Prime Time: State Of Grace (1990)

Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright, John C. Reilly, and John Turturro have a lot of film experience. In fact, I don't think I could do the maths to tally up their cumulative total amount of screentime. Having them all working together in State Of Grace should be a good thing, but you have to then consider that director Phil Joanou didn't have much experience. And writer Dennis McIntyre made his feature debut here, although his early death from stomach cancer removed any chance of seeing what other movies he may have written. The inexperience behind the camera ends up negating the vast experience in front of the camera, sadly, and then there's the presence of Sean Penn, an actor who . . . well, he's just sometimes not as good as he thinks he is. Let's all just try to agree on that for now.

Penn plays Terry, a man who reunites with an old best friend, Jackie (Oldman), after a number of years apart. Jackie is a violent criminal, working for a mob ruled over by his brother, Frankie (Harris). Loyalties are tested, people end up dying, and things get a hell of a lot worse when it becomes clear that someone isn't who they claim to be. There's a rat, someone working for the police, and betrayal will inevitably lead to much more bloodshed.

Despite the selection of music videos that he's shot, Joanou doesn't show any real eye for style or captivating imagery here. State Of Grace is a drab and ugly film, and I don't mean that in a way that allows the aesthetic to match the content (because the cast make the most of the few moments that allow them to set off some fireworks, metaphorically speaking). Perhaps hampered by McIntyre's script, which proves incredibly disappointing in how slavishly it follows a template we have already seen so many times before this, or maybe even overawed by, or too reliant on, his leads, Joanou does nothing to make this stand out from a crowded field.

Let's take a closer look at that cast now. Oldman at least has some energy in his performance, even if it's not always the right energy, and he's as captivating as ever. Harris is similarly capable of holding your attention when he's front and centre, and he gets to play his part with an ongoing attempt to stay calm and controlled, even as he feels himself being caught between a rock and a hard place. Wright tries her best in a role that gives her too little to work with, but both Reilly and Turturro are able to do just enough to make their mark, with the former particularly enjoyable in a role that feels a step removed from many of his other performances. Then you have Penn, who simply fails to convince throughout. He's play-acting in a way that would be excusable if you were watching a young child, but is embarrassing when watching a grown man. I do like Penn in some of the roles that have helped him to earn his reputation over the years, but there are times when he just isn't the right man for the job. This is one of those times.

I wish I could praise anything else, even the score from Ennio Morricone feels a bit lacklustre, but there aren't many positives to grasp on to. There are a couple of decent songs tucked away on the soundtrack, and you also get supporting turns from Joe Viterelli and Burgess Meredith. That's it. This just isn't a good film, despite the presence of some very good people doing occasionally good work. I would advise most people to avoid it completely.

3/10

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Ani-MAY-tion: Cars 2 (2011)

While I was pleasantly surprised by my recent, long overdue, viewing of Cars, I knew that I shouldn’t get my expectations too high for either of the sequels. Although I have forgotten the full conversation, I remember hearing that one was dire and one was a pleasant surprise. I hope the third Cars movie is a pleasant surprise, because this one wasn’t very good.

When Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) rises to the challenge of racing Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) he ends up unwittingly amidst a scheme that could lead to the death of many cars. It’s all to do with selling fuel, but a couple of secret agents (voiced by Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer) are on the case. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding leads to them thinking that Mater (Larry The Cable Guy) is working alongside them. There are chases, there are death traps, and there are many moments that have Mater defying the odds to make progress in his “mission”.

While I understand the need to avoid a complete replay of the first movie, Cars feels like a movie series with a limited number of plot options. And, let’s face it, many successful franchises have managed to repeat a formula over and over again, with minor tweaks, including a certain other huge Pixar title. Kids are especially pleased by repetition, which makes the road taken here (no pun intended) all the more bizarre.

Writer Ben Queen does what he can with the premise, presenting a kid-friendly James Bond adventure with Mater being the accidental hero of the piece, but he ends up delivering something incredibly weak. The main lesson feels overwhelmed by the secret agent shenanigans, and the secret agent shenanigans pale in comparison to almost any other film in this vein that you can think of. It doesn’t help that co-directors John Lasseter and Bradford Lewis don’t seem to have any interest in elevating the material, relying on the voice cast to make up for the many weaker elements.

