Friday, September 12, 2014

TIFF'14: Foxcatcher: Sibling Rivalries and Wrestling With Demons

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews)

***(out of four)

 
Since its debut at Cannes, Foxcatcher has been earning raves for Steve Carrell's performance as John du Pont, ornithologist, conchologist, philanthrophist and murderer. du Pont was convicted of murder in the third degree for shooting Olympic-medal winning wrestler Dave Schultz. Dave had been coaching Olympic candidates, including his brother Mark, at du Pont's estate, Foxcatcher. du Pont had been ruled mentally ill at the time of the shooting, but fit to stand trial and be sentenced.

The praise for Carrell stems from an erroneous notion that this is his first foray into drama. Comedian Carrell has already proven himself adept at the more respectable dramatic arts in films like Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life. He is an actor who can break your funny bone and your heart, sometimes simultaneously, as in the bicycle chase sequence of The 40-Year Old Virgin. Carrell will certainly be nominated for an Oscar for Foxcatcher--his character practically wears a huge scarlett letter O bestowed by the Hester Prynne Society of Oscar Bait Performances--but I fear his nod will overshadow a far better supporting performance. 

As du Pont, Carrell wears a huge, though accurate, prosthetic nose that resembles a beak. Director Bennett Miller belabors the hawk-like visual comparison by often shooting Carrell in profile. du Pont holds his head in an almost stereotypical "turning up my nose" posture and speaks in a deliberate manner that can't help but draw attention to itself for being so weird. (Imagine Tim Curry saying "I see you shiver with antici-pation" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then apply that cadence to almost every line of dialogue.) This may be completely accurate, but it never feels like anything but a performance.

Miller gets more lived-in performances from his wrestling brothers, Dave (Mark Ruffalo) and Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). There's a beautiful scene of physicality between Dave, the more experienced wrestler, and Mark that wordlessly sums up the sibling rivalry between brothers better than any scene I can recall. As the two maneuver through a wrestling sparring match, Mark's actions indicate more than a hint of jealousy. Dave takes it in stride.

Mark is summoned to Foxcatcher by du Pont. He tells Mark that he is a wrestling enthusiast who wants to coach Olympic wrestling candidates at his estate. du Pont speaks in jingoistic terms, talking about freedom and America and strength, seducing Mark with the notion that he may be able to stand for something while breaking out from under his brother's shadow. Carrell and Tatum play the scene well; it's the rare moment when we're allowed to accept du Pont's eccentricities as realistic character traits. Tatum helps immensely in his scenes with Carrell by removing all the confidence from Mark Schultz. His face is a perpetually tight rigor mortis of insecurity, perhaps even tighter than the wrestler's muscles that brought him success in the circle. du Pont is clearly feeding Mark bullshit, but it's the bullshit he's been starving to hear.

Once recruited, du Pont asks Mark to call him "Golden Eagle" (again with the bird comparisons) and to participate in a documentary about du Pont's greatness that is clearly biased and manipulated by its subject. du Pont also asks Mark to bring brother Dave along to help coach the team he's building, but to Mark's relief, Dave doesn't want to relocate his wife (Sienna Miller) and his kids. du Pont is stunned that Dave cannot be bought, another rare moment when Carrell breaks through artifice. Eventually, Dave comes on as the coach, driving a bigger wedge between the brothers.

The relationship between the Schultzes is the true power of Foxcatcher. Ruffalo and Tatum are fantastic together, completely believable as siblings. Ruffalo, in particular, handles the role of older brother, mentor and disciplinarian with heartbreaking accuracy--this is the true Oscar-worthy supporting performance in Foxcatcher--and his quiet grace makes the film's violent outcome all the more horrific.

Miller does a great job handling the wrestling sequences. They're detailed enough to satisfy fans of the sport without overwhelming those who know nothing about it. "There's never a good angle with wrestlers," complains the documentarian who is shooting du Pont's feature, but Miller finds a few. What he doesn't find is an access point for the audience to relate to du Pont. We're distanced from his demons and he remains a cipher.

