Drama

Sully

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sully
  • IMDb: link

SullyAnointed by the media as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” Sully offers the story of pilot Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) whose miraculous water landing of a full-sized passenger plane in the Hudson River was celebrated by the world as a near-impossible feat but questioned heavily by the airline industry. Remarkably, every passenger and crew member survived Sully ditching the plane, but that’s really just where this story gets started.

More analytical than I expected, the screenplay by Todd Komarnicki spends much of its screentime on findings, data, trial strategy, simulations, discussions, and bureaucratic infighting. While this allows director Clint Eastwood to steer well-clear of the film venturing anywhere near the realm of sappy or schmaltzy, it also means much of the movie lacks the emotional impact one would expect. Other than watching his struggle to deal with reluctantly being pulled into the limelight, we don’t learn much about our title character. Although deeper family and drinking issues and are hinted at, the movie’s focus is completely on Sully being the right man in the right spot at right moment and how those few seconds effected the flight and Sully in particular.

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The Light Between Oceans

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Light Between Oceans
  • IMDb: link

The Light Between OceansIn the hands of a less talented cast The Light Between Oceans would be a tedious disaster. Soap opera dressed in drag as high drama, the manipulative tale is made watchable by its choice of leads Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander in what feels very much like a story predestined for Lifetime television. Still, a talented cast can only do so much with the sordid, and extremely predictable, source material.

Adapted from the novel of the same name, Fassbender stars as Tom Sherbourne, a WWI vet who takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on an isolated island. Falling for the daughter of one of the men who hired him for the position, Tom and Isabel’s (Alicia Vikander) life on the island is full of tragedy, but the arrival of a shipwrecked boat promises a new start for the couple. To do so they will make a choice which will not only affect themselves but a woman they have never met (Rachel Weisz) for years to come.

At more than two-hours no amount of pretty (but never quite amazing) scenery or closeups of Vikander and Fassbender can prevent the lull which director Derek Cianfrance can not seem to avoid.

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Hell or High Water

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  • Title: Hell or High Water
  • IMDb: link

Hell or High WaterHell or High Water is more than it appears to be at first glance. The simple story of two brothers robbing banks while literally being pursued by a cowboy (Jeff Bridges) and an Indian (Gil Birmingham) through small Texas towns is grounded in complex motivations playing as much on character-driven drama as themes from westerns and heist films which screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director David Mackenzie use to frame the tale. Shot against the bleak canvas of West Texas (or, to be more accurate, New Mexico standing in for West Texas), Hell or High Water is an engrossing, entertaining, and often amusing, film.

Ben Foster and Chris Pine star as Tanner and Toby Howard. The estranged brothers have been reunited after years by a recent tragedy and a driving need which will push them to robbery. As the film opens, the two perform a pair of well-planned, if shakily executed, robberies of two West Texas banks. Taking only small denominations from the cashiers’ drawers, the two limit their exposure and the police’s chances of tracing the money. Needing a large amount of cash by the end of the week for purposes which will eventually become clear, the pair are just getting started.

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The Neon Demon

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  • Title: The Neon Demon
  • IMDb: link

“Beauty isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

The Neon Demon

In what is likely going to be one of the more divisive films of 2016, the latest from writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) casts Elle Fanning as a naive 16 year-old girl just breaking into the model business in Los Angeles. Blessed with an ineffable quality no one can quite explain, Jesse (Fanning) soon becomes the hot new girl, much to the dismay of a pair of models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) seeing their careers flash before their eyes.

Jesse’s journey will lead her into contact with a wide variety of people including her creepy apartment manager (Keanu Reeves), jealous models, designers, photographers (Desmond Harrington and Karl Glusman), and a makeup artist (Jena Malone) all of whom want something from the young woman.

Refn’s film is a metaphor for how the modeling industry celebrates physical beauty in the absence of any other quality while slowly devouring the very objects of their devotion. The film takes the metaphor one step too far in the final act leaving the film with an ending that satisfies the movie’s message but not necessarily the audience.

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Mother’s Day

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Mother’s Day
  • wiki: link

Mother's DayFollowing the pattern of his last two films (Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve) director Garry Marshall‘s Mother’s Day is a cookie-cutter ensemble dramaedy set around a particular holiday. Filled with paper-thin characters who all can be described by a single characteristic who are marginally connected through themes of mothers and their daughters, Mother’s Day is a lazy film filled with sitcom humor and blase drama that asks the bare minimum of its cast. If it were a meal, Mother’s Day would be a lukewarm McDonald’s extra-value meal that no one bothered to put under the heat lamp. If it were a color it would be beige.

The stories include divorced mother (Jennifer Aniston) of two sons (Caleb Brown and Brandon Spink) struggling with the news that her ex-husband (Timothy Olyphant) has married a much younger woman (Shay Mitchell), grown sisters (Kate Hudson and Sarah Chalke) hiding their romantic relationships from their conventional parents (Margo Martindale and Robert Pine), a widower (Jason Sudeikis) and his two daughters (Ella Anderson and Jessi Case) struggling to move on a year after his wife’s death, a career-minded Home Shopping Network star (Julia Roberts) with what passes for a dark secret in this movie, and a waitress (Britt Robertson) unable to commit to her boyfriend (Jack Whitehall).

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