That would be okay if the voice cast was better, but it’s not great. Caine and Mortimer ARE great, but they are absolute highlights here. Wilson is fine, but sidelined in favour of everything else going on, Turturro is equally undone by his relatively limited dialogue (he is fun when he gets time to chatter away), and the likes of Eddie Izzard, Joe Mantegna and others are wasted in supporting roles that don’t give them enough to do. The person who gets to do plenty is Larry The Cable Guy, who is enjoyable enough as Mater, but also quite an acquired taste (although there’s a chance that younger viewers will just lap up everything he says and does).

I didn’t absolutely hate this, mainly thanks to the slick visuals and a couple of small gags that made me chuckle, but it was very disappointing. Am I wrong for wanting another plot that saw Lightning McQueen having to learn some new tactics for a different kind of racing? Probably. Could that have been better than this bit of silliness though? Probably. It gets bonus points for the casting of Caine though, who is the best thing about it.

4/10

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The Batman (2022)

Here are some things that Matt Reeves seems to really like, based on what he presents to viewers in The Batman. "Something In The Way", by Nirvana, Seven, putting a camera as close to someone as possible so you can be right beside them as they grapple hook up to a roof/BASE jump off a building/crash a car/etc, Seven, Zodiac, and . . . Seven. Oh, and shots of people riding motorbikes. If you took out every moments of someone riding a motorbike here than you might have a film that would clock in at a much more reasonable runtime, instead of the hefty three hours we get.

Here's the story, boiled down to essential elements. Batman (Robert Pattinson) is being given the runaround by Riddler (Paul Dano), a criminal determined to expose the secrets of Gotham City. As he tries to get information from the underworld that essentially rules Gotham, Batman deals with Penguin (Colin Farrell), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and is helped in his investigative work by James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz). People are placed in deathtraps, forced to admit to their weaknesses and crimes, and a whole master plan is in place, with the Riddler moving pieces around the city, perhaps including the Batman himself.

There's a lot to like here, a lot that is easy to enjoy if you're a fan of Batman (and so many people are). Despite the darkness of the colour scheme, it's often a visually impressive film. The score is decent, although hampered by those that have come before it, and Reeves and Peter Craig have crafted a screenplay that attempts to provide a perfect mix of the cerebral and the visceral. The biggest problem is how often it defers to past movies, be they other Batman movies, Seven/Fight Club/Zodiac, or Taxi Driver (you could say that the entire finale of this film shows a real rain coming along to wash away the scum).

The pacing of the film is helped by the action set-pieces. They're generally of a high standard, although that close-up camera trick spoils a number of moments, and it's good to see consistency in the way Batman uses skill, strength, and confusion to take on groups of henchmen. There’s nothing new here, and it would be nice to have a Batman/Bruce Wayne who isn’t wrestling with his own guilt and self-doubt for a while, but it is given, for the most part, a decent makeover. I didn’t personally like the reinterpretation of the Riddler, nor do I think a tiresomely inevitable cameo bodes well, but it all works within the film that Reeves set out to deliver.

The cast are, by and large, almost perfect. Pattinson has to be a bit too dour as Wayne, although he doesn’t spend a lot of screentime without the mask and cape on, but he really suits the Bat attire, and has a good voice that doesn’t wander too far towards Bale-growl territory. Dano is disappointingly underused, seen largely through phone screens and computer monitors, but his performance is excellent, and he is allowed to believably posit himself as someone much smarter than everyone around him. I have seen people say that Farrell is also underused, but I think his character is crucially involved in a number of moments that help him make an indelible impression. Wright is a perfect choice for Jim Gordon, and Kravitz stands out as the best Catwoman since Michelle Pfeiffer played the role so memorably back in Batman Returns (I like Anne Hathaway, I just don’t think she was as good when asked to portray this particular character in The Dark Knight Rises). Strong, athletic, smart, sexy, and believing she has extra lives to make use of, Catwoman is once again a very believable and viable yin to Batman’s yang (get your mind out of the gutter), and Kravitz is perfect for the role. Turturro makes a great Falcone, the criminal kingpin who controls so much of the city, and the famous Alfred is played this time around by Andy Serkis. As good as he is in the role, Serkis has to play a character who is basically forgotten, aside from a few small scenes, which feels strange in a film with so much runtime to fill.

