Friday, September 17, 2010

THE TOWN


There are many scenes in 'The Town' that make you want to yell out to the screen, warn the characters of what's to come, knowing that you know something that they don't, that allow you to get sucked into the movie and the outcome of the characters.  Whether what we're feeling is fear, anger, joy...whatever - is inconsequential.  We're forced to feel something, which to me, is all you can really ask from a good movie.  To actually care about what happens on the screen.  We can thank Jeremy Renner for most of those feelings in 'The Town'.

Being Charlestown born and raised, I of course couldn't wait to see this movie.  I was intrigued to see how 2nd time director (Gone Baby Gone) and Cambridge born Ben Affleck would handle the intricacies and uniqueness that is Charlestown, and what his vision of real Townies would look like and act like.  Doug MacRay (Affleck) and Jimmy 'Jem' Coughlin (Renner) have the look and mannerisms down.  Totally casual, Bruins t-shirts, Townie sweatshirts, Red Sox jackets - the only thing missing were the Girbaud jeans.  Surprisingly, Affleck's accent seems forced though, but Renner's, while slightly over the top, actually comes across as fairly legit. 

The story itself is about MacRay, Coughlin, and two of their other buddies who rob banks and armored cars, and all hail from Charlestown.  MacRay's the brains, Coughlin's the brawn, and FBI Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) is the foil.  Frawley's onto them, but doesn't have enough hard evidence to pick them up or put them away.  MacRay ends up falling for Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), a bank manager that Coughlin took hostage during one of their hits, and the movie unfolds with Doug trying to keep his identity to Keesey a secret while hiding the relationship from Coughlin.

Unfortunately for me, I read Chuck Hogan's book 'The Prince of Thieves' (the book on which the movie is based) right before seeing the movie, so I couldn't help but do the whole "That's not what happens in the book!" dance the entire time.  I really wish I hadn't read it first, if only because, and I hate to be 'that guy', but the book was infinitely better than the movie.  Don't get me wrong, I can only imagine the difficulty in transforming 360 pages into a 2 hour movie while trying to capture the essence of the characters, but there was so much that got left out, the excellent human interest story that was book got lost in a hail of machine gun fire in the movie. 

Affleck went full on Hollywood here, going for car chases and gun battles rather than showing some restraint and allowing the Affleck / Hall story to unfold more slowly, letting us really feel the struggle that MacRay feels in trying to please his buddies while looking to move on with his life.  Looking past the simple question of 'why' MacRay would ever even try to develop a relationship with the one person that could point him out to the authorities, the story is interesting in and of itself. Additionally, it allows us to see MacRay (the bad guy trying to become a good guy) as the protagonist in the film, with is best friend, Coughlin, as the clear antagonist.  Keeps your friends close, and your enemies closer.....

As Jem, Renner is even better here than he was in The Hurt Locker.  He's unpredictable, vulgar, rude, and an all around jerk.  You can't help but feel genuinely uncomfortable every time he's on the screen.  In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Affleck's MacRay tells Renner's Coughlin, "I need to ask you a favor, but I can't tell you why and you can never ask me about it.  But we're gonna go hurt somebody".  Coughlin's answer? "Who's car are we taking?".  Perfect.  My hope is that Renner will be considered for a Best Supporting Actor award here.  Pete Postlethewaite is also great as an old time 'Town guy who gets kicks backs on the jobs that Affleck and his crew pull off.

Ok, so overall....what did I think?  I liked it.  I really liked it for what it was, which is a shoot 'em up heist movie, set in Boston.  It was absolutely a kick to see so many shots of Charlestown, some of it's residents (hey, that's Jack Schievink!), and get the feeling that I was able to pick up on things that the other 300 people in the theater didn't pick up on.  If the movie was set in Portland and everyone was trying to pull off whatever accent people in Oregon might have - I undoubtedly wouldn't have cared half as much.  That being said - I'm from Charlestown, and this is as close to a 'Charlestown movie' as we're probably going to see.

Affleck did put it in a nice dedication at the beginning of the credits to the good people of Charlestown, telling the world that despite the material and bad name that a film like this could give to such a small town, that Charlestown was full of some of the best and hardest working folks around.  Good people.  Real people.  In fact, anyone who sees this movie will get several bird's eye views of Charlestown and Boston, as Affleck grossly overuses the 'panaromic helicopter view of the city' shot. 

I wanted to...REALLY wanted to love this movie.  I highly enjoyed the book, and would have loved to have seen a movie that followed the book to a tee.  Having said that, it's a fun movie, it's a funny movie (way more laughs that I would have ever thought, the best one coming from MacRay's dad in prison, when talking about how things were going at MCI Walpole - "It's not like it used to be Dougie. F'n Southie punks are trying to take everything over" - even in the movies, Southie comes in 2nd to Charlestown..), and it's a great popcorn movie.  As long as you don't go in expecting the 2nd coming of The Departed, you'll be fine.  I'll go 4 out of 5 stars due to the location, but I'd be surprised if anyone outside of Greater Boston would go above 3.5.  If you're from around here, you should definitely go see it. 

