Review: "Blackhat"

Director: Michael Mann
Runtime: 133 minutes

Exceedingly timely but sloppily written, Michael Mann's Blackhat applies the director's formidable style to a stagnant narrative populated by directionless characters. The nature of digital security is a rich field for storytelling, but it doesn't always lend itself to visually stimulating cinema. Though there's talk of hacking and computer manipulation in Blackhat, the film works best when Mann goes into full-on action movie territory. With the sound of guns firing and glass shattering, one is briefly snapped out of the borderline inert character drama.

To his credit, Mann does a solid job in the opening sequence, in which he visualizes the electronic pulses that take place in computer hardware that leads to the meltdown of a Chinese nuclear reactor. Chinese agent Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) leads the investigation, and soon contacts his American counterpart, Carol Barrett (Viola Davis). But Chen has more on his mind that international cooperation. He wants his former roommate, convicted hacker Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) furloughed from jail so that he can assist in tracking down the source of the reactor hack. In addition to Hathaway's personal ties to the basic coding used to attack the reactor, Chen also believes that it will take a blackhat hacker to stop another blackhat hacker. 

Except that Hemsworth's Hathaway never feels like much of a blackhat at all. Greyhat or even off-whitehat would be more accurate. Hathaway puts up little resistance to the terms of his furlough, and mostly just does what he's supposed to. Early on, he defines himself as the sort of man who owns up to what he's done. His political and idealogical leanings are nonexistent, leaving Hemsworth with little to work with other than a hunky hero halfheartedly pretending to be an anti-hero. The actor likely spent more time maintaining his Thor physique than the script spent developing his character.

Despite the globetrotting that follows (Chicago, LA, Hong Kong, Jakarta), dramatic inertia sets in all-too-fast once the world's most insanely ripped hacker is sent on the hunt (probation officer in tow, of course). Blackhat's plot could have been accomplished with little more than people sitting behind computers, and forgoing the travel expenses. Were there some life or some sense of wit to the characters, the needless foreign excursions would be less of a problem. But Morgan Davis Foehl's script saddles every character with dialogue that is either functional or weighed down by tech-heavy jargon. 

The diverse, international cast (including Wei Tang as Lien, Chen's sister) should be a draw, but every cast member looks bored from the get-go. It's understandable why these actors would jump at the chance to work with a director like Mr. Mann, but the regret at signing onto this script is often palpable. Early on, one can catch glimpses of the actors latching onto the tiniest moments that allow them to be genuinely expressive. Sadly, those moments evaporate at a frightening speed. Viola Davis, who injects such vivacity into her roles merely by showing up, has never looked less engaged with her material. Hemsworth and Tang don't fare any better with their tacked-on, passionless romance. Their fling best summarizes Blackhat: stagnant, devoid of energy, and unconvincing. 

Were Blackhat striving to be a big, over-the-top action thriller, the story and these characters could have worked. But, because they're caught between mainstream storytelling and vaguely existential aspirations, the film merely lumbers along for a needless amount of time (133 minutes). The film is so heavy, and so dour that it's neither engaging as a serious-minded thriller nor as a gloriously overwrought tough-guy action flick.

Technical aspects are hit and miss as well. The film works best when it's reliant strictly on visuals, and not actually moving the plot forward. Standout sections include a brutal gunfight near a Hong Kong harbor, and a tense expedition that involves navigating through the destroyed nuclear reactor. Stuart Dryburgh's grimy digital imagery is at its best here, lending a haunting immediacy to footage of both action and ghostly stillness. Dryburgh handles the expected Mann images (modern skylines at dawn or sunset, speed boats piercing through waves, etc...) beautifully, but the things get iffy in some of the other action scenes. The first fight, set in a cramped cafe, looks like it was shot on an iPhone camera. Sound work is puzzlingly scattershot, with the ends of sentences often dropping out completely. Mann's slicing and dicing of Henry Gregson Williams' score is solid, though a bit too reliant on the same menacing tones. Editing keeps the action as clear as it can, though the smeary, low-res quality of some of the photography is sometimes too much to overcome. 

