I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the absurdist environmental dramedy “Digger,” the suburban gothic “Verity” and the psychological thriller “Heel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 13:15)
I join CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisko to talk about the absurdist environmental dramedy “Digger,” the suburban gothic “Verity” and the psychological thriller “Heel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
CAST: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
REVIEW: A study in justification of one’s actions, “Digger” is a dark satire, touched by farce, of narrative control in the face of crisis.
Tom Cruise, disguised by an inch of aging make-up, fake teeth and an elaborate comb-over, plays Digger Rockwell, the world’s most powerful oil tycoon. Eccentric, greedy and immoral—“Mr. Rockwell is a man who would roast our children alive if he thought he could sell them for a dime,” says scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed)—he does not like bad news.
When he gets bad news about the stability of one of his oil platforms, he ignores it and the resulting explosion causes havoc, creating aa ice shelf then size of Washington, D.C. on a collision course with Western Europe. “Digger here got us into this mess,” says the President of the United States (John Goodman), “and Digger’s gonna dig us out again.”
Rather than accept blame for the worldwide chaos Digger treats the situation not as a catastrophe but as a branding problem. “Panic is a resource,” he says. “When you’re running away from a house fire no one cares who left the toaster on.”
With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Digger tries to save his company and himself by controlling the narrative. “They know the facts,” he says. “The story is yet to be told.”
Echoes of “Dr. Strangelove” reverberate throughout “Digger.” Both are absurdist nightmare comedies that skewer the egos and ideologies of powerful men, and both focus on managing the narrative of a crisis rather than dealing with it. But the cool, deadpan vibe of Stanley Kubrick’s film is replaced by a passionate, outlandish feel that will certainly divide audiences.
It’s a big movie, filled with big ideas, even if they sometimes get lost in the sheer grandiosity of the filmmaking. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who co-wrote the script with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, presents a riff on the old saying, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but in Digger Rockwell’s world corruption goes hand in hand with control because that’s where the power is. Controlling the narrative is more important than solving the problem.
“They know the facts,” he says, “but the story has yet to be told.”
Digger’s a bad guy, ignorant, tacky and narcissistic, but he’s the hero of his own invented narrative and in an era of fake news and misinformation, it’s a timely and scary reality check.
The absurd and often jaundiced take on the machinery of power from Digger’s house to the White House and beyond is not subtle. Iñárritu takes big swings here narratively and stylistically. His ambition pays off in fits and starts. Some scenes, like a sequence of Digger, the President of the United States (John Goodman) and various generals, watching the iceberg collision with land is darkly hilarious, or Cruise’s ten-minute amphitheater monologue, fire on all cylinders.
But overall “Digger” values audacity, ambition and theatrics over narrative clarity. Not funny enough to be a satire, too outrageous to be straight drama, it lands in a tonal wasteland, wavering between silly and sincerity.
The parts of “Digger” that work, however, work very well. John Goodman lets his freak flag fly as the beleaguered POTUS and Riz Ahmed, as the pushed-to-the-brink climate scientist, hands in a career best performance. Cruise nails both the farcical elements of the character but lets the more intimate, realistic moments breathe in a performance that will likely draw attention from the Academy at Oscar time.
Digger Rockwell brags that the world is powered by his fossil fuels, but his movie is fueled by something else: audacity. It is a truly unique film, the kind that doesn’t usually feature such high-priced talent, but this audacious environmental drama is bordered self-indulgence and by times is a chore to sit through.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Amateur,” a new thriller now playing in theatres, Rami Malek plays a CIA cryptographer whose life is touched by tragedy when his wife is killed in a terror attack. When the agency refuses to investigate he takes matters into his own hands. Despite being “just a nerdy guy who works on computers,” he vows to use his unique set of skills to get vengeance. “I want to face my wife’s killers,” he says, “look them in the eyes, and balance the scales.”
CAST: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Martinez, Danny Sapani and Laurence Fishburne. Directed by James Hawes.
REVIEW: “The Amateur,” based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, is a workmanlike thriller, with loads of style but few actual thrills.
The story of vengeance, set into motion after CIA cryptographer Charles Heller’s (Rami Malek) wife is murdered in a terror attack, aspires to be a layered look at grief, anger, the integrity of institutional organizations and the ethics of revenge, is instead a slackly paced movie that is all surface and no depth.
