Based on the 1982 film of the same name by Harry Hurwitz, “The Comeback Trail,” now on VOD, is star Robert de Niro’s third Hollywood satire after 1997’s “Wag the Dog” and 2008’s “What Just Happened.” It doesn’t pack the same kind of sardonic punch as those films but supplies a laugh or two.
Set in 1974, De Niro plays Max Barber, a Hollywood hanger-on and producer of bottom-of-the-bill b-movies with names like “Killer Nuns.” He dreams of the big time, of making an epic but his reputation and lack of money put his dream out of reach until he concocts a deadly scam.
With his unsuspecting partner and nephew Walter (Zach Braff), Barber sets up a new film starring Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones), a suicidal western star living in a home for retired and forgotten, actors. The tough old coot spends his days playing Russian Roulette, but when Barber offers him a gig, Duke thinks this might his comeback and puts away the gun.
Barber, who is being pressured by gangster Reggie Fontaine (Morgan Freeman) to repay a sizeable loan, has other ideas. His scam is to kill Duke, shut down the movie he never planned to finish, and, make a killing, literally, with the insurance money.
But, like so many things in Barber’s life, his scheme doesn’t go as planned.
“The Comeback Trail” is a movie in love with the movies. Barber and Fontaine banter in movie references—“I’m gonna choke you.” “Like Tony Curtis in the Boston Strangler?”—and, ultimately, it sings the praises of the power of the movies to inspire and transform lives.
Film fans may enjoy the sentiment but they likely won’t be as impressed by the slack pacing and obvious telegraphing of joke after joke. It takes ages to get to the heart of the one-joke premise and, while there are mild laughs sprinkled throughout, as soon as director George Gallo (who wrote “Midnight Run”) allows the story to limp on to the film set-with-the-film, the movie starts to run out of steam.
Of the three Oscar winners who headline “The Comeback Trail,” only Jones appears invested in creating a memorable character. His take on the “broke-down-over-the-hill-has been” Montana has enough flashes of pathos to hint at what this movie could have been, a bittersweet comedy about the dreamers who live and breathe celluloid, but the movie’s silly tone lets him down.
“Freaks,” a new sci-fi horror film starring seven-year-old Lexy Kolker and eighty-three-year-old Bruce Dern, is a multi-layered head-scratcher that wonders what it might be like to be a helicopter parent to one of the X-Men.
Seven-year-old Chloe (Kolker) is kept a prisoner in the rundown suburban home she shares with her father Henry Lewis (Emile Hirsch). But this is not “Room” or any other confinement drama. This is the story of a father whose daughter is gifted in a way that will make her a target if she is discovered. Henry has tried to shield her from all this. “I never wanted the world to turn her into a freak,” he says. “She’s just a girl.” Father and daughter are blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view) with the ability to read minds, make themselves invisible and generate protective, clear bubbles.
Chloe doesn’t know or understand the extent of her powers and as long as she is kept separate from the world, may never know. Her only connections to outside world are ghostly visions (or are they real?) of her late mother Mary (Amanda Crew) and the ice cream man, Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) who seems to know a lot about her.
She has been trained to lie about her identity but soon she begins to wonder what lies beyond the walls of their home. What follows is an extreme case of stranger danger.
“Freaks” takes its time. It allows the viewer to reach their own conclusions, and then, more often than not, shatters them. The only thing that is for sure is that Chloe longs for her mother, a feeling expertly demonstrated by Kolker in a performance that gives the movie the heart it needs to make us care for the characters and the situations. The low fi effects don’t distract in the way a larger budget might have afforded but the humanity on display makes up for the lack of eye candy.
Good sci fiction is rarely exactly about what we see on screen. In that sense “Freaks” isn’t about Chloe’s powers, it’s about being different from those around you, about persecution, about feeling unwanted. There are feelings that many can relate to and making them universal, accessible and by times even exciting, is the film’s greatest strength.
I went to see “Pulp Fiction” on its October 1994 opening weekend at a 2:30 pm screening. I arrived at 2:15 pm, stood in line and waited. And waited. The shows were delayed because audiences weren’t leaving after the credits. They were sitting in their seats talking about what they had just seen. Months of hype in the newspapers and on shows like “Entertainment Tonight” ignited curiosity and the movie delivered, using a broken timeline, ultra-violence and witty dialogue to bend the idea of what a movie could be. Just after 3 pm the movie finally started. Later, mind blown, I didn’t stick around the theatre to discuss the movie with anyone. I ran to the box office, bought a ticket for the next screening and got back in line.
Quentin Tarantino’s new film, “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” doesn’t have quite the same impact as “Pulp Fiction” but it digs deeper, expanding on themes the director has spent a career exploring. “Pulp Fiction” was a seismic shift, a movie changed the face of 1990s cinema, while “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” is an allegory for changing times.