I had the same problem with Capote. Like Carrell, Philip Seymour Hoffman gets maximum value from all the actorly tricks in his arsenal, but through no fault of their own, Truman Capote and John du Pont are devices surrounded by deeper characterizations. In Foxcatcher, du Pont is the straw that stirs the drink, and while he's an integral part in the enjoyment, nobody ever remembers the straw.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

TIFF'14: The Equalizer: Denzel is On Fire

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews)

***(out of four)

 
I'm too lazy to search for it, but I'm sure somebody on Youtube has done a mashup between the CBS series, The Equalizer and the 1973 version of The Wicker Man. Both share the late Edward Woodward, and one's premise supports the other. Every week on The Equalizer, Robert McCall would help someone in dire need of protection or saving, free of charge. All you had to do was call him. In The Wicker Man, Woodward's Sergeant Howie answers a call for help and shows up, free of charge, to find a girl who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Robert McCall has better luck than Sergeant Howie, but you could seamlessly edit footage from both series' together into a coherent narration.

You can also seamlessy edit Denzel Washington's version of The Equalizer with another of his productions: Man on Fire. Director Antoine Fuqua gets his Tony Scott on, making a movie where mild-mannered Denzel is eventually revealed to be more lethal than Death itself. Viewers discover that Denzel, like so many cinematic heroes before him, has remorsefully given up killing. His moratorium on whacking people ends when his hand is forced by a villain who's just itching to be shot in the face with a bazooka. The girl who inspires Denzel's reacquaintance with ultraviolence may be older in The Equalizer, and Fuqua's camera is thankfully less hyperactive than Scott's, but truthfully, this is pretty much the same movie as Man on Fire.

Yet I liked The Equalizer better. The quiet moments Washington's Robert McCall spends, at home, work and with costar Chloe Grace Moretz, are achingly delicate. They have the movie-movie sheen of Scott's work (Mauro Fiore's cinematography is one of the film's best assets), but Washington grounds them in an everyman's reality. He totally sells you on the notion that Robert McCall is just a regular schlub, a lonely widower who works at a Home Depot clone and brings his own tea bag to a diner so he doesn't have to read his books alone in his room.

It's at that diner that McCall encounters Teri (Moretz). They have an easy rapport that suggest that seeing each other is a daily routine. Teri is clearly a prostitute, though she has aspirations of becoming a singer. She sits at the counter, he sits at the table closest to the door, and they make idle chat about the books McCall is reading. When Teri finally decides to join McCall at his table, screenwriter Richard Wenk gives her a lovely line about "breaking protocol." Moretz and Washington are excellent in this scene, which capitalizes on Moretz's ability to simultaneously play tough and vulnerable. An entire movie could be made from this scene--My Dinner with Denzel.

Alas, this is an action movie, so poor Teri has to be in trouble somehow. She's working for the Russian mob, who pummel her viciously when she fights back against a client. When they come to retrieve Teri from the diner, McCall gets a feel for his soon-to-be nemeses, one of whom gives him a card with an address and number on it. "Call this number," says the cardholder, for reasons I assume have to do with hush money.

It's a mistake. Robert McCall is not a regular joe. He's a former assassin and special ops agent who, like William Munny in Unforgiven, gave up the life at the request of his wife. Once Teri is put into the ICU, McCall pays a visit to her pimp, offering him $9,800 to "buy" Teri off the street for good. The pimp and his hencemen seem surprised this uppity Negro would show up at their unlisted location and try to make it rain with $9,800. They call him racial slurs, which is an even bigger mistake than than giving him their business card.

It's no spoiler to say that McCall kills the shit out of these people. It's our first taste of McCall's capabilities, and a warning that this movie is going to be more sadistic than you ever imagined. McCall surveys the room, and Fuqua teases you with quick cuts to a corkscrew, a bottle and the vulnerable human flesh of the enemy. When McCall lept into action, the person next to me covered his eyes. A measure of the carnage: that corkscrew is used in a way that would make Dario Argento proud.

