazed carnival of scenes. This movie feels like an appropriate transition, or side story, for the DC Films brand that has composed a more serious atmosphere for their superhero stories.

“Birds of Prey” thrives best when Harley has a team to work around and with. Margot Robbie holds the film together even when it becomes too frenzied for its own good. Still, the charm of the eccentric characters, the amusement park of hectic action, and the playfulness found in almost every scene make this a must-see for comic book fans.

Monte’s Rating
3.00 out of 5.00

The Assistant - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Julia Garner in ‘The Assistant’.

‘The Assistant’ clearly documents empathy without empowerment

Written and directed by:  Kitty Green

Starring:  Julia Garner and Matthew Macfadyen

“The Assistant” –  “Empowerment through empathy.” – Tarana Burke

“Tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen.  Pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and try to come to life.   Jump in the shower, and the blood starts pumping.  Out on the street, the traffic starts jumping with folks like me on the job from 9 to 5.” – “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton

Jane (Julia Garner) works for a movie production company in New York City.  She’s an entry-level assistant to the top executive, and even though she has an office job, her workdays are anything but 9 to 5. 

While the sun still blissfully enjoys restful REM sleep, Jane - wrapped in a grayish, greenish winter coat with her chin buried in a thick yellow scarf - takes a Lyft from her Astoria apartment to begin a typical 15-hour day at the office.  She makes coffee, takes calls, unjams the copier, picks up donut boxes from empty conference rooms, and runs the occasional errand.  After working at this unnamed company for five weeks, Jane knows her day will finally end when her boss unceremoniously declares, “I don’t need you.  You can go.”

He, however, is not the only one who dismisses Jane.  For instance, as she washes dishes in the breakroom, others will drop off a coffee mug or plate on the counter with no acknowledgment, thanks or salutations, and on frequent occasions, a male assistant competes for her attention by throwing wads of paper in her direction.  No, her future – as the most junior person on staff - doesn’t seem terribly bright at the moment, but this is writer/director Kitty Green’s intention, as she shines a light on a treacherous, all-too-common practice that feeds on the steep inequities of authority.  

“The Assistant” is a film about sexual misconduct, but Green takes an alternative approach to this dicey subject. 

“I started looking at the #MeToo coverage and (was) a little disappointed that people were focusing on the predators and these sensational stories,” Green said in a January 2020 Build interview.  

She adds, “Rather than looking from the top-down…let’s study (a) day in the life of a person who has the least power in an organization.”

We experience Green’s film through Jane’s eyes.  She catches snippets of big decisions and huge projects, but these debates hide behind closed doors or stroll by without her inclusion.  In addition to money-making ventures, she also discovers partial clues - and stumbles into obvious evidence - of recent office dalliances.   Are these forced, unwanted encounters?  The indications say so, but Jane does not walk into an explosive moment as a first-hand witness.  Instead, she finds forensic evidence and computes the awful equations of her boss’s emotional and ethical bankruptcies.

Green employs a frugal hand throughout her 85-minute film in nearly every aspect.  The bland walls and minimalist office future are deliberately commonplace.  Just think of a Dilbert comic strip with zero jokes, and Scott Adams saturating every frame in a gloomy, chalky gray.  Other than Jane’s coworkers laughing – on one occasion – about some sophomoric happenstance, no one appears particularly jovial to work at this place of business. 

It’s a prison of sorts, but the inmates are detained by invisible chains.

Still, the underlings are free to chat and play nice, however, conversations rarely occur, as long stretches of on-screen silence are only accompanied by the low hum of industrial lighting and recycled air traveling through the ducts.  This is an environment where the sudden rush of a blender crushing ice and mixing protein powder becomes a featured event.  Consider yourself warned.

Silence is the unwritten rule of this company’s mission statement, but suppression and concealment are noted in the fine print.  You see, in Green’s detailed, day-in-the-life example of the sordid, widespread history that sprung the #MeToo movement, she successfully and clearly documents empathy without empowerment.

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Zana - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

PHOTO CREDIT: CROSSING BRIDGES FILMS

Kastrati’s ‘Zana’ is a troubling, engaging look at Kosovo’s history through one woman’s eyes

Directed by:  Antoneta Kastrati

Written by:  Antoneta Kastrati and Casey Cooper Johnson

Starring:  Adriana Matoshi, Astrit Kabashi and Fatmire Sahiti

“Zana” – “When men are oppressed, it’s a tragedy.  When women are oppressed, it’s tradition.” – Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Lume (Adriana Matoshi), a late 30s Albanian housewife living in a rustic countryside-slice of Kosovo, is at war.  Not the Kosovo War, because in director/co-writer Antoneta Kastrati’s “Zana”, that conflict ended about 10 years ago. 

Lume is at war with herself, and with no allies in sight, nearby friends and family freely hand her a loaded revolver - in the forms of stress, putdowns and emotional abandonment - to continue her self-destructive, puzzling fight.  This perilous community-concoction makes “Zana” a troubling but engaging story of drama, mystery and Kosovo’s history, and throughout the film, Kastrati paints Lume’s struggle with two emotional, off-putting tones: fear and misery.

Frequent nightmares regularly besiege our lead protagonist, as Kastrati and co-writer Casey Cooper Johnson find unexpected on-screen spaces to pitch disturbing bloody images that shake Lume’s foundation.  While these jolts regularly disrupt her restful nights, Lume’s days offer no amnesty either. 

With her red hair pulled back and some strands occasionally falling in front of her tired, hazel eyes, Lume usually toils with ranchwork – like scrubbing floors, hanging laundry on lines and milking their cow - for the bulk of the daylight hours.  Calm reprieves and occasional smiles are woefully infrequent, but when Lume does stumble into a settled moment, her husband Ilir (Astrit Kabashi) or his mother Remzije (Fatmire Sahiti) will step in and harp about the lack of children running around their unhappy home.  Worse yet, with Lume having fertility problems, talk of Ilir taking on another, noticeably younger wife appears to be no empty threat.