As the title would suggest “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” has dark fairy tale elements. Set in sun dappled 1969 Los Angeles, it focusses on two almost down-and-outers, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) a former series star now reduced to doing episodic television—“It’s official old buddy. I’m a has-been.”—and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a self-described “old cowboy.” Both are on a race to the bottom in an industry they don’t understand anymore.
Next to Dalton’s luxury Cielo Drive home is a mansion owned by starlet Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and director Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha), party place to L.A. luminaries like heiress Abigail Folger (Samantha Robinson) and hairdresser to the stars Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch). As Dalton and Booth’s Hollywood era comes to a close, another is blossoming next door and further on down the road at Manson Family HQ and former western movie set Spahn Ranch.
There will be no spoilers here. I can say the various narrative shards dovetail together in a frenzy of grindhouse violence near the end, but “OUAT… IH” isn’t story driven as much as it is a detailed portrait of a time and place, the moment when the sea change was coming. Piece by piece Tarantino weaves together a nostalgic pastiche of b-movie tropes and expertly rendered sights and sounds to create a vivid portrait of a time and place. With the setting established, he plays mix and match, blending fact and fiction, creating his own history that feels like a carefully detailed memory play.
Pitt screaming down Hollywood Boulevard in a powder blue sports car is the essence of what the movie is about. The propulsive energy of Hollywood, dangerous, glamorous with the promise of ending up who knows where. The characters may all be headed for uncertain futures but an air of optimism hangs over the story. Dalton is down on his luck but when he realizes his neighbor is a world-famous director he says, “I could be one pool party away from starring in the next Polanski movie.” He’s a man out of time but still feels there might be a place for him in that world and that is the lifeblood of Hollywood, the city built on dreams.
One such dreamer is Tate. Robbie has a lovely scene as the actress enjoying her own movie in a darkened theatre. It does away with the stylized dialogue Tarantino is known for and instead focusses on the pure joy the character feels at watching her dreams come true on the big screen. It’s a lovely scene that speaks to the excitement of the first blush of success, untouched by cynicism in an increasingly cynical world.
“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” is unique in its feel. Tarantino has always been singular in his filmmaking but this one feels different. It’s clearly rooted in the b-movies that inspire his vision but here he is contemplative, allowing his leads—DiCaprio and Pitt in full-on charismatic mode—to channel and portray the insecurities that accompany uncertainty. The film is specific in its setting but universal in portrayal of how people react to the shifting sands of time. Funny, sad and occasionally outrageous, it’s just like real life as filtered through a camera lens.
“Lone Survivor” provides further proof that war is, indeed, hell.
The battle scene that takes up much of the film’s running time is a Hieronymus Bosch style glimpse into the very heart of battle. Grisly and gory, it is about pushing the limits of endurance as far as possible.
But “Lone Survivor” isn’t simply a shoot ‘em up.
Between the bullets is a complex story about morality and the men who put themselves in harm’s way.
The film is based on the real-life SEAL Team 10’s Operation Red Wings, a failed 2005—the movie’s title in itself is a spoiler—War in Afghanistan mission to locate, capture (or eliminate) Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami).
The carefully planned operation goes wrong almost as soon as the team—SO2 Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), LT Michael P. Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), SO2 Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and SO2 Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster)—touch ground in the Kush Mountains. Their job is hindered by faulty a communication radio, but the mission is undone when they are discovered by an older man and two boys.
The commandoes make the decision to let the four unarmed shepherds go, but their kindness comes back to haunt them when shortly afterwards a Taliban army descends on their position and they are hopelessly outnumbered.
There’s no gunfire in the first hour of “Lone Survivor.” The time is spent getting to know the characters, their situation and absorbing the gravity of the mission at hand. Then, sixty minutes in, it turns into a bullet ballet. But it is those opening minutes that make the payoff of the last hour so potent.
Without getting to know the brotherhood the characters share we won’t buy in later on when their bond and training are the only things that will decide their fate.
The acting is uniformly good. Walhberg is understated but undeniably powerful as the Luttrell. His character is the glue that holds the movie together, and he delivers.
As the sharp-tongued and direct Axelson Ben Foster is, well, Ben Foster. He’s one of the best actors working today and his portrayal is passionate, patriotic but grounded in truth. It takes some doing to deliver a line like, “Did they really shoot me in the ******* head?” with any measure of believability, but Foster manages.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Taylor Kitsch. He had a bad couple of years after becoming a small screen star on “Friday Night Lights.” The promise of a big screen career seemed to evaporate in the trifecta of failure—big budget flops “John Carter,” “Battleship,” “Savages”—but here he finds his groove and reminds us of the charisma that made him a name in the first place.
