At the beginning of “The Equalizer,” a remake of the cult 1980s television show, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) pontificates on “The Old Man and the Sea,” summing up Hemingway’s take on human nature.
“The old man gotta be the old man,” he says. “The fish gotta be the fish. Got to be who you are in this world no matter what.”
Of course this is a movie, so he’s actually talking about himself and not Ernest’s adversarial fisherman.
Washington plays a home improvement store worker by day, righter of wrongs by night. He’s a former black ops commando trying to leave his violent ways in the past but just when he thought that part of his life was over, the Russian mob leans on him because he tried to protect a young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) from her violent pimp.
When he singlehandedly wipes out the east coast wing of the Russian mob Teddy (Marton Csokas), an enforcer from Moscow arrives to put an end to McCall’s one man search for justice.
“The Equalizer” is more elegant than Liam Neeson’s recent action movies but less viscerally satisfying. All the elements of Neeson’s Euro-trash thrillers are in place—tattooed bad guys and the “seasoned” hero with a “special set of skills”—but the pace is much slower.
The point of the story is that McCall equalizes situations, using his talents to help the down trodden but it takes about thirty minutes before any settling of scores happens. We meet McCall, learn about his orderly life—his shirts are immaculately pressed, he likes to read the classics and is particular about the placement of cutlery at his local diner—but we don’t learn anything about his past. He’s Denzel and ergo, a badass, but the first thirty minutes of this movie could have snapped things up a bit by illuminating his past.
The slow burn does build some tension, and by the time McCall unleashes hell on the Russia mobsters it comes as a bit of a catharsis. Now the movie is rolling! Except that it isn’t. It takes ages for McCall to open another can of whoop ass. Instead director Antoine Fuqua has elected to gradually build up to a wild showdown in a massive hardware store. Who knew those places were so dangerous? The climax is tense and inventive, apparently there is no home improvement device that cannot be turned into a WMD, but it is a more standard blockbuster-movie ending than you might expect from a movie so stingy with the action in the first hour.
It’s a good movie and Denzel is, as always, charismatic and interesting, but if “the old man gotta be the old man,” then “The Equalizer” gotta be more of an action movie to be completely satisfying.
Not many children’s movies would feature someone voicing the fear that the title characters would “kidnap me and slurp up my intestines like noodles,” but then again, “The Boxtrolls” is not like most other kid flicks.
Based on Alan Snow’s illustrated novel “Here Be Monsters!,” and from the folks who brought us the dark visions of “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” “The Boxtrolls” is the most original film for young’uns to come out this year.
According to town father Lord Portley-Rind (voice of Jared Harris) of the Victorian-age town of Cheesebridge, the Boxtrolls are evil beasts that steal children, eat their faces and live underground among mountains of bones and rivers of blood. They’re so hideous there are even popular songs written about their dastardly deeds. To rid the community of these vile creatures Rind brings in a social-climbing exterminator named Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), who guarantees the complete annihilation of the trolls in return for a coveted White Hat and a place at the town’s exclusive cheese table.
The Boxtrolls, of course, aren’t evil. They are good-natured, green-skinned trolls who use cardboard boxes as camouflage, speak gibberish and get into mischief, like smelly Minions. Sure, they eat live bugs and live underground in a Rube Goldberg-esque steampunk world of machines made from parts salvaged from the garbage but they also love music and have raised a human child, Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), as one of their own. If the Boxtrolls are to survive, Eggs will have to go head-to-head with Snatcher and his henchmen Mr. Pickles (Richard Ayoade), Mr. Trout (Nick Frost) and Mr. Gristle (Tracy Morgan).
Combining the atmosphere of Hammer horror films with slapstick humour, a deranged story, a “be who you are” message and morbidly marvelous attention to every stop-motion detail, “The Boxtrolls” is a trick and a treat.
Unabashedly weird and wonderful, the movie may be too scary for the little ones, but any child who has spent time with the “Goosebumps” series or “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” shouldn’t be kept up at night by either the story or the visuals.
Instead they’ll likely be drawn in by the beautiful set decoration, the ingenious character design—the baddies all have the worst teeth since Austin Powers—and fun voice work. As the lactose intolerant Snatcher Kingsley has the most fun. It’s a flamboyant performance, inventive and eccentric, that will entertain kids and their parents.
“The Boxtrolls” is Pixar on drugs, a wild ride that isn’t afraid to mix a scare or two in with the kid stuff.
A good alternate title for the new Simon Pegg motivational movie would be “Hector and the Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Both movies feature a man in existential crisis, on a journey to find the missing puzzle piece that will improve their lives. Both stories are thick slices of pop psychology, but appealing casts buoy both.
