To play the title character in “Norman,” a strategist, a consultant who sometimes consults with consultants, Richard Gere dimmed his matinee idol looks with a bad haircut and thick glasses. It’s his best role in years, a character study that gives him the chance to go deep in a movie that isn’t as deep as it thinks it is.
Gere is Norman Oppenheimer, a down-at-the-heels New York City wannabe wheeler-dealer. He’s a connector, a facilitator who brings people together. In conversation he repeats, “I’d be very happy to introduce you,” like a mantra, seven words that could unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Everybody who’s anybody knows who he is but nobody knows anything about him. He’s a cipher who lives on his cell phone, has no office but does have nerve and something to prove. He’s so keen to impress Micha Eshelan (Lior Ashkenazi), up-and-coming Israeli politician he buys him a very expensive gift just minutes after meeting him. “I bought him a pair of shoes,” he says. “The most expensive pair of shoes in all of New York. Best investment I ever made.”
His investment pays off years later when Eshelan becomes the Prime Minister of Israel. Norman’s stock rises considerably but is his relationship with the world leader illegal and corrupt? Is Norman simply a delusional name-dropper or is he the one virtuous man in a den of wolves?
When we first meet Norman he is the living, breathing embodiment of disappointment. A man who rides a razors edge of failure every time he picks up his cell phone. He swallows his pride at every turn, trying to maintain dignity even as he is thrown out of a wealthy man’s home. He’s a goodhearted weasel who lies and cheats in his quest to do the right thing and Gere plays him as a man desperate to matter, to experience the kind of recognition that would come with the right connections.
It feels like he has tasted the good life and, as Eshelan says, “once you have been up, way up, you can’t settle for anything less.” Norman wants more but it’s never exactly sure what that means to him. He’s a fascinating, annoying character and Gere brings him to life.
There’s also interesting work from Ashkenazi, Charlotte Gainsbourg as a crusading lawyer and Steve Buscemi as a rabbi but the film feels cluttered, as though director Joseph Cedar was so fascinated by Norman’s ever spreading web of obligations, he couldn’t stop adding to it.
“Norman” is an in-depth look at a superficial man, a movie that works best when it focuses on Gere and not baroque political intrigue.
This is a hard one to describe. It’s a metaphoric retelling of Bob Dylan’s life, but none of the characters in it are called Bob Dylan. Most of them don’t look like Dylan, and the one who most looks like Dylan is a woman. It’s a long, strange trip down memory lane with one of the most enigmatic characters of the 20th century.
Director Todd Haynes has assembled an all star cast to embody different segments of the folk singer’s life. When we first meet the Dylan character he is portrayed by a 13-year-old African-American child (Marcus Carl Franklin) obsessed with folk music. Later he’s glimpsed in his Pat Garret and Billy the Kid stage, played in that sequence by Richard Gere. British actor Ben Whishaw punctuates the proceedings, popping up now and again spouting the kind of elliptical nonsense that often make Dylan’s interviews an exercise in frustration.
Cate Blanchett is deservedly being touted for an Oscar nomination—will it be Best Actor or Actress?—for her take on the caustic, amphetamine-fueled Dylan circa 1965. In one of the more literal sequences Batman portrayer Christian Bale is Jack, a folk singer who embraces Christianity, eschewing the life of a music star to become an evangelist.
A bit murkier is Heath Ledger’s story thread featuring him as a chauvinistic movie star with a mysterious French girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg).
How does it all relate to Dylan, the mumbling superstar who has made a career of keeping people guessing about his personal life? It’s hard to say, because as you may have guessed the movie isn’t a traditional biopic. What Haynes has done here is create a kind of tone poem using different elements from Dylan’s life to create an overall feel for this mysterious and elliptical character.
