At a Toronto International Film Festival press conference on Saturday, Hugh Jackman said his new film Prisoners is “not just (a film) that grips you and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but one that actually makes you contemplate the themes for days after on many levels.”
He plays a father who takes to vigilante justice after his child has been abducted. The Denis Villeneuve movie raises the question of whether Jackman’s character goes beyond the pale to get his daughter back or, alternatively, if he does enough.
“I can’t make up the mind of audiences,” he said. “I’m thrilled that Denis and Aaron (Guzikowski) wrote a script that forces that moral ambiguity. I think the film’s power exists in that.
“I’ll tell you a little story about watching the film for the first time with my wife, who was holding my hand. I literally had nail markings in my hand as she gripped me and then there were certain parts where she removed her hand from mine and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not sleeping in the marital bed tonight.’”
Jackman delivers a powerful, primal performance of a man on the brink. It’s work that drew praise from his co-stars.
“If you’re asking me if Hugh Jackman deserves an Oscar,” said Jake Gyllenhaal, “the answer to that question is absolutely yes.”
Co-star Terence Howard called Jackman, “a sweet man,” but added watching the actor’s strength of courage come through in the violent scenes was like “witnessing a man channelling all of this frustration,” not acting. “He deserves an Oscar.”
Jackman’s performance anchors the movie, which is unrelenting in its approach to telling the story.
“(The movie) is uncomfortable,” says Jackman, “You think, ‘OK, we’re going down this path with this guy and yeah, let’s enact some rightful justice.’ Then all of a sudden you feel uncomfortable and what that forces you to do is question, if you went along with him, why you so easily went with that way of thinking. It questions what you would do in that situation and that’s where the film’s power lies.”
“There is a reason we don’t just go to comedies,” he says. “Somehow as humans we also need to touch on real elemental fears that we push down every day of our lives. And collectively delve into and discuss it and feel.”
Uwe Boll has made a career of adapting video games for the big screen. The German filmmaker, nicknamed “the Master of Error” for his sloppily-made pictures, brought us House of the Dead (No. 56 on IMDB’s Bottom 100) and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (five per cent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes) among other crimes against cinema.
One that thankfully escaped Boll’s grasp is this weekend’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Despite the LA Times sweeping declaration that games don’t work as movies, Hollywood heavyweight Jerry Bruckheimer adapted Ubisoft’s hit game into a mega budget summer film.
In it, Jake Gyllenhaal plays an adventurous prince who must protect the mystical Dagger of Time while also romancing a pretty princess (Gemma Arterton).
Whether this is a blockbuster-in-waiting remains to be seen, but so far finding a good video game movie is harder than making it to level four of Ghosts ’n Goblins.
The first video game movie set the tone for many to come. 1993’s Super Mario Bros., based on the popular Nintendo game, is so awful its star, Bob Hoskins, calls it “the worst thing I ever did.” Critics agreed.
But not all gamer movies are bargain bin-bound. Many of these movies are popular with audiences.
A recent poll revealed interesting insight into what gaming enthusiasts want in their movies.
“The X-factor in a game-to-film adaptation is a strong female lead,” said Helen Cowley, of the TV and film rental service Lovefilm. The poll is topped by films anchored by women in lead roles — Silent Hill, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, “so we’re hoping Gemma Arterton gives Jake Gyllenhaal a run for his money in the Prince of Persia,” Cowley adds.
In the movies often the only thing brothers have in common is a last name. Creating conflict between siblings makes good dramatic sense and it’s a practice that harkens back to the very first set of brothers. Would the story of Cain and Able have as much biblical oomph if the boys got along? I don’t think so.
So it is with Tommy and Sam Cahill, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, in this weekend’s Brothers. In the great tradition of movie siblings they’re polar opposites; Tommy is an ex-con, Sam is a Marine Captain and former football star. You get the idea. But will Tommy go all Cain on Sam? You’ll have to buy a ticket to find out, but in the meantime here are some other movie brothers who turned out differently than mom and dad may have hoped.
Ricky & Doughboy Baker (Morris Chestnut and Ice Cube) from Boyz N the Hood are opposites, but when Doughboy takes revenge on the people who killed his brother it proves that blood, and blood shed, is thicker than water.