It begins with promise. There’s a cast headlined by Oscar, Tony and Emmy winners, a premise that reflects government conspiracy theories and worldwide unrest, and who doesn’t love a revenge drama? But as the story unfolds it becomes a jumble of ideas that are never pulled together in a tight enough package to become truly engaging.
Malek is in virtually every scene and acquits himself well as the smartest-guy-in-the-room-with-a-grudge, but there’s never any real heat around the character. We are told over and over how brilliant he is, so while he plays a life-and-death game of “Survivor” with the baddies, it’s almost a certainty that he will Outwit, Outplay and Outlast everyone. The predictable nature of his near misses and close scrapes becomes less interesting with every minute of the film’s runtime.
And don’t get me started on the underuse of Rachel Brosnahan, who is barely given any screen time, and when she is, is relegated to playing an idealized version of Charles’ wife. Laurence Fishburne fares better but is still a stock character. He plays a no-nonsense tough guy, ripe with gravitas. It feels like the original script called for a “Laurence Fishburn type” and then they were lucky enough to get Laurence Fishburn. It’s a shame they don’t give him more to do.
As a thriller “The Amateur” rarely raises the pulse rate, but it is as a vehicle for its supporting actors that it really disappoints.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Instigators,” a new heist comedy film now streaming on Apple TV+, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play desperate father Rory and ex-con Cobby, unlikely partners thrown together to rob a corrupt politician’s war chest. When the caper goes sideways, the inept thieves hit the road, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the police, the mayor’s henchman and a vengeful crime boss. “We’ve got to find these guys before the cops do,” says kingpin Dechico (Michael Stuhlbarg), “and put them down before they can talk.”
CAST: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Jack Harlow, Ving Rhames, Ron Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, Toby Jones. Directed by Doug Liman.
REVIEW: Fresh off their success in “Oppenheimer,” Damon and Affleck reteam in a movie that mixes-and-matches a caper with a political satire, action with a buddy comedy. It’s a laundry list of genres, but it works, aided by a terrific ensemble cast and the steady hand of director Doug Liman.
Liman and Damon, of course, first worked together twenty-two years ago on “The Bourne Identity.” While their new movie features some action, a really solid car chase and exploding buildings, the two characters, super spy Jason Bourne and the down-on-his-luck Rory, are polar opposites.
Bourne suffered from psychogenic amnesia, and used his special set of skills to rediscover his past. Rory is very much aware of his past, of his failings as a father, and Damon plays him as an everyman, a desperate guy who’ll do whatever it takes to make a few extra bucks for his estranged family, no matter the cost to him personally. Damon skilfully balances the character’s backstory with the increasing absurdity of his present-day situation.
In a rare humorous performance, Affleck is the more obviously funny character, and yet, Cobby is not just comedic construct. He’s a small-timer, used to things going sideways, and much of the humor in the film comes from his deadpan reactions as their situation worsens.
In a strong supporting cast, featuring heavy-weights like Michael Stuhlbarg and Alfred Molina in what are essentially extended cameos, Hong Chau as Rory’s psychiatrist, is a standout, both empathetic and hilarious.
“The Instigators” has everything you expect from a film about a heist gone wrong, but really, it’s not about the robbery or the explosions. It’s about the budding friendship between Rory and Cobby. Brought together by adversity and desperation, they become unlikely allies in a film that cleverly and humorously breathes new life into the failed-criminals-on-the-run genre, through interesting characters, some high-powered action and genuinely funny situations.
Usually, it is fairly easy to pigeonhole a movie. Comedy, drama, romance, sci fi, horror, action. Those are the easy ones. It gets slightly more complicated as you branch off into hybrids like dramedy, Menippean satire, docufiction or rom com. Then, along comes a movie like “Bones and All,” a new, queasy genre buster starring Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell and Mark Rylance, and now playing in theatres.
Based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, it is something I’ve never seen before, a romcanrofi, ie: a romantic, coming-of-age cannibal road film.