Unlike Walk the Line or Ray, which were both standard issue Hollywood biopics, I’m Not There doesn’t offer up an obvious timeline of the man’s life. There is nothing linear here, or even connected in many cases. Using a variety of styles from Warholian Pop Art to Godard’s jump-cuts and cinéma vérité, Haynes has cobbled together a portrait of the essence of Dylan. There is nothing straightforward about the man, so there should be nothing straightforward about the movie. It’s fascinating stuff, and while some may find it frustrating, I felt I knew more about what makes Bob Dylan tick when I walked out of the theatre after I’m Not There than I did for Johnny Cash following Walk the Line or Ray Charles after Ray.
At almost three hours it’s a taxing movie, but for the patient, the adventurous and the curious I’m Not There offers many pleasures from the amazing soundtrack to Cate Blanchett’s superior performance.
This is a hard one to describe. It’s a metaphoric retelling of Bob Dylan’s life, but none of the characters in it are called Bob Dylan. Most of them don’t look like Dylan, and the one who most looks like Dylan is a woman. It’s a long, strange trip down memory lane with one of the most enigmatic characters of the 20th century.
Director Todd Haynes has assembled an all star cast to embody different segments of the folk singer’s life. When we first meet the Dylan character he is portrayed by a 13-year-old African-American child (Marcus Carl Franklin) obsessed with folk music. Later he’s glimpsed in his Pat Garret and Billy the Kid stage, played in that sequence by Richard Gere. British actor Ben Whishaw punctuates the proceedings, popping up now and again spouting the kind of elliptical nonsense that often make Dylan’s interviews an exercise in frustration.
Cate Blanchett is deservedly being touted for an Oscar nomination—will it be Best Actor or Actress?—for her take on the caustic, amphetamine-fueled Dylan circa 1965. In one of the more literal sequences Batman portrayer Christian Bale is Jack, a folk singer who embraces Christianity, eschewing the life of a music star to become an evangelist.
A bit murkier is Heath Ledger’s story thread featuring him as a chauvinistic movie star with a mysterious French girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg).
How does it all relate to Dylan, the mumbling superstar who has made a career of keeping people guessing about his personal life? It’s hard to say, because as you may have guessed the movie isn’t a traditional biopic. What Haynes has done here is create a kind of tone poem using different elements from Dylan’s life to create an overall feel for this mysterious and elliptical character.
Unlike Walk the Line or Ray, which were both standard issue Hollywood biopics, I’m Not There doesn’t offer up an obvious timeline of the man’s life. There is nothing linear here, or even connected in many cases. Using a variety of styles from Warholian Pop Art to Godard’s jump-cuts and cinéma vérité, Haynes has cobbled together a portrait of the essence of Dylan. There is nothing straightforward about the man, so there should be nothing straightforward about the movie. It’s fascinating stuff, and while some may find it frustrating, I felt I knew more about what makes Bob Dylan tick when I walked out of the theatre after I’m Not There than I did for Johnny Cash following Walk the Line or Ray Charles after Ray.
At almost three hours it’s a taxing movie, but for the patient, the adventurous and the curious I’m Not There offers many pleasures from the amazing soundtrack to Cate Blanchett’s superior performance.
An affair by a bored housewife has consequences for her family that she never imagined. Diane Lane is utterly convincing as Connie Sumner, a beautiful forty-something who chances upon a young sexy French man (Oliver Martinez) in a wind storm. She begins an affair with him, keeping it a secret from her husband Edward (Richard Gere). To tell you more would give away too much of the plot, but just be aware that there are dire consequences for everyone involved. Diane Lane carries this movie with a strong, appealing performance that makes me wonder why we don’t see more of her on the big screen. Adrian Lyne paces the movie nicely as it changes from an illicit romance to a thriller. Only the very end seems false. Lyne has a perfect out twenty minutes before the end, but inexplicitly chooses to drag things out.
Edward Norton has made a career of playing jailbirds on screen. His edgy intensity lights up movies like this weekend’s Stone, despite one writer calling him “the passport definition of no distinguishing marks.”
The Yale graduate’s slight, gawky frame is not exactly what you have in mind when you think criminal and yet his portrayals of people on life’s fringe’s have earned him Oscar nominations and come to define his career.