The good far outweighs the bad, and a lot of that is thanks to the canny casting, but it’s sometimes hard to view this favourably when it constantly indulges in such obvious plundering and cannibalism. The ending feels especially dull, and familiar, considering how it basically turns a great villain into a sad totem for . . . well, just wait and see for yourself what you think of the “grand finale” and big reveals.

This is a good way to reconfigure the character (although it would have been nice to not keep referring to dead parents as a main plot point again), and I was surprised by how much I didn’t care for the runtime as things moved from one impressive sequence to the next, but it still doesn’t quite equal the best of the Bat-flicks. It’s very good though, despite the flaws.

8/10

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Rounders (1998)

Not actually a film about the British game that resembles a kindergarten version of baseball, Rounders is actually another fun film basing most of the action around card tables. It's all about poker, and the people who make their living from it. It's also helmed by John Dahl, a director who very rarely put a foot wrong for his first full decade or so of moviemaking, before he then started picking up much more work int he world of TV (helming episodes of shows as varied as Fear Itself, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Justified, Ray Donovan, House Of Cards, and Yellowstone).

Matt Damon plays Mike McDermott, a promising young law student who has a pretty good life. He has a lovely partner, Jo (Gretchen Mol), and has decided to try and leave his days of poker behind him, after losing a BIG chunk of money in a foolish move to earn himself a route to the World Poker Championship. Abstaining from the lure of poker proves to be almost impossible, sadly, when Mike welcomes his old friend, Worm (Edward Norton), back into his life. Worm has just finished a prison sentence, and he immediately wants to make up lost time and earnings. Not trusting the playing method of Mike, Worm is happy to win via some underhanded methods. He's also happy to borrow a lot of money with Mike as his guarantor. 

Considering what it is, poker makes for a fair amount of fun and tension, cinematically. Part of that is because movie poker often has people sitting around a table with hands that are often astronomically near-impossible to have dealt from the deck in the same game session, let along the same tense head to head, and part of that is to do with the interesting ways in which great poker players can be shown to be able to read their opponents and quickly calculate odds. Writers David Levien and Brian Koppelman make the most of this latter aspect, having Damon's character be quite the card savant. This is best illustrated by a superb scene in which he helps a judge (Martin Landau) bet high against his colleagues, explaining who is holding what cards in their hands. The use of Worm is another way to make things more exciting though, ensuring that the card games have real stakes. More than just chips and pride, a loss could lead to a lot of pain. And Worm's approach to the game, trying every grift possible to ensure a win, helps to make the lead character seem more like a true sportsman, an expert looking to relearn some lessons after being humbled by a major loss.

Dahl knows what he's doing here, easily keeping things lively and fun for viewers. You get to see cards, you get a peek at the mechanics of some of the trickery, and voiceover narration from Damon keeps everyone informed about the rules, the odds, and the methodology. The film maintains an energy and level of cinematic cool for almost the entire runtime.

While the lead role isn’t really a stretch for Damon, he does well playing another brand of genius without the social lubrication to keep a position in an upper-class world. Norton is very easy to dislike, also doing well as the kind of character destined to forever try too hard for success in a way that guarantees failure after failure. Mol is as underserved here as she has been so often, but she gives a performance so good that it makes you wonder why she never seemed to get a bigger break that others got, although she has built up a great body of work over the years. Landau steals the few scenes he has, John Turturro gets to play a fairly nice guy, for once, and John Malkovich is fun, with an added accent, as Teddy KGB, the big poker player who needs beaten on the way to a complete turnaround of fortune. There is also a small role for Famke Janssen, who is always welcome, and a cameo from poker superstar Johnny Chan.

It’s quite easy to see where this is going, and the lack of any major surprises in the third act is a bit of a shame, but Rounders doesn’t want to be a gritty and bleak film. It is a by-the-numbers sports movie, a tale of someone having faith in himself as others fall by the wayside. That sport may be poker, as opposed to any number of more energetic pursuits, but every other trope and story beat you expect is right here. Which ends up being a good thing, because this is one of the better sports movies I have watched in a while, but that may be to do with my love of poker.