Kastrati, who grew up in Kosovo, lived under threats and suffered terrible tragedy during the war, but those experiences - that she’d probably like to forget - also created her long resume of documentaries and shorts about that distressing time and place.  “Zana” is Kastrati’s first feature film, and she and her sister Sevdije (who is also the cinematographer and co-producer) traveled back to their home village to make this personal movie.  Mind you, “Zana” is not an autobiographical story.  Lume does not play Antoneta, but they share a wide-eyed female perspective of rural Kosovo, where women’s choices and opportunities are painfully narrow. 

Under sunny skies, the Kastrati sisters capture wide, grassy gradients of green in every direction, that give the appearance of (and speak to) hope and bright new days, which truly contrast with Lume’s disposition.  This deepens the mystery, because she should obviously feel constrained by the absence of choices, but an entirely separate, unknown layer of abrasion is scrubbing away at her soul.

Speaking of souls, not only do heavy doses of patriarchal wisdom dominate the village, but religious ones do as well.  Therefore, pious solutions to Lume’s infertility issues are unfortunately explored, which raise another wall to further prevent her escape. 

No, Kastrati does not pave an easy road for Lume, and the 97-minute runtime feels longer, but this is by design.  “Zana” is an absorbing chronicle, as one woman grapples with reality in her mind and environment, and Matoshi stands tall with a masterful subdued performance.  She clearly communicates Lume’s emotional present – and many times in silence - as her character tries to fight through painful, unknown barricades.

Whether or not Lume finds peace, freedom or both, “Zana” organically conveys the strained lives and times of women in the region who coped with war….and tradition. 

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The Rhythm Section - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Blake Lively in ‘The Rhythm Section’. Photo by Jose Haro © 2018 Eon Productions Limited.

Dir: Reed Morano
Starring: Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Mays, Max Casella, and Richard Brake

Filmmakers often talk about a film having “rhythm”. Writer/director David Mamet is often labeled as having a particular “dialog rhythm”, a structure in the way words are crafted for characters to say that follow a beat or a specific pattern. There is “visual rhythm”, the symmetry of framing a shot like in films by Wes Anderson or the movement of the camera to show motivation like in Bong Joon Ho’s “Snowpiercer”. Rhythm can be a very important, deliberate element in the filmmaking process.

 “The Rhythm Section”, directed by Reed Morano, puts the word “rhythm” into its title but any sense of rhythm or reason is lost in this sometimes spy film, sometimes revenge tale, sometimes espionage film, but mostly just a convoluted mess. Starting with the title of the film, which I’m still not exactly sure what it’s meant to imply aside from a line a dialog that is thrown in but never amounts to any kind of explanation.

Stephanie Patrick (Blake Lively) is introduced stalking into a worn-down building, she slowly raises a gun to the back of an unknown person’s head but before the result is revealed, the film flashes back 8 months. At this time Stephanie was a drug-addicted prostitute, weak and filled with sorrow due to the death of her entire family on an airplane she was meant to be on. A freelance journalist finds Stephanie and informs her that the death of her family was no accident, but was a planned bombing. Stephanie is angry and decides to find the people responsible and kill them. Things don’t go as planned and Stephanie is forced to flee, she finds a former MI-6 agent named Iain Boyd (Jude Law) who decides to help her get free from addiction and train for the moment of her revenge.

“The Rhythm Section” begins with an interesting setup, offering a contrasted view of a woman trying to make sense of her trauma. Blake Lively commits to the role; she is vulnerable and frail in early parts of the movie, and even as she develops into a revenge-seeking spy, you can still sense her uneasiness with the decisions she hopes to make. It’s disappointing that the narrative didn’t focus more attention on this key element, Ms. Lively is a talented actress and could have developed this character into something fascinating if provided the material and time to build the character better, the same can be said about Jude Law’s character who has an interesting ambiguity. Instead, the film falls into uninspired clichés and unnecessary twists and turns.

The one shining moment for this film is in the construction of the action scenes involving Stephanie. When she is placed in danger, gun fights, car chases, and hand-to-hand fights, the film keeps the perspective of these moments with Stephanie, showing how the atmosphere and environment are affecting her and how jarring a car chase would be if you have never been in one. It’s a nice touch of filmmaking.

Still, “The Rhythm Section” just doesn’t have the strong narrative needed to support its lofty ambitions. Blake Lively and Jude Law provide committed performances but the film doesn’t meet their quality. Instead, the film is lost in its design and never finds the melody of the story it wants to tell.

Monte’s Rating
1.75 out of 5.00

The Gentlemen - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Colin Farrell and Charlie Hunnam in ‘The Gentlemen’. Photo courtesy of Christopher Raphael.

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Screenplay by: Guy Ritchie

Story by: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davis

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant

A “Guy Ritchie is back!” proclamation for his latest film, “The Gentlemen” would not be out of order.

In fact, it is an understatement.

The story, which focuses on the secretive cannabis concerns of one Mickey Pearson (McConaughey) is just the tip of the leaf, so to speak.

Ritchie’s story focuses on the tabloid sensationalism of one Big Dave (Marsan), the editor in chief of the Daily Print. He was slighted once by Pearson and is out to get him, courtesy of private investigator Fletcher (Hugh Grant).

Fletcher, who is a money-grubbing snoop, brings his findings, not to Big Dave, but to Raymond (Hunnam), Pearson’s consiglieri. Fletcher weaves an intricate tale of not only Pearson’s rise to power, but a potential sale of his network to Matthew Berger, a lovely performance by Matthew Strong and Berger attracts Pearson’s attention with his own philanthropic efforts.

Through the mix between Pearson and Berger are Henry Golding’s delicious turn as the villainous Dry Eye and the attention-seeking plaid-wearing warm up suit crew of Coach played by Colin Farrell, who needs more comedic roles after this one.

Ritchie paints a world full of vindictive people with a lot of wit, some bad timing and just a plain, good time at the movies as we see vengeance work its way through power.

None of the cast tramples over the other as we watch the pieces of a chess match move expertly across the board. The key to each of the characters, outside of Fletcher, who coincidentally reminded me of Irwin Fletcher from the “Fletch” film series, was that they were all calm; no one ever breaks a sweat as each tries to outdo the other in a very orderly way.

The best interactions come as Fletcher briefs Raymond in Raymond’s house. Hunnam, who continues to demonstrate grace under pressure as we’ve seen him in roles such as “Sons of Anarchy,” really rises to the occasion as Fletcher tries to weasel his way into a payday for the information he has. Ritchie gives us a sense that Fletcher thinks he’s in control, which leads to a lot of suggestive innuendo. Raymond will have none of that though.