“Lone Survivor” is a visceral experience. Not since “Saving Private Ryan” has a battle scene been so effectively rendered but at its core it isn’t a propaganda film or a slice of patriotism; instead it’s a stark reminder of the camaraderie of soldiers in the field.
Fresh from the Toronto International Film Festival comes the true story of a young man who may have taken On the Road a bit too seriously. Based on the Jon Krakauer novel of the same name Into the Wild stars Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless, an idealistic honors grad from Emory University who adopts the hobo name Alexander Supertramp and drops out of society.
For two hours and twenty minutes or so we follow Chris as he makes his way across America on his journey to solitude in Alaska. He picks up odd jobs, lives off the land, hitches a ride with nomadic hippies and even rides the rails. The experience of watching Into the Wild is much like the trip itself—it can be confounding, frustrating and occasionally boring—but I think that is director Sean Penn’s point. As a filmmaker he has never been shy about taking his time to tell the story, and here he seems to want to place us on the road with Chris. It’s a hypnotic journey and one that draws you in, maintaining interest even during the more mundane bits.
Penn has captured the rhythms of the road, and more importantly, the cadences of an itinerant life. It’s the journey that matters, and Into the Wild makes the most of the road motif, introducing us to interesting characters at every stop. There are love-sick flower children, Norwegian travelers and a charismatic, but shady farm owner. Most affecting of all is the last person he meets before he disappears into the rugged Alaskan wild, a lonely older man (Hal Holbrook) who “adopts” him for a time.
Holbrook turns in a magnificent performance, one tempered with wisdom, gentleness and a touch of desperation. The 82-year-old actor hands in one of the best supporting roles on film this year, but it might be Hirsch’s performance that is the most remarkable.
As Chris he takes a character that to my eyes isn’t immediately likeable. He’s pretentious, selfish and arrogant, but Hirsch makes him compelling—I won’t say likeable—and interesting to watch for the film’s long running time.
Into the Wild borders on self-importance, more than once spouting ideas about how “material things cut Chris off from the truth of his existence” but Penn keeps a steady hand and unerringly pulls the film back from the brink every time it feels like it is treading in waters too philosophically deep or becoming too preachy. It’s a road trip, but also a head trip and one worth taking.
Slipped into theatres with little fanfare on Christmas Day, “The Darkest Hour” is a holiday gift even less welcome than Aunt Edith’s stale fruitcake.
Before the bleak time referred to in the title, Ben and Sean (Max Minghella and Emile Hirsch) arrive in Moscow, get screwed in a major business deal, and meet some hotties (Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor) in a bar. Just as things are getting cozy with their new friends the lights go dim. In another kind of movie that would mean a start to some hot and heavy romance but the only sparks that fly here are from the evil aliens who have invaded earth and use electrical impulses to disintegrate the puny humans in their path. The new friends band together to fight against the ETs, collecting a ragtag bunch of high wattage commandoes and hangers-on to form an Electrical Resistance Army to stand against the creatures.
“The Darkest Hour” could easily have been titled “The Dorkiest Hour” as it contains every nerd cliche from almost every sci fi film ever made. There’s the obvious “Red Shirt” character, doomed to die with only a few lines of dialogue under his belt.
The other characters aren’t exactly blessed with great dialogue. An endless stream of cliches–“We can’t be the only ones left!”–all have a been-there-heard-that feel.
Then there’s the human dustification annihilation scenes lifted from “War of the Worlds,” and the eerily empty city streets borrowed from “I Am Legend” and “28 Days Later,” are just a couple of the movie homages that make up this science fiction pastiche. The entire thing plays out like a cut and paste job.
Still, cut and paste jobs are nothing new in movies and even the most cliche film can be rescued if it has compelling characters. Unfortunately “The Darkest Hour” falls down on that score as well. I’m sure they all have character names but they’re so uninteresting they may as well be called Generic Girl Number 1 or Unexpected Hero with an Attitude. Quick! Somebody call Central Casting! Some of their stock characters have escaped their cages!
“The Darkest Hour” almost lives up to its name. It’s a dark, dull way to spend, not hours, but ninety minutes.
The title sounds ripped from the headlines, but is actually from a 1994 novel by the late Chris Fuhrman, who died of cancer before the book was released. The story centers around a group of teenaged boys who attend Catholic school. Their ringleader Tim (Kieran Culkin) is a prankster who schemes to get revenge on Sister Assumpta (Jody Foster), the joyless, strict nun with a prosthetic leg. They create a “blasphemous” comic book, and plan to kidnap a cougar from the zoo to give her a fright. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is a darkly comic, touching coming-of-age story that could have turned into by-the-book teenage drivel, but is rescued by the performances of Kieran Culkin, Emile Hirsch and Jena Malone and some very cool animation by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane.
