Drama

The International (the movie, not the House of Pancakes)

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The International
  • IMDB: link

the-international-posterThere’s much about The International that works, and almost as much that doesn’t. Still, for a mid-February release it’s much better than expected and one of the few films of the new year worth a look.

Clive Owen stars as an Interpol agent obsessed with bringing down a bank which does shady dealings with both world governments and criminal organizations. Naomi Watts stars as his deskbound partner who, as is often the case in these types of films, hits the streets with him to bring down the bad guys.

Who are these evil-doers he’s willing to risk his life and career to stop? Well, they’re bankers. Um…yeah. As movie baddies go evil bankers ranks slightly below evil party clowns and Elvis impersonators.

Thankfully we’re given Owen who raises the bar here by elevating the script and infusing the character with an obsession both palpatable and a little out of control.

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Gran Torino

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Gran Torino
  • IMDB: link

gran-torino-posterGran Torino isn’t a bad way for Clint Eastwood the actor to go out (if this is indeed his last starring role), but Eastwood the director lets us down. Walt (Eastwood) is s a recently widowed grumpy old racist living in a neighborhood which has been taken over by the large immigrant population he refers to throughout the film as “gooks,” “chinks,” “zipperheads,” “barbarians,” and other terms of affection. Charming.

Walt is inconvenienced further when he becomes intertwined in the lives of his neighbors, a Hmong family, when the young boy (Bee Vang) is recruited by a local gang to steal Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino. Against his better judgement Walt takes the kid under his wing, finds him a job, and even helps out his sister Sue (Ahney Her) when she gets accosted on the street.

I could go into further detail about the other storylines involving a persistent priest (Christopher Carley) and Frank’s sons and grandchildren with whom he has nothing in common, but each are so predictable simply vaguely mentioning them is all that’s necessary.

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Frost/Nixon

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Frost/Nixon
  • IMDB: link

“What made you exceptional, they said, was that you were a person who had achieved great fame without possessing any discernible quality.”

Sometimes it takes David to bring down Goliath.  David Frost (Michael Sheen) was a likable talk-show host who mortgaged his future and career with an interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).  Nixon, in need of money and a change in his public perception, agreed to the interview with the man whom his aide (Kevin Bacon) stated simply “isn’t in your league.”

After an intial montage summing up the Watergate scandal, the film follows Frost on his journey to land, finance, and prepare for the interviews which would almost break him, all while the rest of the world looked on and laughed.

Sheen (The Queen, Music Within) once again gives a great performance on which the film rests.  Over the last two years he’s become one of my favorite actors working today.

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Tom Cruise’s Noble Nazi Flick

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Valkyrie
  • IMDB: link

“God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find ten righteous men.  I have a feeling that for Germany it may come down to one.”

Valkyrie

Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg one of many Nazis loyal to the fatherland, but disatisfied with the Fuhrer’s running of the country.  After getting blown-up in the early scenes the now eye-patched Stauffenberg joins a resistance group and begins planning the assassination of Adolf Hitler (David Bamber).

The film, written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and directed by Bryan Singer has so many issues not even Superman’s return could save it from disaster.

Let’s start with the Nazi’s themselves.  A more honest good-natured group you’d be lucky to find anywhere outside a Hogan’s Heroes re-run.  All the the conspirators are presented as noble, self-sacrificing men who might be handing out money to the poor and donating their time to work with the elderly if it weren’t for that Hitler guy.  Were all these men tricked into joining the Nazi party?

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The Wrestler

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Wrestler
  • IMDB: link

Considering the subject matter of his previous films, Darren Aronofsky could be accused of being a little obsessive/addicted himself, as his latest film takes an unflinching look at a self-proclaimed ‘broken down piece of meat’ wrestler who finds it impossible to give up life in the ring even as he comes to terms with the notion that his best days are indeed well behind him.  Mickey Rourke inhabits the body of Randy ‘The Ram’ like no other role in his career, making The Wrestler not only one of the best films of the year, but elevating Rourke beyond the lost-years of the last few decades to the potential film icon he once was.

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