Ritchie’s characters are the richest part of the film – the story wouldn’t work without them, making each of their respective journeys that much more hilarious.

It has been interesting to watch Matthew McConaughey’s growth as an actor, especially as he creates a persona of high-class society while moving away from the every-man roles he played earlier in his career, something that fits perfectly in to his take on Mickey Pearson. He is very much a gentlemen, but he is always on guard, waiting to pounce at just the right moment. His wife, Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) is just as reviled as the rest of these hilarious miscreants, but she is a perfect match for McConaughey’s Mickey Pearson.

There is a deadly elegance to “The Gentlemen” as the remainder of the story unfolds, supported by Alan Stewart’s muted cinematography, highlighting the grays of England’s overcast sky with the characters sporting colorful clothing. Music is as big a character as the characters themselves.

“The Gentlemen” is as excellent a Guy Ritchie film as we’ve seen from him in the past with richly layered and contextualized characters populating a massive game of chess, fueled not by cannabis, but by brinksmanship and control.

4 out of 4 stars

The Last Full Measure - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Travis Aaron Wade in ‘The Last Full Measure’.

‘The Last Full Measure’ is full of emotional performances

Written and directed by:  Todd Robinson

Starring:  Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irvine, Christopher Plummer, Ed Harris, Diane Ladd, William Hurt, Amy Madigan, John Savage, Bradley Whitford, and Peter Fonda

“The Last Full Measure” - “The Vietnam War was arguably the most traumatic experience for the United States in the 20th century.” – author Donald M. Goldstein

“There was only one man on the ground that day that would have turned down a ride out of that hellhole – at that man was Pitsenbarger.” – F. David Peters, Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division

The year is 1999.  The tech boom was in full bloom, and so were The Backstreet Boys.  Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France, and M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” took the world by storm.  In the United States, it was a time of peace and prosperity, which explains how “I Want It That Way” actually found comfortable space in our pop music lexicon, but let’s not digress.

Generally speaking, war was not on the minds of John and Jane Q. Citizen in the late 90s, but in “The Last Full Measure”, Scott Huffman (Sebastian Stan), a family man with a budding career at the Pentagon, is suddenly asked to revisit a particular Vietnam War battle.

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class William H. Pitsenbarger (Jeremy Irvine) died on April 11, 1966 at just 21 years old in a brutal jungle firefight.  While the Viet Cong outnumbered U.S. ground troops - 500 to 134 - William volunteered to be lowered into the deadly skirmish to help his fellow soldiers.  The decision cost him his life, but not before he expedited the rescue of nine men, tended to the wounded, picked up a gun, and fought.

Pitsenbarger’s heroic sacrifice sounds like a Hollywood production, but this is a true story, and rather than solely centering on the actual battle, writer/director Todd Robinson also focuses on William's Medal of Honor (MOH) appeal, 33 years after he died.

Robinson’s script has Huffman traveling across the county and visiting William’s parents Frank (Christopher Plummer) and Alice (Diane Ladd) and several Vietnam vets to learn about their son and fellow veteran, respectively.  Huffman meets veteran after veteran across the country and then periodically finds himself back in D.C.  It’s a tad hard to follow where Huffman is at any time while on the road, but it's easy to see that he's struggling.  Huffman sometimes feels naive and sheepish when speaking to grizzled vets, who each seemingly carry a horrible, internalized brew of guilt, shame, fear, regret, and trauma.

As the veterans recall memories that they’d rather forget, the film repeatedly returns to that fateful 1966 day of chaos, gunfire and explosions, which starkly contrasts with the calm, haunting tones in 1999.  Admittedly, the moments of war don’t cinematically stand out and feel rather thin.  They seem repetitive, and it’s tricky picking out the younger versions of the 1999 vets.  These time warps into the past offer a reference point, but not necessarily a solid foundation, like they should.

Huffman’s fact-finding mission feels mechanical too.  He repeatedly argues with his boss Carlton Stanton (Bradley Whitford), and these disagreements may have occurred in real life, but they seem like a shoehorned plot device.  Although if a producer or director is looking for a corporate or government creep, please note that Whitford is your guy!  He can play those roles blindfolded, and Stanton is effectively bothersome here.

No, the film’s strengths lie with Huffman’s one-one-one interviews with each vet, as a Who’s Who of A-list actors wonderfully grace the screen, including Samuel L. Jackson, William Hurt, Ed Harris, John Savage, and Peter Fonda in his very last film.  Each actor delivers their signature moment, as they and Robinson effectively communicate the haunting horrors of war.  For instance, Ray (Harris) sports a noticeable network of deep facial wrinkles, seemingly carved from torturous memories over the last 30 years, and Takoda (Jackson) regrets 20 seconds in 1966 that he will never get back. 

These impactful conversational-soliloquies reveal genuine feelings about William and the war.  Talk of honor and sacrifice flood the screen and our tear ducts.  All the one-on-one moments hit the right emotional beats and elevate the otherwise dull mechanics getting from here to there, or from past and present.   Whether it’s 1999 or 2020, victims and participants of the most traumatic experience of the 20th century still need attention and care, and “The Last Full Measure” and so many top flight actors answered the call.

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Word Slingers: The Story of Self-Publishing - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Adam Shepard in ‘Word Slingers: The Story of Self-Publishing’

“Isn’t it amazing what we accomplish when we step outside of our comfort zones?”

Directed by: A. Brooks Bennett

Featuring: Barry Eisler, Giles Anderson (Andy Anderson0, Adam Shepard, Mark Coker, Bella Andre, Rob Hart, Dan Poynter, Ron Pramschufer, Rick Gualtieri

If you’ll allow me a personal anecdote, my experience with the Internet first came in 1994 as a college-bound freshman. The World Wide Web, which is what most ascribe to when they think of the Internet, was about six months off. In the meantime, we had email accounts as students, but I didn’t make much use of that account until my second year. When the likes of Netscape and Internet Explorer first hit campus, I looked with wild-eyed abandon at what was possible, but I didn’t do anything with it.