The Russian mob is not happy. The leader, Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich) sends his number one henchman Teddy (Marton Csokas) to investigate what he believes to be a hit by one of the other mob factions in Boston. Teddy is just as skilled, and as ruthless, as McCall. They're two sides of the same coin, though Teddy just isn't interested in keeping his violent impulses in check. (I'm glad Teddy doesn't say that "two sides of the same coin" line in the movie.)

Viewers of The Equalizer know where this is heading. The showdown, at McCall's place of employment, should have been called "Home Depot Alone." To protect innocent victims, including the "he's so nice, he's doomed" character played by Johnny Skourtis, McCall takes on Teddy and his henchmen using every sharp, dangerous item you'd find at a hardware store. Drills, hooks, nail guns and other sharp objects find squishy body parts with casual regularity. There's a not-so-subtle wink for lovers of the old TV show as well, though you might be too busy averting your eyes to see it.

The gruesome violence didn't bother me, but I feel I should at least warn you it's there. And Fuqua and Washington take the "walking away with an explosion behind me" action movie trope to an extreme that even Joel Silver might call bullshit on them. "How the hell did he make THAT blow up?" my brain asked, but I was too mesmerized to truly care.

This is Denzel's show, but his supporting cast is memorable. Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo show up in an effective two-scene cameo. Leo is so restrained I had to check the credits to make sure it was she. Skourtis is likable enough to make you fear for his safety, Csokas is formidable foe and Moretz is a stand-out in her smaller than expected role.

The Equalizer isn't so much an origin story of Woodward's TV character so much as it is the pilot episode--McCall's first case. At the end of the film, we see the familiar ad that got Woodward his business every week on CBS. I'm not sure how fans of the show will react, but anyone looking for a an exciting, incredibly violent actioner should enjoy themselves here..

TIFF'14: Top Five: Cinderella, Cut It Up One Time

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews)

***1/2 (out of four)


Chris Rock's Top Five is incredibly tasteless, totally politically incorrect and obviously not in a condition the MPAA will grant an R. It is also funny as hell, with leading man/writer/director Rock soliciting laugh out loud moments from every comedian and celebrity he had in his Rolodex. Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler and Whoopi Goldberg riff on pre-nuptial agreements. Kevin Hart freaks out as a N-word spouting agent. DMX finally admits he lives in jail before launching into a Charlie Chaplin song. And Cedric the Entertainer executes a bout of menage-a-trois coitus interruptus that is just plain wrong on about 47 levels.

I haven't even gotten to the scene the MPAA will explode over, involving a tampon, hot sauce and, oh, never mind. If this visually stays in the movie, expect more than one think piece about just how offensive it is.

Somewhere under all this raunch is a well-written love story between Rock and Rosario Dawson. Dawson gives what may be her best performance as a New York Times reporter assigned to cover a day in the life of famous comedian/actor Andre Allen (Rock). Andre's success has been measured by a series of "Hammy the Bear" cop buddy comedies where he appears, in full costume, as quip-loving bear solving crimes with human partner Luis Guzman. "Andre Allen's movies are so bad," writes one consistently antagonistic New York Times critic, "that I wouldn't watch them if they were projected in my glasses." 

Sick of yelling out "it's Hammy time!" in sequel after sequel, Andre produces and stars in a serious movie about the Haitian Revolution. Playing real-life figure Dutty Boukman, Andre estimates that he and his fellow liberators "kill about 5,000 White people onscreen." It's this destined to flop movie that pairs Andre with Dawson's reporter. Any publicity is good publicity, especially when selling a passion prestige project none of the fans are going to see.

Andre hates reporters, but Dawson is not only easy on the eyes, she's whip-smart and unafraid of challenging the star's answers. Her bullshit detector is on, and like Andre, she's been sober for several years. Rock, who wrote the screenplay, pokes fun at several sacred cows, but plays the alcoholism angle straight. Dawson looks at booze with a mix of terror and desire (at one point, Andre removes a bottle she's been hugging in a convenience store like a security blanket), and the threat of relapse hangs over both protagonists like the sword of Damocles.