Thursday, September 16, 2010

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS


Many months ago, when this movie was out in the theaters, a friend of mine told me she was going to see it with her boyfriend.  Big stars, previews looked funny...I was eagerly anticipating her thoughts on the film the next day.  Her exact words - "That sucked".  Well.....OK then.....  So it's taken me about 6 months to finally get to see it, and I have to say that while I don't totally agree with her assessment, the movie is definitely not for everyone.

'The Men Who Stare At Goats' stars George Clooney and Ewan McGregor, with help from Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, and is not, in effect, really about goats at all.  Bob Wilton (McGregor) is a down on his luck journalist looking for one big story to get him back into the good graces of his estranged wife, basically to prove his worth as a man.  As a result, he goes into Iraq to cover the war, where he meets Lyn Cassidy (Clooney).  Clooney is an ex-army soldier, who was trained in 'New Earth Army' by his superior officer Bill Django (Bridges).  Through a series of flashbacks, we get to see that The New Earth Army that Django teaches focuses on mind warfare as opposed to physical strength.  The men are being trained to be Jedi's (which is really funny as a running joke in the film, especially as McGregor played Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films).

The men have been trained to 'remote view' other locations to find missing soldiers, see and walk through walls, become invisible, etc...etc....  Wilton believes none of this, and after getting into misadventure after misadventure with Cassidy, has plenty of reason for doubt.  Wilton and Clooney eventually find Django and Hooper (Spacey) working on the same techniques in the remote desert. 

The problem, I think, with the movie is that it fluctuates between being a straight comedy, to a satire, to somewhat of a drama, back to a comedy, and back to a satire.  The movie doesn't culminate as much as crawl to a conclusion. I did find it pretty funny at times, and I suppose it could be categorized as a sort of dark satire.  Oh yeah, and there is some staring at goats, so we got that going for us...which is nice.

Like I said, I didn't hate it, but I can definitely see why someone paying money to see it in a movie theater would be grossly disappointed.  It's a very odd movie, that never really lets you get comfortable with any style of film.  You keep waiting for something to happen that will let you ease into the movie...but it never comes.  I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5, realizing that this isn't for everyone.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

OUR FAMILY WEDDING


A few weeks ago when I rented Hot Tub Time Machine, one of the previews before the movie was for Our Family Wedding.  To me, it looked like a straight to DVD comedy that I'd of had no interest in seeing, but my wife laughed, and laughed and laughed at the trailer.....and asked me to get the movie from Netflix.  Absolutely no way.  There was no way I was renting this low budget crappy comedy that I'd never heard of, based on one 'seen it all' slapstick trailer.  No way..

So, we watched the film the other night....of course we did.  And.....there's nothing new here.  Guy and girl fall in love.  Guy is black, girl is Latino.  Latino family can't believe she's going to marry a black guy.  Black guy's family can't believe he's marrying into a crazy Latino family.  And around and around we go...... This movie had more stereotype jokes than Blazing Saddles.

Lance Gross plays the lead role opposite America Ferrera (Ugly Betty).  Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia play the equally crazed fathers, who after a bit of a run-in early in the movie, cannot stand each other.  Whitaker and Mencia end up being the focus of the movie, each getting small sub-plots (both romantically based) that show their shortcomings, but allowing them both to atone and make reparations in the end.

Aside from the 'been there done that' plot of the film, the main problem I have with the movie is in the editing.  It was brutal.  I'm not sure that the filmmakers had ever heard of the word 'segway' or 'lead up' to and from a scene.  You went from a scene in a bakery, straight to a garage, back to the house, over to the other house, once more in the garage.....  No segway or flow whatsoever.  The film really misses the mark in this sense, and makes for a generally unfunny and cliche movie.

Did I laugh a few times?  Sure.  Did I hate myself for it?  Absolutely.  2 out of 5 stars.  I'm sorry, I simply can't recommend this one at all.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

GOTHIKA


Yeah...I know this movie came out like 7 years ago, but I had never seen it and it was on HBO this morning so I figured I'd waste an hour and a half and check it out.  I like these type of psychological thrillers, so I was hoping this would be pretty good.  While it was pretty suspenseful at times, the first half of the movie drags on and on, and the 2nd half unfolds with utter confusion and little makes sense.

Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is a psychiatrist at a mental hospital/prison that has some major, major electrical problems (the prison that is, not Halle).  She leaves work one night, in a driving rainstorm of course, sees a girl in the middle of the road, and drives her car off the road into a ditch.  Next thing you know, she wakes up as a patient in the same hospital, with little memory of what happened.  She's told that her husband is dead, butchered even, and the bad news is that she's the only suspect.

Grey is intent on proving her innocence, which gets increasingly difficult with each ghost sighting and apparition she encounters.  Penelope Cruz co-stars as a fellow patient seeing and feeling the same hallucinations as well.  This is where the plot comes completely undone and the movie unravels.  Grey manages to escape from the prison, realizes the horror of what she's done, and uncovers a shocking secret of her former husband.

The problem I have with the film is that while the first half of the movie bores,  the second half the movie makes no sense.  How she uncovers what transpired is ridiculous and is very confusing.  Furthermore, Robert Downey Jr.'s  talent and character (fellow Dr. Pete Graham) are wasted in the film.

I found some of the shock and scare tactics a bit heavy handed, but I'll admit that there were times I felt genuinely uncomfortable.  I just wish the movie made more sense.  Not highly recommended for this one.  2.5 out of 5 stars...