A Brooks Bennett’s “Word Slingers: The Story of Self-Publishing” brought out the wild-eyed abandon once again, both personally and professionally as he follows two struggling authors respective paths to finding success in a world that wasn’t ready for people to break away from the tightly-held conventions of the publishing world.

The documentary suggests that the age we live in right now, that of the self-publisher is not new. Think of Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin, two pioneers of the press – machinery, not the people – and with it, the tightly held convictions that limit potential many years later.

Adam Shepard is the first of two subjects that “Word Slingers” focuses on. Adam is a very driven individual, something Brooks latched on to in telling Adam’s journey, who took a year off and traveled the world, the ultimate basis for his novel. Adam is struggling to find the right way to get the book in front of readers.

With Adam, we understand his core values very quickly on, which makes watching his journey unfold all the more difficult, yet rewarding because he recognized his failures and built on them. However, his personal life, that of his émigré wife, Ivana, becomes secondary as they try to legally obtain her Green Card.

Brooks balances the two stories with professionals, like Dan Poynter and Barry Eisler, who have gone through the process and understand the struggle and the impact the Internet has had on commerce today, publishing and competition today.

Giles Anderson, or Andy as he likes to be known is the second subject of “Word Slingers.” His goal is the same as Adam’s, but he is a much more down-to-earth author, with much more realistic expectations out of the process. The subjects his books cover are non-fiction and along with his young family, he seeks more local in-roads and social media awareness as a form of marketing.

“Word Slingers” finds two common grounds in each of Adam’s and Andy’s journeys: the first is that they have a strong support network, even if it causes dissention between them and their respective partners. This builds on the foundation that the professionals expound upon – change is not easy and not everyone wants it, but it is omnipresent.

The second is how we measure success. Adam ultimately finds success in stepping out of his comfort zone, anecdotal evidence that supports my own personal journey. For Andy, it is knowing that his stories are finding an audience; something that he can build on slowly, but surely.

At the end of the day, “Word Slingers” reminds us that success isn’t necessarily a pocketful of money, but of finding oneself through life’s journeys and sharing that with the world.

Adam and Andy are a testament to that ideology.

3.75 out of 4

Citizen K - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Provided by Toronto International Film Festival

Directed by: Alex Gibney

Featuring: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Anton Drel, Maria Logan, Alexi Navainy, Tatyana Lysova, Leoid Nevzlin, Igor Malashenko

If there was a word to describe Alex Gibney’s “Citizen K,” it would be ‘intoxicating.’

Gibney’s documentary is the expose on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled enemy of Russia, specifically an enemy of Vladimir Putin and former oligarch to come out of the remains of the Soviet Union.

“Citizen K” is as much an intense geopolitical history lesson as it is a prescient look at how enterprise, government and media intersect one another amidst a power struggle for the hearts and minds of a people torn over the orderly past and a dynamic, but unsure future.

Khodorkovsky is presented as a very humble individual and very much aware of his surroundings. What Khodorkovsky is not is another Edward Snowden. Gibney’s documentary focuses on Khodorkovsky’s rise to prominence having started several businesses in the late 1980s, as he purchases oil fields under the name Yukos, leading to its attempted privatization. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Boris Yeltsin’s election as president of the Russian republic in 1991 fueled by a wave of high expectations that free enterprise could give rise to democracy, Khodorkovsky is a man who understands economics and has greed in his genes, leading to his position in the oligarchy.

As a way of implicating Khodorkovsky, “Citizen K” focuses on the collapse of every day citizen lives in Russia as the way in which the oligarchs swept through the State’s primary means of control, threatening livelihoods. Within the context of their efforts, Gibney ties Putin’s rise to Prime Minister, a man who has a way of relating to every kind of ideology while turning his back on his supposed friends and supporters.

With Putin’s ascendance to the presidency, power dynamics shift and Khodorkovsky becomes a target, ultimately landing him in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion. The theatrics of the courtroom are more of a punchline than they should be, but it reinforces just how much of a threat the oligarchs became to Putin as they were either murdered or jailed.

In prison, Khodorkovsky realizes his ability to help people lies not in controlling something, but in rallying the people to see what a monster Putin really is as Putin controls not only the resources that the oligarchs had, but also the media.

In much the same way we are divided over our own leaders, “Citizen K” strives to show just how much power the Russian government has over its own people. It takes the world stage, namely the Sochi Olympic Games for the West to force Putin’s hand in to giving these dissenters amnesty.

Freed, Khodorkovsky lives in London where his Open Russia, an organization dedicated to democracy and human rights in Russia; early in the documentary, he shares that he feels like a guest in London, something that Gibney circles back to when he focuses on the beginnings of Khodorkovsky’s life in exile. The Russian media’s slant against Khodorkovsky and the fact that his early attempts to rally his compatriots is less than ideal because he could not be present in their efforts against Putin are early struggles in building his message.

Whether “Citizen K” paints an accurate picture that his philanthropy is genuine, the tides that changed Khodorkovsky’s fortunes, both financially and personally, Gibney’s documentary rivals a John LeCarre or Tom Clancy novel in its intrigue and timeliness.

3.5 out of 4 stars

Les Misérables - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Courtesy of SRAB Films/Rectangle Productions/Lyly films

Surprise!  Oscar-nominated ‘Les Misérables’ is a gritty, non-musical crime drama

Directed by:  Ladj Ly

Written by:  Ladj Ly, Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti

Starring:  Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djibril Zonga, and Issa Perica

“Les Misérables” – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

Quoting – or to be more precise, partially-quoting - Dickens to kick off a “Les Misérables” movie review might be brazen, foolish and a bit sacrilegious, but after watching director Ladj Ly’s gutsy, modern take on Victor Hugo’s celebrated novel, it also feels apropos. 

For Issa (Issa Perica), a young Parisian teen, life is the best of times and also the worst.  France just won the 2018 World Cup, and the nation celebrates!  In Paris, Parisians are dizzy and giddy with pure unsullied bliss.  Issa, his friends and thousands and thousands of smiling locals rush the streets, surround cafes, gather at Jardins du Trocadero with the Eiffel Tower proudly fixed in the background, and flood Champs-Élysées with the equally famous Arc de Triomphe that offers a striking spectacle of superb salutations. 