Dawson follows Andre as he does photo shoots and inerviews. He also runs errands for his reality show fiancee (a game, brutally funny Gabrielle Union). She cares more about producing the perfect reality show wedding than Andre, going so far as to exchange the wedding rings Andre chose with ones "more camera-friendly, according to the producer." When Dawson challenges Andre about the validity of this upcoming wedding, which has the appearance of media production rather than true love, his response is deeper than expected.

A lot of Top Five feels liks Chris Rock shot scenes of things he would have described in his stand-up comedy. The film riffs on fame, relationships, addiction, sexuality and race. Like his onstage persona, Rock is not afraid to be truly ethnic, as in a great, improvised projects scene where Andre's family is made up of the hottest Black comedians working today; or when Dawson's grandmother shows up in flashback to endorse assplay in Spanish. He's also unafraid to merge his raw comedy with unabashed sweetness. Dawson's reboot of the Cinderella fable, courtesy of her daughter, is a funny, innocent melding of the French story with a funky, Latina twist. The last shot of Top Five gets its emotional power by being a callback to Dawson's lovely monologue about "CIN-der-eya."

Rock gets quality work from his cast, including JB Smooth as Andre's right-hand man and bodyguard. Smooth's hangdog expression is both a source of comic joy and empathy; he looks at Andre the way your best friend looks at you after you've fucked up big time. Union, Jay Pharoah and Hart are memorable with little screen time. And Cedric the Entertainer gets to bump uglies and utter a punchline about wooden hangers that makes absolutely no sense but may be the funniest line in the movie.

But Top Five belongs to Rosario Dawson. Rock makes an extremely charitable ally, both behind and in front of the camera. Their chemistry is palpable, and they handle both comedy and drama with grace and deftness. At the Q&A, Rock joked that Dawson would get Oscar consideration, and while it's deserved, the filth-flarn-filth of this movie might kill Oscar voters before they could even nominate her. I can't stress it enough: This movie is nasty.

The title comes from a repeatedly asked question in the film: What's your Top Five rap artists? Several people answer the question, but unless I miscounted, everyone seems to keep coming up with six entries. It's one of those questions that tells something about the person answering it, especially if the person asking is a rap fan. You didn't ask, but I'll tell you mine:

Salt 'n Pepa, Tupac, Rakim, Public Enemy, KRS-ONE (and since they kept giving an extra as a backup: A Tribe Called Quest.)

(Aside: I don't know why Top Five currently has no distributor, because this movie is going to be a hit.)

(UPDATE: Looks like Paramount will be releasing Top Five worldwide. Good luck getting that R, Paramount!)

Monday, September 8, 2014

TIFF'14: The Reach: You, Sir, Are No Rutger Hauer

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews)  

* (out of four)


 In 1953's Inferno, an evil, sexy, shot-in-Technicolor Rhonda Fleming and her lover left an incapacitated Robert Ryan in the desert to die. This was a mistake; any noir lover knows that, if you have the chance to kill Robert Ryan, you kill him. Robert Ryan had no patience to wait for the Grim Reaper. Not only does Ryan survive his desert ordeal, he seeks violent retribution against those who have wronged him. And he does it in 3-D.

Inferno was the first movie that popped into my head while watching The Reach. Jean-Baptiste Leonetti's latest doesn't cite Inferno as an influence (it's actually based on a 1972 novel called Deathwatch), but the plot is similar: Ben (Jeremy Irvine) is left in the desert to die by a traitorous business partner of sorts named Madec (Michael Douglas). Madec shows up in the Mojave desert driving a $500,000 Mercedes-Benz six-wheeled truck, complete with cappucino maker, toaster oven and martini maker. He wants expert desert tracker Ben to guide him into the Mojave to illegally hunt a big-horned ram. The town sheriff (Ronny Cox) looks the other way after seeing the color of Madec's money, money Ben could sorely use in order to chase his girlfriend to her college town. He takes the job against his better judgment.