In The Darjeeling Limited Jack (Jason Schwartzman) asks his brothers Francis (Owen Wilson) and Peter (Adrien Brody), “I wonder if the three of us would’ve been friends in real life? Not as brothers, but as people.” Good question. You couldn’t find a more diverse trio: Francis is a compulsive sad sack, Peter a bundle of manic energy and Jack a collection of jangled nerves. They may never be friends, but by the end of a road trip in India they can at least tolerate one another.
“When brothers agree,” the old saying goes, “no fortress is so strong as their common life.” But when they disagree, look out. Just ask Fredo Corleone. The Corleone boys each brought something different to the Godfather trilogy, but it is the “kiss of death” scene in part two between the kindhearted Fredo (John Cazale) and the ruthless Michael (Al Pacino) that gives new meaning to the term sibling rivalry. “I know it was you Fredo,” Michael says. “You broke my heart.” Siblings may not get along but it takes a real grim brother to order a hit on his younger brother.
In Go West Chico Marx summed up the relationship most of these on- screen brothers share.
Director Jim Sheridan may have figured out a way around the war-on-terror movie jinx that has kept everything from “Jar Head” to “In the Valley of Elah” and “Lions for Lambs” off the top ten box office list. He turns the volume way down, making a quiet movie that keeps the action to a minimum and lets the emotion of the piece to the talking. Oh, and he’s cast three appealing actors, Spiderman, Prince Dastan and Senator Padmé Amidala (that’s Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman to you) doing some of the best work of their collective careers.
For the purposes of the story Gyllenhaal and Maguire are Cain and Able, diametrically opposed brothers. Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is a bad seed, freshly released from prison after a bank robbery gone wrong. Sam (Maguire) is a captain in the Marines, a former high school football star, husband to Grace (Portman) and father to two adorable daughters (Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare). When Sam’s Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in Afghanistan’s Pamir Mountains he is presumed dead. Back home Tommy tries to fill the gap left by his brother, playing dad to the kids and platonically comforting Grace. The twist is that Sam is not dead; he’s been captured and tortured by Taliban fighters. When he is liberated and brought back to the States, his easy, warm smile is gone, replaced by paranoid volatility.
“Brothers” is a slow burn of a movie. Dialogue driven, the action moves slowly, allowing us to get a good sense of who these people are and why they behave the way they do. Lots of biographical information is delivered, but much is left to our imaginations. Tommy, for instance, is just out of jail, but we never find out the details of his crime. Instead as Sam and Tommy drive past a bank Sam asks, “Are you ever gonna apologize to that woman?” and we get the whole picture.
The movie is ripe with such moments. When Grace confronts her dead husband’s closet for the first time it is played silently, but packs a wallop. Sheridan isn’t afraid to let the audience think for themselves, and imagine how they would react in similar situations. Call it “method watching” if you like, it demands the audience to fill in the blanks, and it is an effective way to tell an emotional story.
It’s an emotional story, but not a complicated one. Sheridan even has Grace say at one point, “I am such a cliché,” and she’s right. Many of the characters are by-the-book—there’s the bad boy who finds redemption through family, the hard-as-nails former military man—but these actors add shades of grey to otherwise black-and-white renderings. Gyllenhaal brings warmth to a character who shouldn’t have any, Portman has a strong veneer but there is sadness in her eyes and Maguire, despite a tendency to be a bit bug-eyed effectively portrays Sam’s confusion. “I can’t be there,” he says of his home. “They don’t understand me. Nobody understands me.”
The supporting cast is equally strong. Sam Sheppard still has a profile worthy of Mount Rushmore, but now has the beer belly to go with it and it gives his character some heft, literally and figuratively but it is Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare as daughters Isabelle and Elsie who really shine. They are remarkably endearing without giving the kind of precious performances that mar so many kid’s roles.
“Brothers” isn’t a war movie it’s a movie about what happens after war, and in its own quiet way shows the toll war takes on not only the people overseas but those who stay home as well.
At a Toronto International Film Festival press conference on Saturday, Hugh Jackman said his new film Prisoners is “not just (a film) that grips you and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but one that actually makes you contemplate the themes for days after on many levels.”