Ly’s camera captures white faces, brown faces and every shade in between in the massive crowds and intimate close-ups of this positive, carnival-like atmosphere, as the city’s citizens toss aside any and all physical, monetary, cultural barriers and embrace one another. 

Although the enjoyable World Cup hangover will last for years and years, reality also arrives the very next day after the big win.  Issa lives in Les Bosquets, a struggling, neglected suburb east of Paris, where cracked concrete, broken windows and kilometers of graffiti are the most notable elements of the landscape, and he frequently embraces trouble, including theft.  Most recently, Issa inexplicably steals a bag of hens, which naturally triggers a trip to the police station.

A bag of hens?   

Issa’s continued mischief will also, unfortunately, fall into the collective purview of police officers Stephane (Damien Bonnard), Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djibril Zonga).  It’s Stephane’s (Damien Bonnard) first day on the city’s anti-crime task force, and he’s paired with Chris and Gwada, who have patrolled these streets for about 10 years. 

Hardened and bitter, Chris fears no repercussions for bullying the folks in Les Bosquets, including taunting a 15-year-old girl at a bus stop and smashing her friend’s phone to bits.  And Gwada?  Well, he’s – figuratively and literally - just going along for the ride and is complicit with his silence. 

Certainly, Ly’s film channels obvious parallels to Hugo’s original work, including the prime location, a police manhunt (or in this case, a boyhunt) and a sincere focus on the underprivileged, but instead of a more traditional telling of “Les Misérables”, it seems like a French grandson of director Dennis Hopper’s “Colors” (1988).  Just as Los Angeles police officers Bob Hodges (Robert Duvall) and Danny McGavin (Sean Penn) walk along moral compass edges of South Central Los Angeles in the late 1980s, Chris, Gwana and Stephane march in the grooves of Les Bosquets in 2018. 

No, Chris is not throwing bodies into the Catacombs, as they did during the French Revolution (which incidentally is not the timeframe of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables”), but he inflicts caustic, twisted logic to keep the peace, which of course, has the opposite effect. 

“Les Misérables” is a sobering, present-day crime drama, and it’s not a musical at all.  Not at all.  Instead, it teases a troubling butterfly effect from one ill-behaved action, and along the way, Ly – who grew up in Les Bosquets - introduces several struggling, supporting characters with hip names like Buzz, Zorro, Slim, Salah, and the Mayor.  They, along with Issa, cope with their trying surroundings and form necessary creeds that are uniquely understood in Les Bosquets and other similar neighborhoods from around the globe.

Hugo understood these principles too.

“People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them.” – Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables”

(3.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Bad Boys for Life - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in ‘Bad Boys for Life’.

Directed by: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Screenplay by: Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan, Story by: Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan

Based on Characters by: George Gallo

Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Paola Nunez, Kate del Castillo, Jacob Scipio

As I get older, it has been a pleasure to watch films whose intent is to recognize that its stars are not ageless.

In the case of “Bad Boys for Life,” co-directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah charge headstrong into a story that reflects this mode of thought. Long gone are the characters created by George Gallo but the script by Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan really drives home the theme through our legacies, both good and bad.

“Bad Boys for Life” suffers because of those charges.

It’s not that the mode of thought is incorrect. Rather, Mike Lawrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), who have been partners on the Miami PD force for the better part of 24 years, haven’t aged gracefully and they don’t accept their characters’ legacies with as much grace as, say Riggs and Murtaugh from “Lethal Weapon,” which felt like a huge influence on this film.

Marcus, who has found religion once again, is now a grandfather. We can see him fit easily into the retirement he has planned for himself and being a grandfather. But, Mike’s past catches up with him forcing Marcus out of fogginess of feigned retirement.

El Arbi and Fallah use some fancy editing techniques to build up sympathies for our favorite duo and for the most part, it works. They get some laughs out of us and in the end, we appreciate our intrepid heroes more than we have in the past. Joe Pantoliano steps back into the shoes of Captain Howard just perfectly, along with the requisite Pepto.

As the story gets more personal, our duo step up their game. The team assembled to support Lowrey and Burnett in this round offer some levity, especially Dom (Alexander Ludwig), Rafe (Charles Melton) and Rita (Paola Nunez) under the command of Vanessa Hudgens’s Kelly. In layering those characters and their antics, they have become more cardboard props than anything else, but they do alleviate the tension.

Lowrey’s legacy is just as important an element to the film as it was for Burnett. However, once the duo get ramped up, implications behind the brazen attacks on Lowrey’s history get fuzzy; the “optics” become less clear, blurred by frenetic editing that doesn’t do the story justice.

This isn’t to say that the film’s outcome is any less important, something that has been reflected in Will Smith’s roles since he returned from retirement last summer. In that regard, Kate del Castillo’s Isabel Aretas and Armando Aretas (Jacob Scipio) made for formidable enemies.

There’s a pivotal moment in the film where the context of legacy changes and while it might have sounded really strong on paper, it changes the flavor of the film unnecessarily.

The third act benefits the most from Robrecht Heyvaert’s cinematography along with Lorne Balfe’s score, but the heavy handed editing made me feel like I was watching “A Good Day to Die Hard” all over again: bloviated action and frenetic pacing while abandoning the elements of the story that did work.

The fact that “Bad Boys for Life” is better than “Bad Boys II” says something about the story, the themes and the characters themselves; however, the film being ceremoniously put into a January slot is usually a death knell. Sony was hedging its bets that it would  overperform like “Escape Room” this same time last year. If the first third of the film, which was fun and energetic, is any indication of what Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are truly capable of, then their own legacy is worth looking at. If we get more of the last act from them, then serious doubts emerge.

“Bad Boys for Life” suffers no fools: this uneven tale of legacies is certainly worth checking out on the big screen.

2.5 stars out of 4

Clemency - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Alfre Woodard and Alex Castillo in ‘Clemency’. Photo Credit: NEON Studios.

Woodard commands the screen with steely and hazy gazes on capital punishment in ‘Clemency’

Written and directed by:  Chinonye Chukwu

Starring:  Alfre Woodard, Aldis Hodge, Wendell Pierce, and Richard Schiff

“Clemency” – For Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), his days in prison are lengthy and torturous.  Each drab minute feels like the next, because sitting in a 10-by-10 foot cell day after day, week after week, and month after month does nothing to spur joy or optimism. 

