The right ingredients make the best dishes, but you need the right cook to make it all come together. It's not often you have the cook as one of the indispensable quality ingredients. Ben Affleck is a middlin' good actor and a first class writer. Add to the list director and if Gone Baby Gone is representative of a presumptive career, I'd say a damn good director. As an ingredient Mr Affleck got his start in the movie business as the writer of Good Will Hunting which is becoming, and deserves to be, a classic coming of age tale about a couple of South Boston kids. Writing the screenplay for Gone Baby Gone, Affleck is adapting the the book of Dennis Lehane. Affleck has done a masterful job of taking, what is always a great story from Lehane and bringing it to life on the screen. His decision to direct the film, Affleck has to be compared favorably to the guy who last tookLehane to the screen with Mystic River, Clint Eastwood.
There is nobody in this film that doesn't give us a great performance. Affleck does us a great favor by casting his brother Casey Affleck as the young local private detective. Casey does an outstanding job of portraying the guy who is trying so hard to clear away the slime and pays the price for trying to do the right thing. Rejecting the obvious out, of going along to get along, he loses everything but his self respect He's the son you hope you raise and the sap the world shits on.
The other ingredients are at least as important. I've never seen a movie that Ed Harris didn't make better just by being in it. It makes no difference if he carries the film, as in Pollock or has a bit part like The Hours, Harris crafts a version of a character that is compelling and magnetic. Harris seems to draw everyone around him toward the message his role is suppose to convey without being obvious.
Morgan Freeman slides in and out of this story like a storm cloud on the horizon that threatens, but fades from consciousness until it's on top of you. Freeman has such great range. He plays some of the meanest guys walking to God and he does with a subtle and convincing manner that defies description. Few actors can shed a characters facade of goodness to reveal the true evil lurking behind as well as Freeman.
Amy Ryan is like a lot of actors today in that we've seen her work many times on Law and Order et al. But these appearances are not as note worthy since they are fleeting and quite honestly taken for granted. Than she gets this opportunity and hits it out of the park. She plays the dope ridden survivor mother of the child who is kidnapped. This has to be one of the great roles of her life and she doesn't waste the opportunity. She gives rise to hatred and disgust of her callow disregard for her baby and her selfish need for drugs. Than she is throwing a switch we begin to see why and how she is the way she is and we reach out to her in sympathy. And than as quickly as her five minutes of fame dissolves she shows us what she is worth and our sympathy is wasted because she is not capable of being anything other than the user she is.
The drama of the search for the missing child takes us through the wrong side of society. The grit and reality of life, as all to many of us are forced to live, is exposed like an open wound. The users and abusers switch back and forth in their roles in a desperate attempt to survive in a culture where survival is everything. Affleck doesn't cushion the blows or try for the Hollywood ending. This is edgy gritty stuff and if your a viewer that likes things ending in neat resolution, shop elsewhere.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel's masterpiece The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a little difficult to get into, but maybe that's just me. The movie, based on the biographical book by the same name, is the story of what happens to Jean-Dominique Bauby when he wakes up to find himself paralyzed in a hospital. While his physical condition is as bad as it could be, his mind is sharp and present. What he can't do, at the outset, is communicate.
Bauby is suffering from a brain stem deterioration. This leaves him paralyzed. His condition is rare and incurable, but with the help of dedicated therapist's he's not only learns to communicate but to write the book.The method used is painstaking and a hard on everyone. At first the only thing that he can do is blink his left eye. His therapist teaches him a system; he blinks once to answer no to a question; he blinks twice for yes. His therapist simply recites the alphabet starting with the most used letters and progressing until Bauby blinks.
Bauby's relationship with his colleagues at Ellie magazine, his wife, children and lover are tested and expanded in new directions. You need only to see Bauby's wife trying to help him communicate with his long time lover to realize the love and care these people have for him and the courage Bauby has to live in this life that he is force to live.
Courage and a huge desire to live, aided by the ability of dedicated health-care practitioners, permit Bauby to give his life value in the face of almost unbelievable barriers. Schnabel films this story from the disturbing and often confusing perspective of the subject. Blurry fade in and fade outs give us the frustrating view of the world from the strangely afflicted victim. The camera challenges the viewer to visit the body and mind of Bauby and try to imagine living in this state. While this technique is difficult to get into at first, it does grow on you. This film is one that uses special effects to inform rather than trying to sucker the viewer into feeling car wrecked.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
American Gangster, He Said
You start with a great director, Ridley Scott. You add two American Iconic actors Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. You mix in a tight script Steven Zaillian. And you have a recipe for success.
American Gangster tells us a story about free market economics, entrepreneurship and greed at a level that even Wall Street would blanch at. When the film opens a young Frank Lucas, played by Washington, is thrust into the leadership position of a Harlem gang because of the sudden death of his beloved mentor. Frank will later tell people that the man was like a father to him. The man dies in a warehouse retail store as he is telling Frank about the new economics. This store has by passed the wholesalers and gone directly to the source of their goods. They have also eliminated personal service.
When Frank emerges as the new kingpin, after murdering his competition in broad daylight in front of enough community to make sure nobody else will try and muscle him out, he looks at the business from a different angle. The New York City Police who are suppose to be fighting the drug dealers are actually selling confiscated dope, that is cut and re-cut , back to the Italian Mafia, who than resells it to Franks dealers. Frank, using contacts in Vietnam, arranges to buy 100% pure product and smuggle it into the US on military flights.