8/10

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Noir-vember: Miller's Crossing (1990)

There are many contenders for the title of "best Coen brothers film ever", depending on your own personal taste and what day of the week it is. But I'd worry about someone who didn't at least consider Miller's Crossing up there in the uppermost tier.

Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan, the right hand man to a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney). Tom does a lot of Leo's dirty work, but he always knows the reason for doing things. That starts to change when Leo upsets Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). He's not willing to hand over a snivelling little low-life named Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro), possibly because he's in lover with Bernie's sister, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). The extra complication in this mess? Tom also seems very attracted to Verna. Trouble is definitely brewing, and it may lead to Tom and Leo parting ways forever. It might even lead to the death of Tom.

A film famously paused by a bout of writer's block that led to the Coens writing Barton Fink, this is a neo-noir gangster movie that celebrates classic tropes while also filling every sequence with gloriously cinematic moments, from the memorable image of a black hat being blown by the wind through a woody area to a gunfight that uses the kind of overkill viewers will recognise from the WB classics of the '30s and '40s. The plot will also be familiar to anyone who has read some of the main works from Dashiell Hammett, or even seen some of the movies based on his work (particularly The Glass Key). And, despite the break required (or maybe because of it), this sits up there with one of the very best scripts written by the Coen brothers, expertly blending the traditional with the ear-caressingly cool. It's the best dialogue that Byrne has ever been given to deliver, and he certainly makes the most of it.

Although there are others worthy of consideration, I'd put this as the best film role that Byrne has ever had. Never unsure of himself, even when about to be handed a beating, and effortlessly cool, he even manages to look like someone punching in the face is a result he was aiming for. Finney is also excellent, absolutely convincing as a boss who no longer often needs to throw his weight around as he has others who can carry out his orders. Polito is equally convincing, a rival crime boss attempting to keep the peace, but also willing to push back harder if he is being made to look weak. As for Turturro, this may be his greatest single performance. He and Byrne are given a gift by the Coens, and they make the most of it. Harden is an enjoyable potential spanner in the works, sensual and self-preserving, and there are some intimidating henchmen portrayed well by J. E. Freeman and the inimitable Mike Starr. There's also an enjoyable small role for Steve Buscemi, although it's worth noting that every single supporting actor here feels perfectly picked for whatever role they're given, from anonymous shooters to local cops.

There's a great score by Carter Burwell accompanying the lush visuals (from Barry Sonnenfeld, who solidified his DP credentials with the Coen brothers before building his own directorial career), wonderful production design throughout, great costumes, and on and on goes the list of positives. The more I think about it, the less I can find to fault here. It is, for me, absolute perfection, and easily jostles alongside The Hudsucker Proxy as the very best feature that the Coen brothers have delivered thus far.

10/10

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Yule Love It: The Nutcracker In 3D (2010)

Obviously, first of all, watching The Nutcracker In 3D in 2D feels like it's diminishing the experience slightly. Never fear, however, because this film being in 3D is the least of the "selling points". Oh, it has such sights to show you. I almost didn't include it in my roster of festive film reviews, but the recent thoughts of people losing their minds over Cats reminded me that other people deserved to hear about it.

Essentially a telling of the classic tale, with Elle Fanning in the role of Mary, the main young girl who finds herself going on an adventure with a nutcracker who comes to life, this is a wild fever-dream interpretation of the material, with additions that just genuinely boggle the mind. Don't believe me? You will, by the time you have sat through a musical number which allows Albert Einstein (played by Nathan Lane) to sing a song about relativity to a famous melody from the suite. Yes, that happens. And it's one of the most memorable moments.

Director Andrey Konchalonskiy (AKA Andrei Konchalovsky) also co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Solimine. Konchalovskiy, director of such '80s hits as Runaway Train and Tango & Cash, THAT Konchalovskiy. He has mixed things up over the years, and I'm not saying that making those action movies means he should give us nothing but more films in the same vein, but this seems like a wild departure, even when considered alongside his more varied films from the past couple of decades. It's so unrelentingly bizarre, in relation to the main choices made, that it becomes something you need to see, just to give yourself a badge of honour. I haven't even mentioned the talking monkey, or any of the other supporting characters who help to make up the bizarre menagerie populating this cinematic world.