Grade: C-

Review: "Get On Up"

Director: Tate Taylor
Runtime: 138 minutes

If Hollywood is listening properly, they will know that a new star has come roaring to life. Chadwick Boseman, who previously starred as Jackie Robinson in last year's 42, is here to make a case for himself, and he does so thrillingly. Moving from the world of sports to music, Boseman's performance as James Brown - the Godfather of Soul himself - is an electric take on an icon that easily transcends mere mimicry. The film around him, as directed by Tate Taylor (The Help), is quite good as well, but it's Boseman who undeniably leaves the biggest mark in Get On Up, which is only appropriate, given the Godfather's massive legacy. 

Though Get On Up does cover the majority of its subject's life, Taylor and screenwriters Jez and John-Henry Butterworth have sidestepped the Achilles heel of such an approach. As opposed to something like J. Edgar, which moved in mostly linear fashion and came off as a greatest hits tale, Get On Up jumps around in time in a style closer to Ray. One minute, we're in Brown's childhood, the next, we're somewhere in the middle of his career, and then we're somewhere around his first big break. At the very least, this choice of structure keeps the film from falling into the creaky arc used by so many showbiz biopics. 

The Butterworth brothers' script is certainly comprehensive, and Taylor has evolved nicely from the nice, but somewhat schmaltzy emotions of The Help. Only as the film enters its final lap does the structure feel less elegantly thought out. Rather than have one framing device to act as a narrative hub, Get On Up has three or four (I think). Some don't even seem like framing devices until, late in the game, the film suddenly returns to a setting to mark an important development. The film's last half hour or so isn't exactly messy, but it is a bit cluttered. 

Yet overall the storytelling is solid, and it certainly avoids the heavy drudgery that so many showbiz films fall into (the film touches on Brown's drug use, but never becomes mired in it). However, there are a few areas that might have benefitted from just a bit more probing, namely Brown's sometimes abusive relationship with his first wife, and his own musical inspirations. Regarding the latter area, yes, it's true that Brown was a trailblazer in multiple ways, but a richer look at the actual influences would have been beneficial. At the very least, the film does capture the relationships between Brown and the public, the establishment, and the socio-political environments that shifted during his lifetime (sometimes directly because of him).

All in all, it's a solid film that's immensely watchable, though so much of that is owed to Mr. Boseman himself. 42 proved that he could hold his own at the center of the film. Get On Up proves that he can absolutely burst through it. It's a big, barn-burner of a performance that feels entirely complete, despite some limitations imposed by the PG-13 rating. Boseman (who plays Brown from 16 into his 60s) so effortlessly inhabits the man's skin that the mere feat of talking and sounding like him quickly ceases to be a simple sketch show gimmick. In the film's biggest and smallest moments, he shines as bright as the sun, embodying the Godfather's big personality and showmanship (on and offstage) with riveting results. Boseman also holds his own musically. Though many of the big performance scenes had the actor lip sync, in other scenes it's Boseman's own voice. The resemblance is pretty damn impressive.

The film establishes that Brown could easily hold his own as a solo artist, and that his bandmates were easily replaceable (at least in the eyes of music execs). The same applies to Boseman and the rest of the ensemble. Though big names like Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Dan Aykroyd help round out the cast, their overall contributions are dwarfed by Boseman's hurricane-strength turn. However, Nelson Ellis (of TV's True Blood) as Brown's right hand man Bobby Byrd, does nicely as the diplomatic co-leader of Brown's musical entourage. And Davis, despite a tiny role, lends convincing gravitas to a stock character (albeit one based on a real person). 

So even though Get On Up may not shoot up to the top tier of musical biopics, it certainly cements itself as a solid (and very lively) piece of entertainment. Biopics that span decades of a subject's life outstayed their welcome somewhere in the last decade, but Get On Up proves that the subgenre isn't quite dead yet. If that means more star-making vehicles for actors like Chadwick Boseman, then that's hardly a bad thing. Hollywood is always looking for the next Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. It's rarely looking for the next Denzel Washington (if it was, Idris Elba would be everywhere by now) or Viola Davis. Here's hoping that enough people take notice of Boseman's towering take on a supernova-sized icon, and move him closer to the place in the stars he deserves to occupy. 