By marketing the product himself and making sure that everyone he needs is paid well and on time, Frank takes over the drug trade in New York and eventually pretty much all of the East Coast. In doing this his genius is that he is below the radar on all of the drug enforcement efforts, who are still looking at the Italian Mafia. Frank has only one enemy that he has to deal with and that is the corrupt New York cops.
Enter Detective Ritche Roberts. Roberts is defined by the incident in which he and his partner found one million dollars in the trunk of a hoodlums car and turned it in. He is shunned by his corrupt peers. He is also witnessing the destruction of his marriage, as his dedication to the law and his studies to get his law degree have left little time for a family life. Because of his reputation to honesty Roberts is given the green light to organize a special unit to wipe out the big time drug operations on the East Coast. With his handpicked crew of honest and knowledgeable cops, he assembles a rogues gallery of suspects, after he tells his crew that they are leaving the small time dealers to others, he only wants to get the big guys. Noticeably missing on his rogues gallery is Frank Lucas.
This is a story of how success begets envy and makes you a target for all of your competitors. People don't want to bring down Frank with a better idea or a better product; they want to get what he has and they don't want to pay for it. Frank is able to limit his exposure by using his family to diversify his operations and by keeping a low profile. He tells his younger cousin, who has taken to wearing stylish clothes and affecting an outrageous lifestyle, that what he looked like to the rest of the world was tantamount to saying, "Arrest me". He cautioned him to dress different and not make a spectacle of himself. And yet in the end , it is making a spectacle of himself is what drew Roberts attention to Frank and caused his down fall. Typical of a hood who is taking the rap Frank takes the other bad guys down with him.
This film is one of those entertaining but also instructive stories that has to be taken with a shot of clear eyed realization that Robert's character, for one, is the consolidation of probably a couple if not a few agencies in the real events. Given that suspension of disbelief, you can enjoy this story for what it is. If you looking for Russel and Denzel on screen together, you'll be disappointed. If your looking for great performances by both of these fine actors you will not be disappointed. Washington and Crowe bring these real life character to life with all of their assets and liabilities laid out like a corporate Profit and Loss statement. the film juxtaposes Frank Lucas's disregard for what drugs did to his community in contrast to his generosity and concern for his family. Roberts dedication to honesty and the law is contrasted to his total failure as a husband and father. We also witness the real villain in this film, the effect of drugs on our society and how our utter inability to face the problem further complicates the issue.
American Gangster tells us a story about free market economics, entrepreneurship and greed at a level that even Wall Street would blanch at. When the film opens a young Frank Lucas, played by Washington, is thrust into the leadership position of a Harlem gang because of the sudden death of his beloved mentor. Frank will later tell people that the man was like a father to him. The man dies in a warehouse retail store as he is telling Frank about the new economics. This store has by passed the wholesalers and gone directly to the source of their goods. They have also eliminated personal service.
When Frank emerges as the new kingpin, after murdering his competition in broad daylight in front of enough community to make sure nobody else will try and muscle him out, he looks at the business from a different angle. The New York City Police who are suppose to be fighting the drug dealers are actually selling confiscated dope, that is cut and re-cut , back to the Italian Mafia, who than resells it to Franks dealers. Frank, using contacts in Vietnam, arranges to buy 100% pure product and smuggle it into the US on military flights.
By marketing the product himself and making sure that everyone he needs is paid well and on time, Frank takes over the drug trade in New York and eventually pretty much all of the East Coast. In doing this his genius is that he is below the radar on all of the drug enforcement efforts, who are still looking at the Italian Mafia. Frank has only one enemy that he has to deal with and that is the corrupt New York cops.
Enter Detective Ritche Roberts. Roberts is defined by the incident in which he and his partner found one million dollars in the trunk of a hoodlums car and turned it in. He is shunned by his corrupt peers. He is also witnessing the destruction of his marriage, as his dedication to the law and his studies to get his law degree have left little time for a family life. Because of his reputation to honesty Roberts is given the green light to organize a special unit to wipe out the big time drug operations on the East Coast. With his handpicked crew of honest and knowledgeable cops, he assembles a rogues gallery of suspects, after he tells his crew that they are leaving the small time dealers to others, he only wants to get the big guys. Noticeably missing on his rogues gallery is Frank Lucas.
This is a story of how success begets envy and makes you a target for all of your competitors. People don't want to bring down Frank with a better idea or a better product; they want to get what he has and they don't want to pay for it. Frank is able to limit his exposure by using his family to diversify his operations and by keeping a low profile. He tells his younger cousin, who has taken to wearing stylish clothes and affecting an outrageous lifestyle, that what he looked like to the rest of the world was tantamount to saying, "Arrest me". He cautioned him to dress different and not make a spectacle of himself. And yet in the end , it is making a spectacle of himself is what drew Roberts attention to Frank and caused his down fall. Typical of a hood who is taking the rap Frank takes the other bad guys down with him.
This film is one of those entertaining but also instructive stories that has to be taken with a shot of clear eyed realization that Robert's character, for one, is the consolidation of probably a couple if not a few agencies in the real events. Given that suspension of disbelief, you can enjoy this story for what it is. If you looking for Russel and Denzel on screen together, you'll be disappointed. If your looking for great performances by both of these fine actors you will not be disappointed. Washington and Crowe bring these real life character to life with all of their assets and liabilities laid out like a corporate Profit and Loss statement. the film juxtaposes Frank Lucas's disregard for what drugs did to his community in contrast to his generosity and concern for his family. Roberts dedication to honesty and the law is contrasted to his total failure as a husband and father. We also witness the real villain in this film, the effect of drugs on our society and how our utter inability to face the problem further complicates the issue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)