When things go awry, and Ben gets forced to brave the elements, a second movie popped in my head: 1986's The Hitcher. In that film, C. Thomas Howell picks up a killer hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer) who makes his life a living hell. Hauer has a supernatural ability to show up whenever it seems Howell has escaped or may be saved. In The Reach, after Madec shoots a person instead of a sheep, he frames Ben, then forces him to strip to his BVD's and bare feet and walk the desert until he's a crispy-fried British actor. Whenever Ben uses his skills to get water or some clothing, Madec shows up out of nowhere to fuck up his survival plans. 

Madec's appearances are just as absurd as Hauer's hitchhiker--in fact, they make The Reach look like a rip-off of Eric Red's nightmarish classic. The difference is: Rutger Hauer's character is scary and convincing. Michael Douglas' Madec is neither of these, not even when armed with a rifle that "shoots like a missile."

The multi-talented Douglas is equally adept at playing predator or prey, though I've always found him more compelling as the former. He can play evil and sexy; he can play evil and charming, too. What The Reach proves is that he cannot play evil and psychotic. He's about as terrifying as tumbleweed, and forced to utter slasher movie lines that would make Freddy Krueger disembowel his screenwriter. During one of the exactly 700 million times Madec corners Ben, Douglas uttters the worst line of his career:

"Fool me once, shame on you," he says. "Fool me twice, I KILLLLLLLLL YOUUUUUU!!!!!!"

This movie does not make one lick of sense, and it lacks the suspense or terror to make us forget its illogic. So you're left to question its every move. Did Madec intentionally kill that guy? I mean, human beings don't look like big ass rams, so it must have been part of the plan, right? Why did the murder victim conveniently bury things in the desert for Ben to find? Why doesn't Ben flinch when Madec fires bullets dangerously close to his prone body? How does Ben know Madec is going to his helicopter? Why does Madec's deal to sell his company to China hinge on Ben's death? And why would a certain character go back into trouble after he gets away from it?
 
I've been chewed out for calling this a "horror movie," but when a movie has a dream sequence of a killer showing up to murder his victim, and then the victim wakes up to find the killer is actually in the room, you know you're not watching a Merchant-Ivory movie.

The only things The Reach has going for it are Madec's Mercedes-Benz and the convincingly gruesome burn makeup effects used to turn the star of War Horse into The English Patient. Look for pictures of the F/X and the Mercedes on the internet and save your money. 

As an aside: Michael Douglas sat behind me during the screening here at TIFF. He looked great and expressed fond enthusiasm for the movie during the Q&A. I'm so glad he was behind me during the movie; had he been in front of me, he might have turned around and seen me rolling my eyes like a slot machine for 90 minutes. I would have been embarrassed had he caught me. Embarrased, but not sorry.

TIFF'14: Ruth and Alex: The Married Life of Fast Black And Annie Hall

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews) 

** (out of four)


I do not mind a little emotional manipulation in my movies. In fact, I can handle more of it than most critics. But Good Lord! Even I had to wave the white flag of surrender at Ruth & Alex. Thanks to its leads, and the younger actors who play their characters in the past, Ruth & Alex is at times very effective. But one can only go to the emotional well so many times before it runs out of water and the bucket hits bottom. This movie's bucket busts right through the well and keeps going until it hits the Devil down in Hell upside the head.

Based on the book by Jill Ciment, director Richard Loncraine's latest stars Oscar-winning veterans Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton as an old married couple looking to move from their Williamsburg walk-up for reasons that aren't completely clear. The walkup has so many stairs the family dog doesn't want to navigate them, and even their real estate agent niece (Cynthia Nixon) is exhausted after reaching the apartment. Ruth and Alex aren't getting any younger, so they start considering places that have an elevator.

(Aside: Since imDB lists her character as "niece" and I have forgotten what the movie calls her, I am henceforth referring to Nixon's character as "Miranda," because she is exactly like her Sex and the City character.)