Time has become his sworn enemy, packaged as a double-edged sword, because the seemingly endless moments are also brutally finite. 

Anthony is on death row, and he unenviably stands next in line.

Warden Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard) is enduring troubling days of her own.  She bears the constant burden of managing her prison, that houses over a thousand incarcerated souls, by proficiently and gracefully clamping a lid on a potentially explosive jar, one constructed of concrete and fortified with steel.  Her employees’ routines are methodical and organized, and the incarcerated residents surprisingly and amicably avoid trouble. 

An odd, invisible haze of calm floats everywhere. 

Calm, but no peace.   

Director Chinonye Chukwu’s measured prison drama “Clemency” delivers an effective, deep character study, but she takes a fresh, uncommon approach.  Although Anthony greatly figures into the film’s narrative, this is mainly Bernadine’s journey, as Woodard steps into a thorny, introspective role and commands a standout, Oscar-worthy performance that was not quite recognized by the Academy in a crowded year for actresses. 

Chukwu spoke at a New Directors/New Films event in March 2019 and discussed her focus on Bernadine.

“I thought that it would be a much more complicated, nuanced way of examining the cost of incarceration and capital punishment through one of the perpetrators of that system.  I think that it’s a perspective we haven’t seen before,” she said.

Films like “Dead Man Walking” (1995), “The Green Mile” (1999) and most recently “Just Mercy” (2020) feature convicts staring at death’s door, and complimentary characters – a nun, prison guard and lawyer, respectively - stand by their sides.   Far more than friendly faces, they are allies.  Tim Robbins’ “Dead Man Walking” might just be the most emotionally effective in portraying a relationship between ally and inmate, as Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) helped admitted killer Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) recapture his humanity.

Bernadine has no such luxury to not only govern the institution but also offer personal reassurances to her death row constituents.  It’s just not her place.  Stoic and regimented, she must leave her feelings at the door.  She’s also courteous and professional but does not bend the rules, and why should she?  If a man ran the show, compassion and empathy certainly would not be expected.  Chukwu plays against expected-type with Bernadine, as she’s a woman overseeing a male prison, and furthermore, her husband Jonathan (Wendell Pierce) has a much more empathetic, altruistic vocation.  He teaches high school. 

With such a trying profession, Chukwu and Woodard demonstrate that Bernadine needs daily releases to cope, even if she does not fully recognize the negatives.  Her marriage becomes widely exposed to collateral damage, and she also regularly indulges in an unhealthy daily practice (that will not be named in this review) that isn’t helpful to her personal life, but she needs something to offset her 9-to-5 days. 

Bernadine’s days mostly remain free from drama, but with men waiting for - and fearing - an executioner pointing a judging, threatening finger in their direction, prepare for a couple explosive moments.  Otherwise, the narrative is purposely filled with quiet, long stretches, where gray, everyday conversations encircle and encapsulate the grave surroundings, along with patient camerawork that is not afraid to sit and wait with the detained characters.  

Although he could be saved by a miracle, Anthony awaits his - most likely - doomed fate, and so does the audience and his lawyer (Richard Schiff), who seems eternally defeated after the government has put too many of his clients to death over the past couple decades.

Accordingly to Google, 29 states carry the death penalty, and this unnamed prison in an unnamed state does not resemble a place for hope.  “Clemency” is an anti-capital punishment movie that sets a decided bleak tone from the very beginning, and we – through pure necessity – lean on Bernadine to carry us through to the very end, even though it is obvious that she silently grapples with her chosen universe. 

She just might be imprisoned as well.  If so, can she escape? 

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Just Mercy - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan in ‘Just Mercy’.

Directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton

Screenplay by: Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham, based on “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by: Bryan Stevenson

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, Brie Larson

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of Truth. ~ Albert Einstein

Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Just Mercy,” a story of a wrongfully accused African-American man sitting on death row and the idealistic Bryan Stevenson’s, played deftly by Michael B. Jordan, attempts to prove that innocence in the Deep South plays to our modern sympathies in a most unique and compelling fashion.

Cretton clearly defines the screen version of Stevenson within the first few frames of the film. Although he is an idealist from the underserved Milton, Delware, we first see Stevenson in a death row prison, though he is not a lawyer. When he delivers news to an inmate, something that gives such relief to the prisoner, Stevenson knows that he is on the right path to serving those who cannot help themselves.

“Just Mercy” is more than just Stevenson’s journey. We get a glimpse in to how African Americans were treated in the Deep South in the late 1980’s, impediments that would later be used to slow down his efforts to free Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a small business owner who is detained for the 1986 murder of a white woman and is ultimately sentenced to death.

The film is ultimately an actor’s showcase. As Stevenson, Jordan wears his emotions on his sleeves, showcasing his range since his biggest hits have come from a pair of boxing gloves; his imposing figure strengthened by his courage and restraint while showing empathy for his cause, building our sympathies to not only his own struggles, but that of his client.

Jamie Foxx, who has been nominated with a Supporting Actor nomination from both SAG and the African-American Film Critics Association is deservedly so. We’ve seem his restraint before in films like “Collateral.” With this performance, he has to intentionally keep his guard up at every corner, even as he supports fellow inmates, Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan) and Anthony Ray Hinton (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.)

The story by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, who collaborated with Cretton on “The Glass Castle” eventually breaks down the psychological barriers of isolation within Walter as he realizes that Bryan is the real deal, not some other shyster promising the moon, only to fail to deliver it.

We don’t blame Walter for his reticence, but the family, a wife twice scorned still stands by his side. They are the hope that something good can come out of this. Cretton reminds us, rather painfully, of the failure that Stevenson must endure before he finds his true path forward.

Brie Larson as Eva Ansley is by Stevenson’s side all throughout the case. As his assistant, we even see the struggles she endures to find an office for them to work in. The role eventually fades in to the background to support Stevenson. Rafe Spall plays Tommy Champan, the District Attorney who is as much a roadblock as any, though we see just the smallest waver in the attitude toward the case.