In his first big screen part Norton played the dual role of altar boy Aaron and his alter ego, the psychotic Roy in the film Primal Fear. Accused of murder, he is zealously defended by a defense attorney (Richard Gere) who is drawn to the sweet Southern boy until he realizes that Aaron is totally insane. A complete unknown when he auditioned for the role, he tricked the film’s director into thinking he shared an eastern Kentucky background with Aaron by speaking with a twang —which he picked by watching Coal Miner’s Daughter.
“The most I had to offer was anonymity,” he later said. “The potency of the revelation about who my character really was in that film was in part reliant on the fact that people had absolutely no prior knowledge of me.”
Next time behind bars he pulled a De Niro, and in American History X physically transformed to play the role of a white supremacist sent away for murder. In jail he learns the error of his ways and works to help his brother from going down the same, wrong-headed path.
“I knew this guy was going to have to be really physically fearsome,” he says, “and that’s not something anyone would peg me for. [He’s] defined by rage and this body he’s created is the physical manifestation of that.”
In this weekend’s Stone he stars as an arsonist who will do anything, including using his wife as bait, to earn parole. Despite having played convicts in the past, Norton was keen to bring an extra layer of realism to this role so he met with actual prisoners to learn how they spoke.
“Their language is fantastic. At one point, one of these guys was telling me about a fight and how he had to just let it happen and not fight. (He said,) ‘When you’re short time, you have to be a vegetarian.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Vegetarian, you can’t have beef with nobody.’”
As soon as I saw the name of director Antoine Fuqua in the opening credits I sensed that “Brooklyn’s Finest” probably wasn’t going to celebrate the up side of policing in the NY borough. The “Training Day” director is a specialist when it comes to portraying dirty cops on screen, and here he showcases the “finest” policemen in Brooklyn’s 65th precinct, that is, if by “finest” you mean alcoholic, angsty, murderous and suicidal.
Mixing three stories Fuqua introduces Sal (Ethan Hawke), Eddie (Richard Gere) and Tango (Don Cheadle), three cops at different stages of their careers. The only thing that connects them is a station house in the 65th Precinct and severe dysfunction. Sal is a narco cop, tormented by the things he must do to support his growing family. Eddie is a burn out who clearly hasn’t taken his own advice of “not taking the job home” after work and Tango is an undercover cop who is close to being consumed by the job. The three struggle both personally and professionally until a fateful night when they end up in the same apartment block.
The bad cop drama became popular in the seventies and with only a few tweaks story wise has persevered to this day. Fuqua focuses on three characters straight out of Central Casting—the cop with nothing to live for, who is just days away from retirement, the policeman who turns bad to make extra money to help his family and the undercover officer who gets too close to the criminals he is supposed to arrest.
Clichés one and all, but the bad cop genre is one big gun toting cliché, and like romantic comedies, another formula based species, the trick is to make the characters as interesting as possible to disguise the banalities of their story arcs. On this score “Brooklyn’s Finest” is two thirds successful.
First, the good. Don Cheadle takes a hackneyed character—the angry street cop—and gives him some fire; a cliché, yes, but an unpredictable one. Cheadle deserves better material than this but he makes the best of it.
Ditto Ethan Hawke who can do desperate on-screen as well as any actor working today.
The weakest of the three is Gere’s Eddie. Gere isn’t an exactly magnetic actor at the best of times but here he simply isn’t believable as a man who wakes up, has a shot of scotch with a gun barrel chaser. The early morning drinking and pseudo suicide attempts are meant to give us insight into the character but come off as tired images recycled from better movies.
“Brooklyn’s Finest” is not a return to form for Fuqua after the career high of “Training Day” nine years ago and the professional sink hole he’s been in ever since.
The best way to describe “Amelia”, the new Hilary Swank film about the highflying life of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, is to call it old fashioned. Set in the decade leading up to her fateful rendezvous with destiny in 1937 on her failed attempt to circumnavigate the globe, the movie seems to pay homage not only to Earhart but also to the films of that era.