When we first meet Maren (Taylor Russell), she is a seventeen-year-old high schooler, being raised by single father Frank (André Holland). She appears to be a normal teen, sneaking out to a slumber party with schoolmates and the like, but when her taste for human flesh reveals itself, Maren and her dad have to hit the road before the police turn up.
When Maren turns eighteen, her father disappears, tired of hiding her terrible secret. Leaving the teen to fend for herself, he leaves behind some money, her birth certificate and a tape recording describing her life, from her first cannibalistic incident when she was just three-years-old, to providing details about Janelle (Chloë Sevigny), the mother who abandoned Maren when she was an infant.
On a search for answers, Maren hits the road, landing in Ohio, where she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), an older cannibal who says he could smell a fellow “eater” from blocks away. Like Maren, Sully is a drifter, but he’s not looking to answer life’s questions, he’s on the hunt for food. “Life is never dully with Sully,’ he snorts.
Sully teaches her the tricks of the trade, how to pick victims and feed without attracting attention, but something about him makes Maren uncomfortable and she moves on to Indiana where she meets Lee (Chalamet), a fine young cannibal who becomes her partner in life and death.
“Bones and All” isn’t exactly a horror film. The subject matter might be horrifying and there are some stomach-churning sound effects that won’t easily be forgotten, but this is more a coming-of-age love story as Maren adapts to her ever-changing circumstances.
The blood and guts are kept to a minimum, mostly serving as a vehicle for the movie’s metaphor of cannibals as anyone who has ever felt like an outcast. Maren and Lee are the ultimate others, a compulsive couple who aren’t treated as monsters, but as two people living outside of collective norms. Come for the cannibals, stay for the languid, sensitive essay on life on the fringes of society.
Seductive and strange, director Luca Guadagnino anchors the movie with his two leads, Chalamet and Russell. Both are driven to extremes by their appetites, while, at the same time, searching for acceptance and a place to call home. Both actors bring humanity to their characters, concentrating on their personal journeys rather than the monstrous aspects of their personalities. Their performances give the eccentric story a universal feel even if it is a very specific topic.
“Bones and All” has more to do with relationship road movies like “Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Badlands” than it does “Cannibal Holocaust.” It’s a haunting tale, if a little languorous for its own good, that makes a meal out of its allegory.
The “Doctor Strange” movies are the trippiest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The mystical superhero’s introduction, 2016’s “Doctor Strange,” was a kaleidoscopic mix of images and ideas. The new film, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and now playing in theatres, kicks it up a notch. With a visual style that suggests M.C. Escher on an acid trip, it is a hallucinogenic ride that will make your eyeballs spin.
The action begins in Dr Stephen Strange’s (Cumberbatch) universe with the introduction of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenager with the ability to navigate the multiverse and access portals into alternate realities. In the search for her parents, she has explored 73 universes, each with their own, unique sets of rules, all the while pursued by a demon who wants to steal her powers.
This is not sorcery, Strange says. As old Blue Eyes once sang, it’s witchcraft, so who better to consult than Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), former Avenger and powerful practitioner of witchcraft?
He’s looking for advice that will help him save America, but instead is sent off on a wild and dangerous trip into a series of alternate realities to fight a power that threatens to subjugate the entire multiverse.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” begins with a bang. A loud and proud action scene kicks things off with an exaggerated H.P. Lovecraft creature terrorizing Chavez. It sets the wild and wacky tone that applies to most of the picture. A mix of action, horror and comic book comedy, it recalls the sweet spot that made director Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies such a blast. Raimi brings a kind of anarchy here that is missing from the carefully controlled Marvel films and when it is fun, it’s really fun. There’s even a battle of the bands, a musical showdown, that is equal parts ridiculous and rad.
But there is much more to the story than interdimensional shenanigans.
At its heart “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” isn’t a story about magic, it’s a tale about the things we do for love. Whether it is Wanda’s search for family, ably brought to life by Olsen’s poignant performance, or Strange’s attraction to Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), this story has a strongly beating heart.
Unfortunately, it also has a bumpy, uneven script. As it careens toward the Marvel friendly climax it loses steam as the action becomes muddied and the script begins to sew up any loose ends left dangling across then universes.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” doesn’t have the weight of “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” another recent examination of the multiverse, but despite its unevenness, it’s a good, and sometimes gory, time at the movies.