Hector (Pegg) is a psychologist with a tidy uneventful existence. He shares his predictable and safe life with Clara (Rosamund Pike), an ad agency writer who creates names for pharmaceuticals. They chug along happily until one day Hector snaps and berates one of his patients for not being satisfied with her comfortable life. He set out on an archeological dig of sorts, to discover what happiness means to people. Leaving Clara behind he hits the road as the Indiana Jones of Happiness. First stop China.
Echoes of “Eat Pray Love” reverberate in each of Hector’s layovers. From China to Africa to Los Angeles he collects people and theories of happiness—“My secret of happiness is never asking myself if I’m happy,” says a millionaire (Stellan Skarsgård) in China—making notes in his diary along the way.
The movie screams WHIMSY in capital letters from its opening scene of Hector and a dog soaring above the earth in a World War II RAF bi-plane, to the title font to Hector’s diary drawings that come to life to illustrate the story. The presence of Pegg doesn’t dismiss fears of oppressive whimsy either, as he embraces the story’s quirky tone with a performance that feels like the acting 101 textbook definition of repressed British man, all shy glances and apologetic fumbling.
But then, despite the movie’s somewhat smug tone regarding Hector’s ability to fly around the world and expropriate ideology from people he then leaves behind, and the outdated notion that Clara can’t be happy until she has a child, the movie shifts from twee to a slightly less awkward form of twee. When it drops the pop psychology and focuses on Hector and Clara, it works. He’s still an over privileged prat stumbling around the world in search of an elusive concept, but when the movie switches from magic realism to just plain old realism and the floodgates open for him it is hard not to forgive him the journey.
“Hector and the Search for Happiness” feels like Michel Gondry Lite, but when it and Pegg let the whimsy go, it can be an affecting story.
The offspring of “Saturday Night Live” have provided highs and lows in terms of the movie going experience. On the upside there is “Wayne’s World,” a very funny comedy about a suburban headbanger and his best friend. Less successful was Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as Beldar and Prymaat Clorhone in “Coneheads.”
Then there is another category of “SNL” movies. The ones like “The Skeleton Twins,” films that just happen to feature former stars of the show.
Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are Maggie and Milo, twins who haven’t spoken in ten years. The product of a troubled upbringing, she still lives in their upstate New York hometown, he in Los Angeles where he pursues a career in acting while waiting tables at a Hollywood tourist trap.
When Milo survives a suicide attempt Maggie invites him to recuperate at her home. Her husband Lance (Luke Wilson) welcomes him, but Milo’s presence in town brings up old, disturbing feelings for his ex-boyfriend Rich (Ty Burrell) and Maggie who is still troubled by the past.
Unlike Aykroyd and Curtain in “Coneheads,” Wiig and Hader are revelations in “The Skeleton Twins.” The movie is a parade of dysfunction, but the performances from these two actors are nuanced and delicate. Both are famous for making people laugh—Wiig has several dramas on her resume like “Girl Most Likely,” but is best known on the big screen for “Bridesmaids”—but both stretch here, becoming dramatic actors who know how to deliver a funny line.
Despite its downbeat tone the script (co-written by Mark Heyman and director Craig Johnson) is packed with laughs, most of which are situational and massaged out of the material by Wiig and Hader.
Luke Wilson and Joanna Gleason are also noteworthy. He’s the sweet but dim-witted “big Labrador Retriever” of a man, and brings some down-to-earth humanity to a movie about people searching to find their humanity. Gleason is terrific as the world’s worst mother, a self-centered woman who presence dredges up old, bad memories.
“The Skeleton Twins” is an interesting and funny character study for much of its 93 minute running time, but the ending feels almost as if the production ran out of money and shut down before they figured out a satisfactory conclusion. Its as if someone simply flicked off the story switch before the narrative was quite done.
Despite a rushed ending, “The Skeleton Twins” features breakthrough performances from its leads that are worth a look.
The story in “The Maze Runner” is based on a dare. When Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) is dropped into a mysterious walled world where a society of boys have grown up in the shadow of a giant labyrinth, he is told, “Don’t go in the maze.” Of course he does, because that’s like telling a teen, “Don’t go through that door,” in a horror flick.
The setting is bucolic. A large open green space, dotted by trees, huts built of logs and gardens. The only thing out of place is a large metal elevator that once a month belches to life, bringing supplies and a “greenie” to the surface. These young men arrive with their memories wiped clean, unaware of where they are or why they were brought there. The latest newbie is Thomas (“Teen Wolf’s” Dylan O’Brien), a rebellious young man who doesn’t quite fit into the well ordered life the other boys have created in their walled-in world.