Miranda offers to help her auntie and uncle sell the place they have inhabited for the past 40 years. With gentrification turning Williamsburg into a fashionable, trendy hellhole, I mean, hotspot, Miranda thinks she can get over a million dollars for the listing. We are then treated to an occasionally amusing series of prospective buyers who are all quirky though tolerable caricatures. Miranda refers to them by cutesy nicknames, as if this were a low-rent Rear Window. Artist Alex (Freeman) acts gruff while retired schoolteacher Ruth (Keaton) greets each increasingly warped apartment visitor.

So, we have a movie about a charismatic aging couple who stand to make a profit on a home they bought when their 'hood was unpopular. They relate, fight, make-up, and show incontrovertible affection for one another while navigating the exhausting NYC real estate market. Keaton and Freeman are good, as expected, and my brain warned me that "they probably won't even move at the end." This would make a fairly decent, perfectly acceptable movie.

But lo! I have barely scratched the surface on plot, emotional effects and predictable happenings! An itemized list:

1. This movie has narration. It's by Diane Keaton. Just kidding. Mr. Freeman occasionally narrates the story, and I was reminded of his first spoken words for a Clint Eastwood tribute: "Yes, it's me again," Freeman said on that narration track. This is incredibly lazy shorthand, a crutch way too many movies have leaned upon. But I love listening to Freeman's disembodied voice, and the narration is used sparingly, so I could live with it.

2. When not narrating, Alex reminisces about the decades he and Ruth spent in their apartment. This sends the film into flashback mode, where the younger actors (Claire van der Boom and Korey Jackson) do a better job playing Keaton and Freeman than Keaton and Freeman do. The flashbacks are mildly intrusive in how they're invoked, but they serve to enrich character development. To my pleasant surprise, the younger actors play scenes that address their interracial relationship and its hardships. van der Boom is especially good in a scene where her family makes her choose between her Black fiance and them. And these two generate a passionate, youthful heat that explains why their older counterparts are still together. Unlike the narration, these flashbacks are useful. 

3. Alex keeps running into a precocious little girl (Sterling Jerins), both at the viewing for his house and when he and Ruth start viewing potential replacements. The young actress who plays her has several short, well-acted scenes with Freeman, and her glasses clearly evoke Keaton's, but nothing is done with her. She exists just to be a cute device of a little girl whose weird mother likes getting into other people's beds. Don't ask.

4. Remember Ruth and Alex's dog, the one with the aversion to stair climbing? It gets sick. Really sick, to the tune of $11,000 in vet bills. It needs surgery and may be paralyzed for life. It's a damn cute dog, too, and there are numerous scenes of the vet (Maury Ginsberg) calling to give Ruth suspenseful news about the dog. There are so many plot developments with the dog that the phone calls approach farce, and every time the film cuts to the dog, it hits you in the heart with a sledgehammer. A shot of the dog's bandaged paw reaching out to Ruth might cause your tear ducts to burst into flames. But come on, who can resist a doggie in distress?

5. The film sits Ruth and Alex on a bench near a famous New York City bridge in order to shamelessly, and repeatedly, invoke memories of Woody Allen's Manhattan. This is not a good idea.

6. Speaking of famous NYC bridges, there's a man of Arabic descent who has jacknifed a fuel truck on the Williamsburg Bridge before fleeing the scene. Every news outlet immediately refers to him as a terrorist, and throughout the film, news anchors hit that possibly incorrect note over and over because they has nothing else to go on. This plays as a scathing indictment of the garbage that passes for news on CNN, Fox News and the major networks, but does it really belong in this film? It is in the book, according to the author, but Ruth & Alex manages to trivialize it, especially after the suspect is erroneously accused of robbing a store. We spend so many scenes being shown TV footage of this unfolding story, yet the movie completely fails to do its outcome justice.