The story meanders just a bit to get to the heart of McMillan’s case, though it goes to build the credibility that hope is not worn on a shoestring, but on the backs of every single individual in a community.

“Just Mercy” is hope personified in courage in the face of adversity. Jamie Foxx remains a strong player and Michael B. Jordan personifies Einstein’s quote – we must question everything, but we must also be prepared to defend our questioning.

3.5 out of 4 stars

Like a Boss - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Rose Byrne and Tiffany Haddish in ‘Like a Boss’.

‘Like a Boss’ should be fired

Directed by:  Miguel Arteta

Written by:  Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly

Starring:  Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Billy Porter, Jennifer Coolidge, and Salma Hayek

“Like a Boss” – “Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had.  I've been with you such a long time.  You're my sunshine, and I want you to know that my feelings are true.  I really love you.  Oh, you're my best friend.” – Queen, “You’re My Best Friend” (1975)  

Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) are best friends and have been for decades.  Now, while their gal pals are scoring big jobs, getting married or having kids, Mia and Mel are housemates and share a bathroom, Brady Bunch-style.  These two girls are pushing 40, but they frequent recreational drugs and random one-night stands through the joy of singledom, but arrested development also flies as their trusty co-pilot. 

They do, however, show some semblance of adulthood, because they own a make-up store, which they built on a foundation of love.  Love doesn’t exactly pay the bills though, because they are nearly half a million dollars in debt.  Thankfully, cosmetic icon Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) solves their financial woes by buying 49 percent of their company. 

Little do Mia and Mel know that Ms. Luna carries nefarious intentions, so how will their little corner of the world (or Atlanta, to be precise) and their friendship survive?

Their future looks bleak and – most unfortunately - so does this comedy’s hope for big laughs and rewards, because “Like a Boss” is an unfunny clown show that will most likely disappoint its target audience. 

Look, director Miguel Arteta’s movie features two very likable comedic actresses, whose characters own a make-up company.  A make-up company!   This translates to girlfriends, mothers and daughters planning dinner-and-movie dates at thousands of cineplexes.  Who could blame them?  On the surface, “Like a Boss” hits all kinds of girly-beats, but most of the film’s laughs can be enjoyed in the 2-minute 18-second trailer.  

What about the actual movie, this potential wonder of feminine bliss?  Well, the chuckles start to wane after the first 20 minutes, and the remaining 60 are largely spent feeling pity for Haddish and Byrne.  

This pair has great chemistry, and they seem to be having a blast when shooting the breeze about dream-sex and smoking weed.  Although the fun – for them and the audience – comes to a screeching halt once Claire appears.  She forces Mia and Mel to drum up new business ideas, which is not their expert forte.  So the cheery shenanigans suddenly morphs into dull idea generation and bickering.

So unless one’s idea of groundbreaking comedy is cutting up a hot pepper, placing it in your best friend’s food and watching her suffer in agony, this film is a painful exercise, as we sit there and wish that these women starred in a better movie. 

The movie’s arc feels similar to Amy Schumer’s vehicle “I Feel Pretty” (2018), but at least Michelle Williams – in that film – dove into unique territory with one of the strangest performances of her career.  Hayek is an engaging actress, but her mean-rich girl act gets old after Claire’s second insult, and she doesn’t project enough villainy to feel empathy for Mia and Mel. 

Strange, because Hayek terrified every man on the planet as a dancer-turned-demon in “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996). 

Well, “Like a Boss” may not introduce twisted, supernatural ghouls, but screenwriters Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly certainly pile on crass, warped adult humor in spades, as they absolutely earn the film’s R-rating with content that would make 1982-Eddie Murphy blush.  

So, as a public service announcement: if moms must see this movie, leave the kids at home.  For girlfriends, perhaps call up one another and cancel this particular dinner-movie night.

Think of it as a needed obligation, because hey, that’s what friends do!

(1.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Midnight Family - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival.

Written and Directed by: Luke Lorentzen

Featuring:  Fer Ochoa, Josue Ochoa, Juan Ochoa

“Mexico City has fewer than 45 government ambulances for 9 million people.” That’s a scary proposition when you consider what happens if an emergency happens.

The Ochoas are as hardworking as anyone in Mexico City. As Documentarian Luke Lorentzen quickly establishes though, they are struggling to make ends meet in the fiercely competitive for-profit field of Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) who support the needs of a thriving community.

The tax revenue that Mexico City provides for emergency medical services can offer only so much support, and have limited resources to respond. In its place, people like the Ochoas spend much of their late nights and early mornings on a side street, glued to a CB radio for notices of patients in need.

Interestingly, their time is spent in a more affluent part of Mexico City where the patients can afford to pay directly out of pocket. As the nights go by though, the Ochoas encounter challenges with getting the patients to pay up. They aren’t confrontational about the need for payment; they are still focused on getting the best possible health care for their patients, finding the right hospitals.

Lorentzen contrasts the type of patients the Ochoas find with their own financial struggles. At one point, the cost of operating the ambulance, even after being detained illegally by the Mexico City police and having to pay a fine to get themselves out of trouble for not having the correct supplies on board, is even a factor.

“Midnight Family” not only exposes the Ochoas’ financial plight, but the lack of governance over these programs as the police enforce lax and or changing policies that the Ochoas simply cannot keep up with. The Ochoas make the best of the situation though and that’s the most endearing trait – they are a true family unit watching out for one another.

Even as they struggle, their reaction time to a call was exceptionally fast. “Midnight Family” explores the competitiveness of the cottage private ambulance industry as the Ochoas rely on technology and, ultimately, each other to outwit the competition through back streets deep in Mexico City.

Lorentzen also acts as his own cinematographer, which won him acclaim from the film’s Sundance premiere a year ago. His editing along with that of his co-editor Paloma López really heightens the tension between the race to take care of a patient and the issues that make their lives that much more challenging.

“Midnight Family” offers hope that there are better ways of taking care of its citizens. For the Ochoas there is a satisfaction in the struggle, but we know it wears on them. For the citizens of Mexico City, and the government, support is available when resources are stretched to their limit.

3 out of 4 stars

Underwater - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel in ‘Underwater’.