He wants to escape; to become a Maze Runner and see if there is a way to navigate through the ever-changing labyrinth—and its evil guardians the Grievers—that stands between them and whatever is happening on the outside world. When the elevator deposits a girl (Kaya Scodelario) with a note clutched in her hand, “She is the last one,” in the midst, it seems like the time has come to take on the maze.
“The Maze Runner” is based on a series of wildly popular young adult books—so yes, you can look forward to “The Maze Runner 2: Electric Boogaloo” coming soon to a theatre near you—and takes a backwards approach to the storytelling. Here the characters are cyphers with no knowledge of their pasts, so they create personas based on their abilities in the camp. Very “Lord of the Flies.” It’s interesting though, in that unlike most original stores we don’t have to spend much time getting to know the characters, where they came from or what their inner torment is. They don’t know and neither do we. Instead they concentrate on the present—their present—and survival. Imagine if the reality show “Survivor” was set in a world surrounded by an impenetrable maze and the only way to get voted off the island was to be eaten by a giant, mechanical Griever beast.
The immediacy of the story serves it well to a point. Eventually the whole crew, or most of them anyway, attempt the maze at which point the film becomes a standard 3D sci fi chase flick—Watch out for that Griever!—but there are twists and turns to keep things moving along and perfectly set the story up for a sequel.
The movie is buoyed by strong performances from Will Poulter as a young guy content to stay within the walls of his mysterious prison and Dylan O’Brien, who gives the movie its prerequisite heartthrob appeal.
“The Maze Runner” makes comments about the dangers of conformity and the virtues of bravery and loyalty and does appear to be headed into some twisty-turny territory should the next part of the story get made.
In the novel “This is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper the family’s last name was Foxman. For some reason it was changed to Altman for the film, which, perhaps, was done to subtly infer what kind of film it wants to be. It’s a multi-character comedy with shades of drama and pathos, which, by definition makes it, in film critic shorthand, Altmanesque.
The film may try and speak Altmanese but something gets lost in translation. Instead it does something much more basic but equally satisfying. Once it gets past trying to emulate Robert Altman, it presents a funny and sad glimpse at the inner works of a very dysfunctional but loving family.
Jason Bateman leads the large ensemble cast as Judd Altman, a successful radio producer who comes home one afternoon to find his wife (Abigail Spencer) in bed with his boss. His perfectly constructed world falls a part, sending him onto a tailspin that is only compounded by the death of his father.
Returning to upstate New York for the funeral he is forced to sit Shiva with his family, his over-sharing mom, a bestselling psychologist with fake breasts and a loose tongue (Jane Fonda) and three siblings, married mom Wendy (Tina Fey), practical Paul (Corey Stoll) and Phillip (Adam Driver), a free spirit who brings his much older girlfriend (Connie Britton).
All under one roof for the first time in many years they must confront the ghosts of their pasts—including Wendy’s ex-boyfriend Horry (Timothy Olyphant) and Judd’s high school sweetheart Penny (Rose Byrne)—and deal with some very real truths in the present.
A mix of sentiment and wisecracks, “This Is Where I Leave You” is an all-star feast of dysfunction. The brothers don’t get along, mom dresses inappropriately and everyone seems to have slept with everyone else. No one is particularly happy but where would the drama be if they were?
The themes—it’s a study of love, marriage, divorce—and setup feel like movies we’ve seen before—family gathers for holiday, funeral, birthday—and the situations—family grudges, old girlfriends show up, delinquent sibling throws a wrench into everybody’s plans—are familiar. The thing that sets “This is Where I Leave You” apart is the casting.
Bateman is front and center and brings a nice balance of comedy and pathos to the role of Judd. He has a way with a line, but here reveals a deft hand with dramatic material, often in the same scene. It’s a lovely, quiet performance.
Fey, as the tipsy, protective older sister, also reveals a deeper well than we’ve seen before. Less versatile are Stoll and Driver who hand in enjoyable but familiar feeling work. Other supporting cast click. Like Bateman, Byrne gear shifts between sweet and funny and sweet and serious with ease while Fonda is hilarious as the widow who wonders whether she should tip the coroner.
The point is, it all gels. The cast comes together as a unit and even though the movie veers toward easy sentimentality when an edgier approach might have been more realistic, the players are the ties that bind the family and this movie together.
Liam Neeson does have a “special set of skills” in “A Walk Among the Tombstones” but they’re not really on display in the movie. This isn’t “Taken 4: Armed and Fabulous,” it’s a character study with sadistic serial killers, a precocious kid and plot holes you could drive a truck through. Luckily it also has the jaded but still momentous presence of its star Neeson.