Grade: B

Review: "Prisoners"

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Runtime: 153 minutes

You'll have to look awfully hard to find anything new in a film like Prisoners, the English language debut of Quebec-born filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. As written by Aaron Guzikowski, the film's tale of two missing girls and the search to find them covers its share of well-worn tropes, many of which can be found on one of the many police procedurals currently on TV. Yet thanks to superlative craftsmanship, effective plotting, and top flight performances, Prisoners rises above the average procedural, even though it never quite transcends the genre to achieve true greatness.

As the film opens, we see hear Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) reciting the Lord's Prayer as he and his son lie in wait for a deer to shoot. This immediate juxtaposition of faith and violence (on an innocent subject, no less) will echo throughout the film's tale of desperation, loss, and vigilante justice. On an overcast Thanksgiving Day, the youngest children of the Dovers (Jackman and Maria Bello) and the Birches (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) go missing. Though twitchy Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) quickly finds  potential suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano), the hunt for the girls has just begun. Frustrated with the police department's inability to find strong evidence, Keller takes matters into his own hands.

All of this takes up no more than the film's first 40 minutes, leaving roughly 110 more. Yet rather than cram the remaining runtime with twists and red herrings, Prisoners finds a smart, and even surprising, balance between the mystery driving the narrative forward, and the character drama that holds it all together. While this makes the narrative less immediately compelling, it allows Prisoners to explore its characters and the repercussions of their actions without having to rush. Rather than try to pull off something we've never seen before, the film simply takes familiar ingredients and executes them with a very sure hand. 

There's also the matter of the effort that's been put into the film's look, which does its best to distance itself from the small screen as possible. With its gloomy visual aesthetic and haunting flares of music, Prisoners owes as much to the crime thrillers of David Fincher as it does to TV dramas like Broadchurch and The Killing. Where the film receives a considerable boost is in the lensing from master cinematographer Roger Deakins. With its rainy, wintery suburban settings, there appears to be little room for a movie like Prisoners to have any visual flair. Yet Deakins, with all cylinders firing from start to finish, finds ways of capturing the dreary and plain settings with a level of artistry that feels wholly cinematic, yet never pretentious or distracting.

The cast certainly aren't shirking their duties either. Stacked with talent in every major role, the entire ensemble gives it their all. Even Bello and Davis, whose characters are somewhat underutilized, have moments that they knock out of the park. Dano is effective as well as the mumbly Alex, while Melissa Leo underplays her ambiguous role as the boy's doddering aunt. Of the supporting roster, however, it's Howard who makes the strongest impression. Some of that is due to how the script uses the character, but the actor finds ways of communicating grief and confusion without ever being redundant. As one of the cast members who spends the most time playing off of Jackman, Howard makes his straightforward character a nicely conflicted foil. 

Where the acting really shines, however, is in the leading duo of Jackman and Gyllenhaal. The roles are radically different, yet the way they reflect the dual strands of Prisoners' narrative creates a compelling blend of material driven by pure emotion and by pure clinical determination. Jackman, coming off of a career high with Les Miserables, has the emotional side of the story to carry, and the ferocity he brings to the role is never less than gripping. For all of the hysterical yelling involved, the actor never sounds shrill or false. It may not be subtle work, but Jackman invests each growl and yell with a fury that would make even Wolverine cower. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Gyllenhaal, who makes the less emotive role work in his favor. He puts a nervous bit of blinking, though initially distracting, to smart use as a means of communicating the character's internal processing of events.