The film lifts off with a meeting between publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) and the then unknown Amelia (Swank). He’s looking for the next Lindberg, only this time a woman, to make a transatlantic flight and then reap the rewards of the fame that will follow. The first flight is a public relations success, but for Earhart, who didn’t actually fly the plane it’s a hollow victory. She becomes America’s Sweetheart of the Skies, famous for something she didn’t do—she didn’t actually pilot the plane—and becomes determined to stand up for female pilots and make the journey across the ocean again, solo. In time she makes the flight, becomes the world’s most famous woman and navigates not one, but two romances. The film ends with her doomed flight.
“Amelia” is a big, handsome picture with some great aerial photography and a couple of dramatic moments, but does little more than skim over the life of one of the more interesting characters of the twentieth century. Both personally and professionally Earhart was a rebel and a groundbreaker in a man’s world, but the film is content to serve up clichéd motivational successories instead of real insight.
“Amelia” could have been many things. It could have been a study of the feminist ideal. It could have been a look at the beginnings of public relations and media celebrity. It could have been an exciting films about those magnificent women in their flying machines, but instead it a snoozy look at a woman forced to utter platitudes like, “I want to fly that beautiful bird as far as it will take me.”
This will not be Hilary Swank’s third Oscar win.
She’s working it here, putting on a clipped Kansas accent and trying to inhabit the character, but the script (and an unfortunate hairdo that makes her face look three feet long) aren’t doing here any favors. Her performance is a throwback to the kind of performances given by Rosalind Russell and Ginger Rogers in Amelia’s day. To use the vernacular of the time she’s “spunky.” Spunky, but not that interesting.
She’s playing opposite Richard Gere and honestly, is there a less interesting leading man working today? He rocks the 1930s clothes and doesn’t bump into the furniture but he and Swank have zero chemistry.
There is an interesting movie to be made from Amelia Earhart’s life. In fact a few interesting movies have already been made about her life, but “Amelia” isn’t one of them. It’s well made, reverential to it’s subject and perhaps, most excitingly, is possibly the best cure for insomnia since the discovery of St. John’s Wart.
On the surface New York hedge-fund king Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is the model of success. At sixty years old and married to Ellen (Susan Sarandon) he’s preparing to hand over his empire to his Chief Investment Manager, who also happens to be his daughter Brooke (Brit Marling). He’s so rich he doesn’t even know what an Applebees is. Cracks appear in the façade, however, when an accident involving his mistress, French art-dealer Julie Côte (Laetitia Casta), threatens to uncover the dark side of his life, including a $400 million fraud.
“Arbitrage” has already earned Richard Gere a Golden Globe nomination and may be the role that finally lands him an Oscar nod. He’s terrific as the morally ambiguous banker (is there any other kind in the movies?), a cold—so chilly you want to put a scarf on when he’s in the room—calculating but charismatic wheeler-dealer whose motives are not always immediately clear. It’s a complex performance that shows the balance Miller has over his lives as a business-person versus family man.
His two powerhouse scenes are intimate ones, there’s nothing flashy about them, they simply moments of reckoning for a man between his wife and father with daughter. They are quiet, powerful passages in a sophisticated movie about deceit and flawed characters.
It’s a twisty, turny plot kept interesting by the uniformly strong performances. Tim Roth’s Det. Michael Bryer, the street-savvy cop trying to get to the bottom of Miller’s complex web of lies, is Columbo-esque, but he manages to make it his own.
Sarandon and Marling (who has a bachelor’s in economics in real life and becomes the movie’s conscious) shine, but it is Nate Parker as the Jimmy Grant, the son of one of Miller’s friends, who almost steals the show from Gere. He’s the only character with a developed sense of right and wrong, and it almost lands him in trouble.
“Arbitrage” is an intricate, gripping crime drama populated by relatable, although not very likable, characters.