Dir: William Eubank

Starring: Kristen Stewart, T.J. Miller, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie

The tagline for the 1979 horror-science fiction classic “Alien” was “In space no one can hear you scream”. The vastness of outer space, it’s deep dark nowhere, provided a film with a concept of a single alien lifeform threatening the lives of a crew on a commercial space vessel with an atmosphere and tone that is completely a horror film.

The influence of “Alien” on William Eubank’s new film “Underwater” are easily identifiable, except this film takes places in the immense depth of the ocean seabed, it’s sunken murky nowhere, that provides this film with a terrifying, claustrophobic environment where a crew on a deep-water aquatics research facility discover a new species of ancient water humanoids. The tagline, slightly modified, aptly applies here too, “On the ocean floor no one can hear you scream”.

Seven miles beneath the water an engineer named Norah (Kristen Stewart) is quietly making her way around a bathroom. She spots a spider stuck in the sink and helps it to freedom, sparing its life if only for a moment. Norah hears something strange, a creaking noise and then shaking that turns into a catastrophic event for the vessel. Norah barely escapes, saving the life of a coworker and then proceeds to search for escape and other survivors. But something strange is happening outside the vessel, in the darkness of the ocean floor something has awakened.

“Underwater” recognizes the kind of the film it is trying to be, quite simply a good ol’ fashioned monster movie that happens underwater. And, it makes use of it’s simple premise by creating opportunities to craft tension with its unique environment and offering a nice blend of thrills and jump scares that are accommodated by some really great creature designs that are slowly revealed. There are few scenes in the muddy and cloudy water when some of the action is hard to distinguish but this embellishment within the scene also allows the creatures to be gradually discovered, which is a nice touch in building expectations and surprises throughout.

The film starts in the quiet, but this only lasts for a few moments as everything soon ramps into high gear action. And when the quicker pacing arrives it doesn’t let up, instead it builds with different set pieces that each offer a new challenge for the characters to survive. Whether an underwater walk in near darkness or the quick escape from a falling vessel, it works in keeping the attention off the barebones narrative.

The narrative is filled with unnecessary science components that only create distracting questions and the characters are more plot devices than emotional beings. However, Kristen Stewart, through her interesting performance, does a nice job of adding some emotional depth to her leading character. T.J. Miller, who usually does of nice job of being comic relief, feels out of place amongst the other characters in this film. The jokes he makes fall flat in many scenes and his character doesn’t seem to fit in amongst supporting characters. Vincent Cassel is also stuck in a strange place in this film, playing a character that has an emotional back story that is only hinted at. For most of the film Mr. Cassel’s character, which could be the most interesting, is pushed into the background or forced to spout information to keep the narrative moving.

“Underwater” doesn’t spend much time developing a complicated narrative, instead it focuses on being a fun, mostly thrilling, sometimes scary, monster movie that has some interesting designs to watch development and consume the screen. Kristen Stewart holds this film together with her interesting performance, even with the limited character development available. “Underwater” is an entertaining addition to the aquatic horror genre.

Monte’s Rating
3.50 out of 5.00

1917 - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman in ‘1917’.

‘1917’ is a must-see on the big screen

Directed by:  Sam Mendes

Written by:  Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Starring:  Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay

“1917” – “I wanted you to feel like you were there with the characters, breathing their every breath, walking in their footsteps. The best way to do that is not to cut away and give the audience a way out, as it were.” -  Sam Mendes, Variety, Dec. 5, 2019

One military order.

Director Sam Mendes’ “1917” can be summed up as one military order carried out by two British lance corporals through No Man’s Land and beyond at the height of WWI.  On the surface, this seems like a conventional WWI story, but there are real reasons that this film won the Best Picture – Drama and Best Director Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 5, 2020, because “1917” is unlike any war movie that you’ve ever seen.

It’s a spectacular, harrowing and most unique war experience that is part frightening, part courageous and wholly unforgettable. 

The camera apparently walks, steps, jumps, and runs next to the two young protagonists - Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) – as Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins give the audience a first-person perspective of the soldiers’ journey to the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment’s position.  Blake and Schofield need to warn their British brothers of a German ambush, but their passage appears to miraculously unfold on-screen as one continuous shot over the film’s 118-minute runtime.  

Now, “1917” is not one continuous shot over two hours.  Instead, it’s a series of individual shots that run for perhaps 6 to 10 minutes at a time (and maybe longer), much like Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” (2014).  Mendes’ film, however, isn’t set in a Broadway theatre, but in spacious French plains (actually filmed in the UK) with much of the land under hideous distress, so the logistical complications become immeasurably more vast for Mendes.  Whether Blake and Schofield are climbing down into an empty German base that looks like a post-apocalyptic open pit mine or hiking next to a wretched muddy pond, littered with corpses, the filmmakers have no easy time shadowing the actors. 

The narrative is also a stressful race against time, because Blake and Schofield need to reach the 2nd Battalion before the 1,600 soldiers attempt to strike against the Germans, which will surely be a suicide mission. 

The script throws other obstacles in the young men’s way, but the camera never leaves their sides.  The audience does not see or hear other soldiers, banter, fights, or anything else that Blake and Schofield do not see or hear, so it truly feels like we are with them, as noted in Mendes’ aforementioned quote. 

As one would expect, Chapman and MacKay – by clearly demonstrating their characters’ fear, apprehension, but also valor in the face of danger – deliver utterly convincing performances.  Since the two actors are not widely-known household names, they bring an everyman vibe to the picture that speaks to the many, many young men who fought in WWI.

One of those young men was Mendes’ grandfather Alfred, who enlisted at 17, and he was Mendes’ inspiration to direct and co-write “1917”.

“He was a small man, and they used to send him with messages because he ran 5 ½ feet, and the mist used to hang at about 6 feet in No Man’s Land, so he wasn’t visible above the mist.  And that stayed with me.  And that was the story I found I wanted to tell,” Mendes said in a Dec. 21, 2019 NPR interview.

(Note: Mendes’ film is not an actual account of a particular mission, but inspired by one of his grandfather’s roles in the war.)

With Mendes’ personal connection to WWI, the apparent one continuous shot and astonishing visuals accompanied by Thomas Newman’s thundering and emotive score, “1917” is a must-see movie, and please, watch it on the big screen.  It’s the best way to walk in Blake’s and Schofield’s footsteps.

(4/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.