Behind the scenes, Villeneuve deserves immense credit for his intelligent balance between the emotional and the procedural elements of the story. His previous film, 2010's Oscar-nominated Incendies, marked him as a talent to watch. Though more harrowing than Prisoners, that film also suffered from a messiness that built to a pair of twists that bordered on laughable. Prisoners runs nearly 15 minutes longer than Incendies, but it feels remarkably more focused, despite the room it allows for slow-building drama. Procedural mysteries live or die by how well they pull you in. Even the best of the genre, such as The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, have their implausibilities upon reflection. Yet what makes a great procedural work is its ability to cast a strong enough spell to allow you to suspend your sense of disbelief. Following in the footsteps of those aforementioned films, Prisoners certainly succeeds on that level, albeit with less flash (you'll find no lip-smacking cannibals). 

The lone disappointment of Prisoners, however, stems from the very aspect of its script that also makes it a success. By aiming for character-based drama over thrills, the film starts to feel more generic as a whole, despite the first rate filmmaking. There's a tantalizing taste of the more ambitious, possibly pulpier, movie that could have been made in the form of a mysterious maze symbol. You can practically feel Guzikowski contemplating whether or not to take said symbol and use it to turn Prisoners into a denser and more twisted story. Instead, the resolution of the maze, and the main plot, comes across as rather expected, even though it's as well-crafted as everything that precedes it. 

In straddling the line between thoughtful character drama and attention-grabbing thriller, Prisoners somewhat robs itself of a sharper identity. In trying to focus more on emotional developments, the film forgets to give itself a memorable stamp. Not content to end with a whimper, however, Prisoners ends (and the sound team deserves kudos here) its somewhat mundane narrative with a brilliant piece of ambiguity. Just when it seems in danger of fading out forgettably, it throws in one last nasty little kick that ensures that it'll stay with you just a little bit longer (Law and Order looks cheerful in comparison). It may not be the next Zodiac, but Prisoners is still an compelling and satisfying mystery with a refreshingly adult look at unsettling subject matter. 

Grade: B+

[Short] Review(s): "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "The Help," "The Devil's Double," & "30 Minutes or Less"

Rise of the Planet of the Apes dir. Rupert Wyatt: You'd think that a franchise like Planet of the Apes was long past its expiration date. Despite the original's status as something of a science fiction classic, the subsequent films seemed all-too-eager to jump down the rabbit hole into absurdity. If ever there was a series that needed to be retired from the silver screen (aside from Transformers), it was this one, right? Well, not exactly. The latest entry, a prequel/origin story, takes audiences back to where it all began, with surprisingly successful results.

Opening with a PETA approved scene that demonstrates the EVIL nature of man, we follow a captured primate who is taken to GenSys, an American drug company currently on the threshold of a cure for Alzheimer's. Here we get a rather cliched set up, involving two different men in the company. Will (James Franco) wants the cure to go through for science/humanity, while Steven (David Oyelowo), wants it to succeed for the money (guess which one gets his comeuppance by the time the film's 105 minute run time is up).

But even though there are plenty of obvious elements in the latest Apes flick, Rise does manage to create a mildly compelling story, never letting itself be overburdened by its we-know-where-this-is-going plot. The human characters may be plain, but thankfully, the film has a secret weapon: the ape Caesar, motion-captured/played by Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame. The more that Rupert Wyatt's film focuses on Caesar, the stronger the story becomes. The ape's interactions may be near-wordless, but they resonate on deeper level, thanks to Serkis' excellent work and the outstanding visual effects work. In an age where so many movies are sunk by their over-reliance on VFX, Rise may be that rare film that benefits (and is saved by) the strength of its computer-captured/generated imagery.

Grade: B-


The Help dir. Tate Taylor: While this adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-seller may lack in terms of subtlety, it is, at its core, an effective piece of social-change cinema. Led by Emma Stone, the ensemble is filled with any number of strong performances from Viola Davis (the film's MVP), Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Sissy Spacek.

So even though it runs quite long, and resorts to quite a bit of 'telling,' the film does hit home in the right places, even though it takes longer than expected for the main plot to kick into gear. The Help may indeed be schmaltz at its core, but it never feels like it. There's no overbearing, sappy score or soundtrack, nor are there an overabundance of melodramatic scenes (it's actually laugh-out-loud funny in many places). And with such a talented ensemble to lead you through the story, smaller elements of the plot (like Stone's budding relationship with an oil rig worker played by Chris Lowell) don't seem like too much of a nuisance, even when they appear and then vanish from the rest of the film.