Neeson is Matthew Scudder, a recovering alcoholic who gave up his New York City detective’s badge and the bottle when he was involved in a wild street shoot out left two dead and one wounded. Eight years later he’s working as an unlicensed private investigator—“Sometimes I do favors for people,” he says, “and sometimes they give me gifts.”—when he takes a job to investigate the kidnapping and dismemberment of a drug dealer’s wife. As he gets closer to discovering the people behind the grisly crimes—with the help of T.J. (Brian “Astro” Bradley), a teenage street kid—the case gets gruesome as body parts and clues pile up.
Set against the backdrop of Y2K, “A Walk Among the Tombstones” does little to take advantage of anxious spirit of the times. Instead of playing up on that sense of unease, it is dismissed with the line, “People are afraid of the wrong things.” What’s left is an average police procedural about a world-weary ex-cop chasing down serial killers who do unspeakable things but little more.
The addition of a young character is more of a mystery than the kidnapping story. The grim tone of the rest of the film is lightened somewhat by former “X Factor” contestant Bradley’s performance, but why include him at all? To soften Neeson’s character? To make it family friendly? It accomplishes neither and in fact adds a dreaded “teen sidekick” flavor to a story that takes away from the grit of the serial killer storyline.
Neeson brings his usual action-man gravitas, but tempers it with a little humour and more old school police work than he does in the “Taken” movies. “A Walk Among the Tombstones” is the anti-“Taken.” It pulls its punches and would be better served by showing a little less restraint.
The image of a sandcastle kicks off “Altman,” director Ron Mann’s look at the life and work of Robert Altman. The filmmaker behind movies like “M*A*S*H,” “Nashville” and “The Long Goodbye” once compared making movies to building sand castles, a metaphor he found so powerful he even named his production company Sandcastle 5.
Then later, just before the end credits, the sandcastle disappears. It’s a simple but effective visual summation of Altman’s ethos, build it, watch it go and start all over again.
Mann worked with Altman’s family and colleagues to piece together the personal and professional life of one of the mavericks of American film. The result is a comprehensive documentary that traces Altman’s work back to his roots in industrial filmmaking in Kansas City, to becoming one of television’s most in-demand directors to his iconoclastic work for the big screen. Woven into that narrative is the personal story of the director’s relationship with his wife and business partner of four decades Kathryn and their children.
The story is told in their words—Altman’s reminiscences are culled from 400 hours of footage from his public talks and interviews—accompanied by film clips and unseen until now home movies and stills.
Additional colour comes from the famous faces of Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, the late Robin Williams and Elliott Gould, who each answer one question, “What does the word Altman-esque mean to you?” The wide range of answers, which often are pared down to one word or a short phrase, provide a curt but effective glimpse at the unique multiverse Altman created in his life and work.
The result of all these elements is “Altman,” a beautiful and naturalistic portrait of a man, not just his work. It would have been impossible to go in-depth on each of Altman’s 39 films in just ninety minutes, so Mann concentrates on capturing the spirit of a man who built sandcastles over and over again.
Like an over-stuffed kachori “Dr. Cabbie” fills its story to over flowing with dance numbers, social commentary, slapstick humor, romance and even some political intrigue. There’s something for everyone, but the movie goes for heart-warming rather than heart-burn, so what happened to the spice?
Vinay Virmani stars as Deepak, a new immigrant from New Delhi, who arrives in Toronto with a degree in medicine and dreams of following in his MD father’s footsteps. Instead he is met with bureaucracy and frustration. The medical establishment in Canada doesn’t accept his hard-earned degree and he won’t be able to practice medicine in his new country.
A friend (“The Big Bang Theory’s” Kunal Nayyar) gets Deepak a job driving cab, and in one eventful night he meets Natalie, the girl of his dreams (Adrianne Palicki), and delivers her baby in the back of the hack. When a video of the birth goes viral he becomes a something of a sensation. Soon people are flagging his taxi, looking for medical treatment. With a thriving practice on wheels, he doles out medical advice and prescription drugs to customers from the back of his cab. When one of his patients over medicates a lawsuit ensues and Deepak must prove why he deserves to call himself a doctor.
“Dr. Cabbie” means well but maybe if it didn’t mean so well it would be a better movie. The relentlessly upbeat tone of the film doesn’t allow the story, which has an underpinning in a real and compelling immigrant experience, to breathe. The story is so cluttered with stock characters, slapstick and sweetness that the seriousness of Deepak’s plight—his inability to practice medicine—gets lost. In the cartoony world the movie creates the most realistic element is the depiction of Toronto’s chaotic traffic.