This may not sound overwhelmingly manipulative, but in any five minutes of Ruth & Alex, you'll find narration and/or a flashback and/or the sick doggie that's putting its owners into hock and/or the latest threatening news about the truck driver and/or the cute little girl and/or the Manhattan evocation. And I haven't even discussed the lesbian couple whose dog has a learning disability and who are adopting a kid from India and could REALLY use Ruth & Alex's apartment. Eventually, I found myself internally screaming "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"  

TIFF 2014: Big Game: Becoming a Man By Kicking Ass With Sam Jackson

by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF 2014 reviews)


*** (out of four)

Big Game is a coming-of-age movie where the young man in question matures into an ‘80’s action movie hero. It features a 13-year old boy on a quest to prove his manhood, a quest that was supposed to involve big game hunting but evolves into a mad dash to save the President of the United States. Before the closing credits, this young man will execute feats of derring-do straight from the fantasies of a teenage boy in 1984. That Big Game makes this believable and cheer-inducing is one of its pleasures. Another pleasure is the casting and chemistry of its two leads, one of whom is the reliably profane Samuel L. Jackson.

Sam doesn’t play the kid. That role belongs to Onni Tommila, last seen in Big Game director Jalmari Helander’s Rare Exports. For such a young actor, Tommila is very good at bringing credibility to situations that the normal brain would register as preposterous. He has an underlying vulnerability that makes one believe the impossible things Helander has him do. In Rare Exports, Tommila found that Jolly Old St. Nicholas actually belongs on his own naughty list. In Big Game, the lack of faith his family and his village has in him completing his quest for manhood inspires him to leap off mountains onto a generator being carried by a helicopter.

Inside that generator is Samuel L. Jackson, but more on that later. Like the men before him in his village, Oskari (Tomilla) is being sent into the Finnish woods to prove himself by hunting big game. The villagers have no faith in Oskari; he’s weaker than the average 13-year old kid. “He won’t come back,” one man says. But Oskari’s father, a powerful man, pulls some strings to give his son the chance at honor and manhood. Armed with a bow and arrow he can barely shoot, and a map with a specially marked X from his Dad, Oskari heads into the woods in the hopes of snaring a bear as big as the one his dad once snared.

Also in the woods is a terrorist played by Mehmet Kutulus. Kutulus is a throwback to the days when movie villains just wanted to see the world burn. He’s a cinematic descendant of Die Hard’s Hans Gruber, right down to the perfectly trimmed beard. Armed with a missile capable of taking out a jet plane, he waits for his target to do a fly by. To pass the time, Kutulus tests his airplane missile on the pilot unfortunate enough to have flown the villain to the current location. The test is successful.

Meanwhile, President Oba—I mean Sam Jackson--flies high above Oskari’s woods en route to Helsinki. When Kutulus’ missiles register on Air Force One’s radar, Jackson’s top Secret Service agent, Morris (Ray Stevenson) forces the president into an escape pod and ejects him from Air Force One. Morris sends a team of soldiers to assist the President, though he conveniently forgets to tell them their parachutes don’t work. Morris jumps from the crashing Air Force One soonafter, with plans to rendezvous with Kutulus.

Oskari sees Air Force One plummeting to the ground, giving him his first opportunity to outrun metallic carnage and fireballs. Finding the President’s pod nearby, Oskari releases him. “What planet are you from?” Oskari asks, before introducing himself to the leader of the free world. President Jackson immediately tries to commandeer Oskari’s scooter. “This is now property of the United States government!” he exclaims. “This is my forest,” Oskari replies, reminding the President that he is way out of his geographical element. “You will not survive without me.”

Back in Washington, CIA agent Felicity Huffman, vice president Victor Garber and terrorism expert Jim Broadbent wonder what the hell happened to the President. Their scenes are set in a command center that feels about as real and as accurate as Dr. Strangelove’s famous War Room. Broadbent, sporting a credible though unplaceable American accent, delivers the kind of deliciously hammy performance for which his fellow Brits are known. He seems to have predicted exactly what happened to the Commander-in-Chief, which no one onscreen finds suspicious even after he’s proven correct.