There's also a good cast in place for the main roles. Fanning is good as Mary, Aaron Michael Drozin does just fine as her brother, Max, and Lane is at least fun in the role of "Uncle Albert". Richard E. Grant is the father, Shirley Henderson is the voice of The Nutcracker, and John Turturro and Frances de la Tour provide nightmare fuel with their portrayals of, respectively, The Rat King and The Rat Queen. Turturro takes the first prize for terrifying children, especially in the one or two moments that have him snarling in a way that turns his face more ratty while his civil facade slips a la Bilbo Baggins in The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.

Despite the oddness of it all, The Nutcracker In 3D (in 2D) somehow manages to stay fairly uninteresting throughout most of the runtime. The direction from Konchalonskiy is on par with that of an ambitious festive special for the BBC (to be fair, they probably could do something much more impressive than this nowadays). Perhaps the problems lie with the tale itself, which is better suited to a theatrical performance than any attempted narrative film, but that doesn't let anyone off the hook when they come together to have a stab at it.

3/10

You CAN buy it here. But don't.

Mubi Monday: Gloria Bell (2018)

Based on the original movie by director Sebastián Lelio, who also co-wrote it with Gonzalo Mazo, this remake has Lelio helming once again, the screenplay adapted by Alice Johnson Boher, and a cast that includes Julianne Moore, John Turturro, and many more. Having not seen the original, I cannot speak about how this compares to it. I can simply comment on the movie itself, and my comments aren't really overflowing with praise.

Moore plays Gloria, an older woman who enjoys spending some time in clubs and perhaps finding a new lover. She ends up meeting Arnold (Turturro), a man in a similar situation to herself. He is also a divorcee, and has two grown-up children (Gloria has a son and a daughter, Arnold has two daughters), and he claims to be in love with Gloria. Unfortunately, strain develops between the two when it becomes clear that Arnold is often too preoccupied with his daughters, either answering phone calls or disappearing to help them.

The above paragraph is a very basic summary of Gloria Bell, and there's a bit more to this character study than just what I have written there, of course, but not really that much more. In fact, take away the lead performances and this film becomes so lightweight that it's almost ethereal (and not in a good way).

Lelio directs competently enough, and the screenplay takes time to simply show a woman getting to grips with a certain period of her life, but it never really does a good enough job of making the interesting points it could make. Hmmmm, a central character may end up realising that loving oneself and/or life is a better route to happiness than trying to fall in love with someone else? There's something staggeringly original and daring. I really shouldn't lower myself to just delivering sarcastic comments, it's just difficult when a film like this comes along and seems to be viewed as saying something worthwhile. It's not. There's a small twist on the material with the age and situation of the lead character, yes, but when you see how she goes about her day you soon realise that not enough is done to make her anything more than a tool for the final obvious point that Lelio wants to hammer home. Gloria has a problematic neighbour, who is also the son of the landlady. Anyone could be in that situation. She has an ex who now has a new partner. Anyone could be in that situation. She has two children, which is where you think the material starts to feel more relevant to this specific character, but there's very little done with them that couldn't have been done if these central characters were siblings, for example, or close friends. And I understand that I could probably make this argument with many movies. It just stands out here because of the way everything seems underdeveloped. This is a film built around a couple of fun sequences, both set to enjoyable music choices, but without anything in between those moments to reward the patience of viewers.

Moore is as wonderful as ever in the main role, and she deserves better material to work with (although I can see why she would be drawn to this, considering the highlights and the fact that it allows her to be in almost every scene, which doesn't happen enough for such a great actress). Turturro is also as good as he usually is, portraying a different riff on the kind of character we have seen him play quite often throughout his career. The supporting cast includes Caren Pistorius, Michael Cera, Brad Garrett, Holland Taylor, and, the person I was most pleasantly surprised to see, Jeanne Tripplehorn (who deserves more roles in things I may see, cannot recall the last time I saw her in a major release). Everyone does good work, even if they are underserved by a script that is rightly more concerned with things as they are viewed and experienced by Gloria.

Although not a terrible film, I cannot think of many people who will come away from Gloria Bell thinking that their day was better for having watched it. Moore fans will get enjoyment from it, but I am hoping that whatever her next lead role is will also give her a better movie to match her considerable talent. Because this was a disappointment.

4/10

The movie can be bought here.
Americans can buy it here.