But perhaps its greatest strength may be that, while it's full of hopeful and uplifting moments of personal triumph, The Help never tries to overextend itself. The film's final scene, which took me by surprised when the credits started to roll, certainly holds the promise of tomorrow, but only after one character is confronted with a bitter dose of revenge courtesy of the story's antagonist. By keeping this balance in place, and by not pretending that its characters accomplished more than they did for the Civil Rights movement (it is a work of fiction, after all), The Help is able to simultaneously inform and entertain without shooting itself in the foot.

Grade: B


The Devil's Double dir. Lee Tamahori: It's not every day that an actor is given a chance to play dual roles on screen, so the opportunity has to be taken seriously (see: Nicholas Cage in Adaptation, Sam Rockwell in Moon, etc...). Now it's Dominic Cooper's (Mamma Mia!, An Education) turn to play the double game, in the form of Uday Hussein, and Latif Yahia, the man forced to become his double. But even though his efforts in the two roles (he's on screen as one or the other for almost the entire run time) are admirable, he's undermined by a script that isn't quite on the same level.

Latif's (admittedly incredible) story may be true, but director Lee Tamahori and screenwriter Michael Thomas seem more concerned with turning it into a modern day, Arabic Scarface (albeit with significantly less crazed shouting). In doing so, they've made the film consistently entertaining. The unfortunate by-product is that it renders the story a surface-only historical thriller. Cooper is certainly giving it his all as the increasingly frightening Uday, the trapped Latif, and as Latif pretending to be Uday. In many scenes the characters share the screen, and Cooper plays off of himself quite well. But despite his efforts, he can't quite overcome the shallow writing. Cooper is rarely given much to work with other than "be wary and uncertain," and "be a murdering/raping pyscho"; the roles are played well, yes, but there's absolutely no depth for Cooper to work with as an actor.

This is not to say that the film doesn't tell a compelling story. That much it accomplishes. The problem is, especially considering the story's real-life origins, that The Devil's Double never makes any attempt to go deeper with the material at hand. Thomas' script plays it safe, and keeps the story simple, never raising any larger questions outside of "what comes next for Latif?" So even though Cooper may be working his hardest, The Devil's Double winds up being something of a missed opportunity, as enjoyable as it is.

Grade: B-


30 Minutes or Less dir. Ruben Fleischer: The idea of Jesse Eisenberg reteaming with Ruben Fleischer was definitely appealing on paper. The pair first worked together on Zombieland, one of the great hidden gems of 2009. Sadly, lightning hasn't struck twice for these two. 30 Minutes or Less isn't a terrible movie, but it is vastly inferior to the duo's last collaboration, and barely even memorable.

Based loosely on real events, the film centers around Nick (Eisenberg) a slacker pizza delivery boy who gets roped into a scheme by two idiot criminals (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson). With a bomb strapped to his chest, Nick is given nine hours to rob a bank, lest he be blown to smithereens by his captors. What follows is an appropriately crazy story, filled with car chases, stand-offs, and yes, a bank robbery. Some of the banter (between McBride and Swardson or Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari) is entertaining, and occaisionally worth a good laugh. The problem, though, is that the characters are underwritten from the start, and given the plot, never have time to develop. That Nick is something of a jackass during the first act doesn't help matters.

Fleischer certainly hasn't lost his flair for fun, at the very least. The car chase is well staged and shot, and a scene involving McBride's father creeping through his own home to find and intruder is surprisingly effective in creating some low-key tension. Michael Pena also gets a few laughs as a crazy hit man with a bizarre accent. Other characters, however, aren't so effective. A prostitute who leads McBride to Pena is a complete throwaway, while Dilshad Vansaria (as Ansari's sister) is there strictly to function as a plot device. They feel like flab, which is distracting considering the film's short run time (83 mins). So even though Fleischer's latest is pleasant enough to sit through, it's also proof that less doesn't always mean more.

Grade: C+/C