The hidden treasure Oskari’s dad left for him turns out to be the aforementioned generator. Inside it is an already killed animal, proof that his dad shares the villagers' belief that he's too weak to succeed on his own. But disappointment turns into determination, especially after Kutulus and Morris show up to shove the President into that generator. Sensing that his honor depends on returning the President to his father alive and in good shape, Oskari starts taking pages from the Stallone/Schwarzenneger playbook. Morris and Kutulus are more than happy to try and kill Oskari with extreme prejudice, but as any parent will tell you, it’s damn hard to keep a determined teenager from trying to rebel.

For a change, the bad motherfucker here is not Jackson. In fact, Sam gets his ass kicked repeatedly in this movie. The Black President gets beaten up so many times it almost feels like we’re trapped in a Republican’s wet dream. This gives Oskari ample opportunity to be heroic. His speech in Finnish before leaping off a cliff to save Sam is more rousing than anything Rambo ever said (and like Rambo’s dialogue, it needs subtitles). Big Game is Oskari’s show, but lovers of ass-kicking Sam and his favorite 12-lettered best friend need not be disappointed; both eventually show up in a well-timed crowd-pleasing moment of pure bliss.

Screenwriters Helander and Petri Jokiranta have all their bases covered. They manage to seal or obscure the biggest plot holes, and even offer a dénouement most American films wouldn’t dare consider. Despite the guaranteed (and unwarranted, despite the profanity) R-rating this will get from the MPAA, Big Game will play like gangbusters for teenagers who feel as undervalued and underestimated as Oskari. It’s silly as hell, to be sure, but dammit, I had a good time cheering as its hero earned his stripes.

TIFF 2014 Reviews

Here's the one-stop shopping list of the movies I'm seeing here at TIFF, in the order I'm seeing them.

I'll post a link on every review leading back here so you can have all the entries in one location.

Update: Still will be posting reviews as the days go by.

My TIFF Diary can be found at RogerEbert.com

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
THE HUMBLING
FORCE MAJEURE
BIG GAME
RUTH & ALEX
THE REACH
BEYOND THE LIGHTS
TOP FIVE
THE EQUALIZER
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
FOXCATCHER
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT
MAPS TO THE STARS
LEVIATHAN
INFINITELY POLAR BEAR
LAGGIES
THE IMITATION GAME
THE COBBLER
WILD
BEFORE WE GO
THE CONNECTION
REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Breakfast at TIFF '14, or Sleepless in Toronto

by Odienator

Once again, I'm up here in Toronto doing the TIFF thing. Last time I was up here, for the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, I panned To The Wonder and was duly punished by dreadful films by Bill Murray and the Wachowskis. I also got pretty lazy (and drunk) and stopped posting reviews. That won't happen this year, as I've something to prove and I'm stubborn enough to make sure I prove it. So expect to hear from me fairly often this time. Unless, of course, I'm felled by movies as bad as Cloud Atlas and Hand Job on Hudson.

Until a few hours ago, my first movie was on September 5th. Thanks to IFC, I was able to snare a ticket to the off-sale Clouds of Sils Maria for tonight. Oliver Assayas' film provides the first of my three run-ins with Hit Girl, Chloë Grace Moretz. She's joined in this by Kristen Stewart and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche. Every time I read the title, I think it says Clouds of Silas Marner. George Eliot should tell me to clean my glasses.

September 5th is Bill Murray Day, with free screenings of Stripes, Groundhog Day, and the movie that turns 30 this year, Ghostbusters. It all leads up to St. Vincent, Murray's latest movie. I was unable to get into that, but another screening was just added, so I'll try to leap on that in the morning.

I'll tweet review links as the festival churns on. In the meatime, here's what I'm seeing, in the order I'm seeing it. I'm sure more will be added as time goes on.


CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
THE HUMBLING
COMING HOME
BIG GAME
RUTH & ALEX
THE REACH
BEYOND THE LIGHTS
TOP FIVE
THE EQUALIZER
STILL ALICE
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
FOXCATCHER
MISS JULIE
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT
MAPS TO THE STARS
LEVIATHAN
PASOLINI
INFINITELY POLAR BEAR
LAGGIES
THE COBBLER
WILD
BEFORE WE GO
THE CONNECTION
REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS