DVD Review: Source Code

Director Duncan Jones’ second film is another intelligent, eloquent science fiction thriller.

Sincere without growing mawkish, intelligent without becoming geeky or pretentious, Duncan Jones’ Source Code justifies the promise the director showed with his similarly ambitious science fiction mindbender Moon. Like that debut effort, Jones’ second film reveals a warm and compassionate concern not just for the workings of the science fiction elements of story but also for the human emotions spun out of their wake, and the emphasis – especially in the last half-hour – is on character development and interaction.

Army captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the covert operative for Project: Beleaguered Castle, an Air Force counter-terrorism group that can project his consciousness into the “after-image” of recent temporal events and allow him to occupy a host body of comparable age, height, and size. It’s complicated science, though explained via simplified metaphor by the project’s direct Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright.) Source Code technology is not exactly time travel, and not entirely jumping between parallel worlds, but Stevens’ jaunts into the remnants of immediately recent events allow the project to gather intelligence about upcoming terrorist attacks.

His current mission involves finding the bomb secreted aboard a Chicago-bound commuter train before those responsible detonate a dirty bomb within the city itself. But increasing disorientation hampers Steven’s effectiveness, even as he’s increasingly distracted by Christina, the woman (Michelle Monaghan) accompanying his host body into the city. Stevens tries, tries again to locate the bomb and the passenger he believes may set it off. But each failure – he has only eight minutes to complete his mission – results in the train’s explosive destruction and a painful jolt back to the project’s headquarters.

Worse, he suspects the doctor as well as Goodwin, his mission control operator (Vera Farmiga) are less than candid with the information they provide him, both about his role in the project as well as the events surrounding his recruitment into it. Stevens remembers serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan but nothing of the last two months, and Goodwin’s evasion of questions, as well as Rutledge’s condescension, make him even less trusting.

The second act centers on Stevens’ abortive attempts to apprehend the bomber and disarm the bomb, even while he draws closer to the girl. Stevens also reasons he can use his time on the train to research the project itself and his service in Kandahar, the better to fill in the blanks of his memory. Each return trip home – he fails many times, often in ways that ought to evoke pity from the audience – reveals his mission capsule in greater disrepair. Pressing Goodwin for more information, he learns he may not be in the capsule at all but that his physical body may reside somewhere else entirely.

But he eventually prevails, locating the bomber and confronting him – once disastrously, the second time with success. With a train full of suspects, Ben Ripley’s script has fun manipulating audience expectations regarding the bomber’s identity: the nature of his evil more closely resemble homegrown anarchist Timothy McVeigh than 21st Century notions of Islamic extremism. The remainder of the film focuses on the nature of the bottle reality itself, whether Stevens can escape his real-world fate, and whether he can mend his relationship with his estranged father and jumpstart a romance with Christina. The willingness to devote so much time to events and details outside the ostensible main plot thread is a curious structural decision, but thanks to Ripley and Jones’ expert handling the film never once sags in suspense or pace.

We’ve said this before. It bears repeating: pretty.

The actors are perfectly if sometimes predictably cast. Gyllenhaal is a talented and versatile actor who’s still yet to find his niche with audiences, but here the action chops that went largely unnoticed in last year’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (coincidentally, another adventure driven by short-distance time travel) get better use in the heightened tension of the railway plot. Still, he fares better in the character-driven scenes, especially with Farmiga and the actor playing his father (the actor’s identity is too much of a treat, and concession, to long-time sci-fi fans to divulge). As the sweet, beguiling Christina, Monaghan plays to the type she’s already performed in a half-dozen films. She’s a lovely and talented actress, but the role does little to showcase the range she’s demonstrated elsewhere.

Wright is spot-on as the pompous doctor who sees Stevens as nothing more than a resource, and Farmiga’s character arc – efficient to humane – may make her the film’s most fully development personality. Whereas Moon was centered – and carried – by the formidable acting talents of Sam Rockwell, the larger script gives Jones time and space to explore more complicated character interactions. Like Moon, the protagonist is separated by space and technology from the answers he needs; the answers this time rely less on shock value and more on character sympathy.

As with probably any great science fiction film, enjoyment relies somewhat on your willing suspension of disbelief, in giving the film license to let a hole slip into the plot when perhaps you’re less likely to notice. But in the meantime it offers the best kind of not just science fiction but fiction itself – rooted in humanity and letting emotions rather than spectacle guide its way. Source Code brings that all together while still maintaining its action-charged momentum – it’s a lot more movie than it seems.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: Source Code

Director Duncan Jones’ second film is another intelligent, eloquent science fiction thriller.

Articulate and emotional without ever growing maudlin, intelligent without seeming geeky or pretentious, Duncan Jones’ Source Code justifies the promise the director showed with his similarly ambitious science  fiction mindbender Moon. Like that debut effort, Jones’ second film reveals a warm and compassionate concern not just for the workings of the science fiction elements of story but also for the human emotions spun out of their wake. The high energy marketing campaign focuses on the film’s time travel and exploding train aspects, but don’t be fooled: Jones and his cast and crew have created a film as much about loss and its aftermath as much as bombast and adventure, and the emphasis – especially in the last half-hour – is on character development and interaction.

Army captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the covert operative for Project: Beleaguered Castle, an Air Force counter-terrorism group that can project his consciousness into the after-image of recent temporal events and allow him to occupy a host body of comparable age, height, and size. It’s complicated science, complex enough to stretch suspension of disbelief by force alone, though explained via simplified metaphor by the project’s direct Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright.) Source Code technology is not exactly time travel, and not entirely jumping between parallel worlds, but Stevens’ jaunts into the afterimage of immediately recent events allow the project to gather intelligence about upcoming terrorist attacks.

In particular, his current mission involves finding the bomb secreted aboard a Chicago-bound commuter train before those responsible detonate a dirty bomb within the city itself. But increasing disorientation hampers Steven’s effectiveness, even as he’s increasingly distracted by Christina, the woman (Michelle Monaghan) accompanying his host body into the city. Stevens tries, tries again to locate the bomb and the passenger he believes may set it off. But each failure – he has only eight minutes to complete his mission – results in the train’s explosive destruction and a painful jolt back to the project’s headquarters.

Worse, Stevens suspects the doctor as well as Goodwin, his mission control operator (Vera Farmiga) are less than candid with the information they provide him, both about his role in the project as well as the events surrounding his recruitment into it. Stevens remembers serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan but nothing of the last two months, and Goodwin’s evasion of questions, as well as Rutledge’s condescension, make him even less trusting.

The film’s second act centers on Stevens’  abortive attempts to apprehend the bomber and disarm the bomb, even while he draws closer to the girl. Stevens also reasons he can use his time on the train to research the project itself and his service in Kandahar, the better to fill in the blanks of his memory. Each return trip home – Stevens fails his mission many times, often in ways that will probably evoke pity from the audience – reveals his mission capsule in greater disrepair. Pressing Goodwin for more information, Stevens learns he may not be in the capsule at all but that his physical body may reside somewhere else entirely.

But he eventually prevails, locating the bomber and confronting him – once disastrously, the second time with success. With a train full of suspects, Ben Ripley’s script has fun manipulating audience expectations regarding the bomber’s identity: the nature of his evil more closely resemble homegrown anarchist Timothy McVeigh than 21st Century notions of Islamic extremism. The remainder of the film focuses on the nature of the bottle reality itself, whether Stevens can escape his real-world fate, and whether he can mend his relationship with his estranged father and jumpstart a romance with Christina. The willingness to devote so much time to events and details outside the ostensible main plot thread is a curious structural decision, but thanks to Ripley and Jones’ expert handling the film never once sags in suspense or pace.

We’ve said this before. It bears repeating: pretty.

The actors are perfectly if sometimes predictably cast. Gyllenhaal is a talented and versatile actor who’s still yet to find his niche with audiences, but here the action chops that went largely unnoticed in last summer’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (coincidentally, another adventure driven by short-distance time travel) get better use in the heightened tension of the railway plot. Still, he fares better in the more character-driven scenes, especially with Farmiga and the actor playing his father (the actor’s identity is too much of a treat, and concession, to long-time sci-fi fans to divulge). Playing the sweet, beguiling Christina, Monaghan plays to the type she’s already performed in a half-dozen films. She’s a lovely and talented actress, but the role does little to showcase the range she’s demonstrated elsewhere.

Jones wisely casts two ringer character actors to play the heavier parts. Wright is spot-on as the pompous doctor who sees Stevens as nothing more than a resource, and Farmiga’s character arc - efficient to humane – may make her the film’s most fully development personality. Whereas Moon was centered – and carried – by the formidable acting talents of Sam Rockwell, the larger script gives Jones time and space to explore more complicated character interactions. Like Moon, the protagonist is separated by space and technology from the answers he needs; the answers this time rely less on shock value and more on character sympathy.

Like probably any great science fiction film, enjoyment relies somewhat on your willing suspension of disbelief, and in giving the film license to let a hole slip into the plot when perhaps you’re less likely to notice; those flaws will also likely emerge with repeated viewing. But in the meantime it offers the best kind of not just science fiction but fiction itself – rooted in humanity, letting emotions guide its way, and dedicated to continuing larger traditions while modifying them for new audiences. Source Code brings that all together while still maintaining its action-charged momentum. Don’t let the slam-bang advertisements fool you – the film is a lot more than it lets on.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: The Next Three Days

Russell Crowe stars but Elizabeth Banks stuns in Paul Haggis’ uneven melodrama.

For whatever comment it makes on the current state of American movies, The Next Three Days deserves at least some credit for offering a story to adult audiences that doesn’t include a mysterious disease, contrived family dynamics, or a twist ending that warps the characters’ motivations into a post-ironic jumble. Though the film isn’t perfect – it’s too sluggish in its first half and too scattered in its second – it’s intermittently entertaining and at times, sometimes despite itself, riveting in its suspense and character exploration. Strictly as a rental, it’s a good use of your money.

The setup is almost irresistible for fans of the pulpy thriller: community college professor John Brennan (Russell Crowe) lives a peaceful existence in Pittsburgh with his wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) and son Luke (Ty Simpkins). Lara has a fiery temper with other women, but when police arrest her for the murder of her boss John stands by her, bankrupting the family savings obtaining appeals while raising Luke alone. Lara, a diabetic, suffers with the guilt and isolation of three years of waiting in the city’s mammoth country jail, her spirits kept buoyed only by her family visits.

Still, her hopes continue to sink, slowly but surely, and John starts formulating a plan to free her. Much of the film’s second half-hour depicts his halting and sometimes foolhardy attempts to plan a jailbreak: the failed experiments prompted by YouTube tutorial videos, his own naivety, bad circumstances. As a criminal John is, at first, something of a wash, and the script mines unusual sympathy in depicting his everyman academic approach to crime fail humbly and miserably.

John searches out the help of enigmatic ex-con Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), who we learn has staged seven escape attempts but couldn’t live with the fear of getting caught again. The advice he gives, cynically and without hesitation, is so logical and pragmatic in its efficiency that John is immediately taken in, inspired as much as convinced that his plan is feasible. Neeson makes the most of his single scene. He doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen him do before, but it’s effective for what’s required, as are turns by Daniel Stern as the family lawyer and Brian Dennehy as John’s father. (It’s a shame that the once perennial Dennehy no longer makes many screen appearances. He’s a paragon American character actor.)

Though adapted from the 2008 French Film Pour Elle, Haggis and screenwriters Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans (creators of the original) wisely avoid Americanizing their leads with a lot of wealth and sex appeal. John and Lara are a middle class family in a middle class town, working not particularly lucrative jobs and living in a relatively simple house. If they were affluent the film would appear so much more disingenuous, and John’s desperation that much more specious. Their relative poverty puts a cold light on the necessity of their actions.

Those actions, unfortunately, are ultimately too few and far between and too lethargic in its execution to emerge as more than occasionally suspenseful viewing. The lack of suspense is partly visual: Pittsburgh’s windy autumn streets and cozy Craftsman homes seem too languid for the events within them; even a meth lab appears relatively Americana. Crowe, though nimble in portraying a loving father and husband, seldom allows John’s dread and panic to boil over. It’s a performance that’s perhaps too reserved and deliberate to compellingly work.

Did anyone else see this jacket and immediately think of Star Trek:TNG?

By way of comparison Banks displays formidable dramatic talent in the tougher of the two roles, explaining in a handful of scenes why John would move heaven and earth to save her. We can also understand, thanks to an awkwardly staged prologue that displays Lara’s anger, why her innocence might seem, to some, a little suspect. You might spend a lot of the film waiting for her to admit she’s guilty; she does, but Haggis, Cavaye and Lemans put a sharp touch on the scene you might not expect.  Banks has so far had few chances to display her dramatic chops  (Oliver Stone’s disorganized W. notwithstanding), but here she more than keeps up with Crowe’s formidable screen presence. Taking into account her comedic prowess, she’s a formidable talent; alongside Michelle Monaghan and Gretchen Mol, she might be one of the most unfairly unsung actresses currently working.

The plot does pick up steam once John sets his plans in motion, beginning with a taut sequence in which he robs a drug dealer (Kevin Corrigan) of the money he’ll need to carry out the escape. And, as with films such as Ocean’s 11 and the Mission: Impossible series, there’s a satisfaction in watching his best laid plans come to fruition (many details of which are too inventive to spoil here.) But there’s story waiting to unfold after Lara is free, much of it hers, and if the film drags on to the last moment – including an exculpatory denouement that goes on entire minutes longer than it needs – they’re additional time for Banks to prove herself again and again, so you probably won’t mind.

Seen as a group, Haggis’ films have a habit of overreaching – In The Valley of Elah, Quantum of Solace, Crash, to name a few – and while here the film’s objective seems a little fuzzier in comparison the results are perhaps as a result just vaguely underwhelming. Crowe could use a good film about now, and Banks deserves one, but it’s not this one. Still, at the risk of damning it with faint praise if you’ve got the time to spend it’s worth  your time to watch.

-Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: Due Date

Robert Downey, Jr. and Zack Galifianakis in a road comedy that never gets up to speed.

Mismatched-buddy comedies are a long and vaunted tradition in Hollywood, dating at least as far back as the Abbott & Costello/Laurel & Hardy films of the 1940s and continuing most notably, at least to Gen-X audiences, with John Hughes’ 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Director Todd Phillips’ follow-up to The Hangover borrows the structure of that beloved Steve Martin – John Candy effort, teaming an uptight professional with an easygoing, misunderstood slob on a cross-country trek with a clearly defined deadline involving the straight man’s family.

Comparisons between the two films are unavoidable, and that’s bad news for Due Date, which relies too much on co-star Zach Galifianakis’ weirdo schtick without building enough jokes around it to lend the story any comic vitality. Robert Downey, Jr., continuing his streak of always playing the smartest guy in any given room, lends his acerbic poise perhaps too much, inadvertently weighing the already-dark script with too much straightman snark. That’s not to say there aren’t occasional funny moments, but like highway rest stops they always seem too far apart when you need them and perpetually available when you don’t.

Architect Peter Highman (Downey, Jr.) is desperate to return to Los Angeles from a business trip to Atlanta before his wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) gives birth to their first child. But a preflight mixup with wannabe actor Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) gets them both kicked off the flight and placed on a no-fly list. Highman somewhat incredibly leaves his wallet on the plane; while attempting to steal a rental car from the airport lot he’s reunited with Tremblay, who offers to drive him to Los Angeles by way of apology.

A whirl of fuzz in layers of 1990s-era fashions and a delicate hair perm, Tremblay is a gentle if self-sabotaging soul, the owner of a Two and a Half Men fansite who admits to once running himself over with a car and pronounces Shakespeare as “Shakesbeard.” But he’s also grieving for a recently diseased father whose ashes he carries in a can of coffee grounds, seeking closure but putting off several opportunities to get it. Conversely, Highman is all white-collar privilege and suburban entitlement. You can imagine him readily enjoying the same amenities as George Clooney’s similar road warrior from Up In The Air while sneering at the slobs flying business class.

The two are severely underqualified to attempt a 3000 mile drive separately, let alone together, and the interpersonal friction as they reach strange locations ought to propel the comic give-and-take. Yet the script from former King of the Hill writers Alan R. Cohen and Adam Freedland (with additional work by Adam Sztykiel from Phillip’s story) doesn’t have the duo go very many places, with the ensuing result that the story… doesn’t really go any place. Instead, the stops they make are long, protracted, and disjointed: a trip to a vendor of “medical” marijuana in Alabama; a Western Union branch in Louisiana; incredibly again, the Mexican border and the Grand Canyon. Despite the time-table crucial to the plot, there’s seldom any sense of urgency, despite Highman’s frequent, panicked calls home.

One of Planes, Trains and Automobiles‘ most endearing – and enduring – virtues rested in the commonality of its situations: Martin’s yuppie snob and Candy’s blue-collar lummox negotiated the impersonal, indifferent hurdles of cross-country travel over a grueling three-day odyssey, facing soulless hotel rooms, numbingly incompetent customer service, and many, many other small setbacks that seemed incomprehensible in their banality. But where that film mined the everyday, the shock value of Phillps et al.’s script explores only the less ordinary, and frequently for shock value: Highman is busted for drugs at the Mexican border; Tremblay forgets his own name as the two try to receive a wire transfer; Tremblay’s dog masturbates alongside his owner.

Stalling things even further is a wasted, unnecessary subplot involving Highman’s college friend (Jamie Foxx) and the possibility that he’s actually the father of Sarah’s child. It’s an unexplored, inert distraction from the rest of the story, and the payoff at film’s end is mostly flat as a result. An earlier gag involving a crippled war veteran (Danny McBride) beating Highman with a club for his arrogance is almost painful to watch; meant to be outre, it’s just mean-spirited to both characters. Finally, a late revelation from Tremblay will seem to anyone who’s seen The Hangover as too derivative by half of another plot twist also involving Galifianakis’ character in that film.

Ultimately, Due Date is an unfunny comedy that’s possibly more rewarding on home video than in the theatre, and maybe then only for devoted fans of its several stars. But in one sense it doesn’t matter: the director and performers will make better films, many of which will likely look just as good within their previews, too. (Due Date is the epitome of a film whose best moments appear in its ads.) By the time these things happen we’ll have forgotten all about this misfire. Honestly, we’ve already started.

- Michael Kabel

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Sour Christmas, Part Two

Continuing our list of a dozen movies and TV shows to help you skip the holiday cheer.

“So bolt the door and hit the floor…”

Christmas is just three days away, and we’re still not feeling it.  Just the same, or maybe because of it, here’s the rest of the dozen movies and gone-too-soon television shows that we recommend as smart, funny, honest, and wickedly creative – in other words, everything the holiday season is not.  They’re all available on DVD, and they all make perfect ways to escape from holiday celebrations into something that better fits a sour mood

A couple of days ago we published the first half of the list here, but the total listing remains (as always) in no particular order of importance. Where possible, we’ve included video that was available on YouTube when we looked for it.

Thank You For Smoking (2005) – Smug, blithely amoral tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhardt, never better) juggles raising his tween son (Cameron Bright) with romancing a journalist (Katie Holmes) and pitching cigarette product placement into Hollywood films. Opposing him are a yokely U.S. Senator (William H. Macy) and… well, pretty much the entire world.

Writer-director Jason Reitman (Up In The Air) adapts Christopher Buckley’s novel with fierce comic wit and timing, and the leads get a giant boost from a supporting cast full of ringers – Macy, the great J.K. Simmons, Maria Bello, David Koechner, among others. It’s the kind of film that at first you think you shouldn’t laugh at, then admit you can’t help yourself.

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – Struggling, bottom-feeding New York press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) lives at the beck and call of cynical, world-loathing newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Hunsecker, who despises Falco and the whole world besides, can make or break Falco’s clients – and, by extension, Falco too. Hunsecker offers him the chance to get his clients real publicity, but only if Falco will sabotage the jazz guitarist (Martin Milner) currently romancing his sister (Susan Harrison).

By and large, the mainstream films of the 1950s aren’t known for their character depth or social commentary, but like Elia Kazan’s A Face In The Crowd (released the same year) Alexander Mackendrick’s film has dozens of barbed comments to make on the media, public image, and moral hypocrisy; consider it Mad Men from the time of Mad Men.

Gone Baby Gone (2007) – Ben Affleck’s directing debut adapts Dennis Lehane’s novel about a pair of romantically attached detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) pulled into helping the search for a young girl kidnapped from a poor neighborhood. But the investigation ends unhappily, and the couple drifts apart. Months later, a second kidnapping raises nagging questions about the first, complicated by police treachery and the girl’s own conniving, possibly complicit mother (the superb Amy Ryan, in an Oscar-nominated performance.)

This was one of the first films SBR reviewed, and it still holds a warm, if dark, place in our film memory. Read our complete review here.

 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – A film lover’s dream movie, George Roy Hill’s loose, self-assured take on the two real-life train robbers still sets the bar for all things masculine cool. Pursued by a crack team of investigators to the remote hills of Bolivia, Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) continue their life of crime even though the stakes are higher and the authorities deadlier. Times’s running out for the two gentlemen bandits, largely because their era of frontier freedom is ending.

In the meantime the pacing is sharp and the performances perfect, as in this following scene where Butch confronts a mutinous member of his Hole In The Wall Gang (Ted Cassidy.)

Point Blank (1967) – You always hear about how the 1960s was a decade of change yet Lee Marvin remained the biggest badass on the planet throughout, as this John Boorman (Deliverance) pseudo-homage to French New Wave proves again and again. Here he’s cast as Walker, a thief and enforcer double-crossed and left for dead by both his partner (John Vernon) and wife (Sharon Acker).

But he recovers, and with help from a mysterious benefactor (Keenan Wynn) begins to take apart the criminal syndicate that his ex-partner now represents. Walker wants revenge and no more, no less than the $93,000 that was his take of their last heist. He’s helped, in her kitten-with-a-whip Sixties way, by his wife’s sister (Angie Dickinson). If any of this sounds familiar, Mel Gibson remade the film with 1999′s much weaker Payback.

Arrested Development (2003) – We’re still parsing out how good this dark comedy actually was, seven years after its debut.  A labyrinth of in-jokes, meta-humor, recurring gags and brilliant character beats formed the structure of the Bluth family’s saga in Orange County, as storylines of infidelity, coming of age, treason, and so much else moved them from episode to interconnected episode.

The show nominally centered on straight-laced son Michael (Jason Bateman, kicking off his career comeback) but included more than a dozen regular and recurring performers including Portia de Rossi, Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett, Michael Cera and David Cross. All three seasons are on DVD, and lately IFC has put reruns heavily into its nightly schedule.

Happy holidays. We’ll return once next week, to close out the year with its last installment of Miscellaneous Debris. Be safe on the roads and take care.

-  Michael Kabel  

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Review: Due Date

Buddy road movie from the director of The Hangover never quite arrives.

Mismatched-buddy comedies are a long and vaunted tradition in Hollywood, dating at least as far back as the Abbott & Costello/Laurel & Hardy films of the 1940s and continuing most notably, at least to Gen-X audiences, with John Hughes’ 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Director Todd Phillips’ follow-up to The Hangover borrows the structure of that beloved Steve Martin – John Candy effort, teaming an uptight professional with an easygoing, misunderstood slob on a cross-country trek with a clearly defined deadline involving the straight man’s family.

Comparisons between the two films are unavoidable (Even Wikipedia’s entry on the film carps on the similarities), and that’s bad news for Due Date, which relies too much on co-star Zach Galifianakis’ weirdo schtick without building enough jokes around it to lend the story any comic vitality. Meanwhile Robert Downey, Jr., continuing his streak of always playing the smartest guy in any given room, lends his acerbic poise perhaps too much, inadvertently weighing the already-dark script  with too much straight snark. The two make an uneven comic team,  and even with the necessarily episodic script that imbalance creates problems from jump. That’s not to say there aren’t occasional funny moments, but like highway rest stops they always seem too far apart when you need them and perpetually available when you don’t.

Architect Peter Highman (Downey, Jr.) is desperate to return to Los Angeles from a business trip to Atlanta before his wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) gives birth to their first child. But a preflight mixup with actor wannabe Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) gets them both kicked off the flight and placed on a no-fly list. Thanks to Tremblay, Highman somewhat incredibly leaves his wallet on the plane; while attempting to steal a rental car from the airport lot he’s reunited with Tremblay, who offers to drive him to Los Angeles by way of apology.

A whirl of fuzz in layers of 1990s-era fashions and a delicate hair perm, Tremblay is a gentle if self-sabotaging soul, the owner of a Two and a Half Men fansite who admits to running himself over with a car and pronounces Shakespeare as “Shakesbeard.” But he’s also grieving for a recently diseased father whose ashes he carries in a can of coffee grounds, seeking closure but putting off several opportunities to get it. Conversely, Highman is all white-collar privilege and suburban entitlement; you can imagine him readily enjoying the same amenities as George Clooney’s similar road warrior from Up In The Air while sneering at the slobs flying business class.

The two are severely underqualified to attempt a 3000 mile drive separately, let alone together, and the interpersonal friction as they reach strange locations ought to propel the comic give-and-take. Yet the script from former King of the Hill writers Alan R. Cohen and Adam Freedland (with additional work by Adam Sztykiel from Phillip’s story) doesn’t have the duo go very many places, with the ensuing result that the story… doesn’t really go any place. Instead, the stops they make are long, protracted, and disjointed: a trip to a vendor of “medical” marijuana in Alabama; a Western Union branch in Louisiana; incredibly again, the Mexican border and the Grand Canyon. Despite the time-table crucial to the plot setup, there’s seldom any sense of urgency, despite Highman’s frequent, panicked calls home.

One of Planes, Trains and Automobiles‘ most endearing – and enduring – virtues rested in the commonality of its situations: Martin’s yuppie and Candy’s blue-collar lummox negotiated the impersonal, indifferent hurdles of cross-country travel over a grueling three-day odyssey, facing impersonal hotel rooms, numbingly indifferent airline personnel, incompetent customer service, and many, many other small setbacks incomprehensible in their banality. But where that film mined the everyday, the shock value of Phillps et al.’s script explores only the less ordinary, and frequently for shock value: Highman is busted for drugs at the Mexican border;  Tremblay forgets his own name as the two try to receive a wire transfer; Tremblay’s dog masturbates alongside his owner.

Stalling things even further is a wasted, unnecessary subplot involving Highman’s college friend (Jamie Foxx) and the possibility that he’s actually the father of Sarah’s child. It’s an unexplored, inert distraction from the rest of the story, and the payoff at film’s end is mostly flat as a result. An earlier gag involving a crippled war veteran (Danny McBride) beating Highman with a club for his arrogance is almost painful to watch; meant to be outre, it’s just mean-spirited to both characters involved. Finally, a late revelation from Tremblay will seem to anyone who’s seen The Hangover as derivative by half of another plot twist also involving Galifianakis’ character.

Ultimately, Due Date is an unfunny comedy that’s not worth seeing in a theatre but perhaps watching on home video and only for devoted fans of its several stars. But in one sense it doesn’t matter: the director and performers will make better films, many of which will likely look just as good within their previews, too. (Due Date is the epitome of a film whose best moments appear in its ads.) By the time these things happen we’ll have forgotten all about this misfire. Honestly, we’ve already started.

- Michael Kabel

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100 Posts and Counting…

We’re congratulating ourselves! You should, too!

Yikes! 100 Posts! And we’ve only been at this since last March. Credit our three-times a week update schedule. But it’s still fun. Actually, it’s more fun now that our traffic numbers are rising and we’re getting more feedback.

When we got to the 50-post mark we ran down a list of ten things we’d learned from the experience up to that date. They’re still true, but there are a few other new things we picked up since.

Fitzgerald actually wrote several fantasy stories as a way to make some quick cash.

1. We’re more certain of our mission statement now than we were seven months ago, in no small part because lately the fall season’s ad campaigns are staring once again to piss on our legs and tell us it’s raining champagne. The three big prestige pictures this year, from what we can tell, are Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, David Fincer’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and future Bravo Network staple Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann.

Of the three, we’re least leary of Benjamin Button, mostly because Fincher’s coming off his masterful Zodiac and Pitt is actually often at his best when playing more restrained, downbeat roles. We just hope the “I do de-clay-yah!” New Orleans grotesques aren’t as pervasive in the film as in the trailer.

9. Social networking tools like Digg and Twitter are great, and we welcome traffic from them, but there’s no substitute for good word of mouth. We’re getting less bitch mail than we used to, too, so we must be doing something right or anyway better than we were before. That being said, we wish there were more comments coming across our threshold.

The Man

8. Google works in mysterious ways. When we ran a pic of actor Skeet Ulrich on our 50th milestone post, the image somehow topped Google’s search rankings. So far we’ve had more than 300 visitors looking for that one pic.  To Mr. Ulrich’s fans, especially those coming over from Capturing Skeet.com, welcome and thank you. To Skeet himself, we probably owe you a steak dinner or something.

7. Our most popular post is still the “Six Forgotten Sci-Fi Films of the 1970s” retrospective from last May. It’s also the one that’s provoked the most griping, so if you check it out remember that one fan’s “forgotten” film is another fan’s cherished memory.

6. We don’t know if anyone else is laughing at our picture captions, but we’re cracking ourselves up. Editor Michael Kabel grew up reading Creem magazine, and it’s just too much fun paying some homage to that late, lamented mag by following their brilliant example here.

5. One post we wish got more traffic showcased a gorgeous montage of Homicide: Life On The Street images set to Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic.” Really, it’s a profoundly haunting couple of minutes. Here it is again:

Thanks again to easilyjaded2 for creating it.

Hello, I'm Shia LaBouef. I'm an actor.

4. Our worst review remains Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but Eagle Eye only narrowly missed taking that dubious distinction for itself. And in either film’s case, their appalling failure had nothing necessarily to do with mutual participant Shia LaBouef. It’s the films themselves that are godawful, virtually from the ground up.

3. Our posts are getting longer, but there’s more to be said about most films than will fit into a 500- or 600-word essay. Maybe the single greatest advantage of the Internet over print, to quote Walt Disney out of context, is the “blessing of space.” Now, that’s no excuse not to be succinct. But in reviewing some films and analyzing others it’s important to attempt comprehensiveness. Failing that, we’ll try to be funny if not smart.

Running down a dream: The Flash

2. We’ve tried several different types of features, from hypothetical sequels to rewriting underwhelming blockbusters to armchair casting films we know are getting made but don’t trust Hollywood to make the right personnel decisions. Our rewrites of the Star Wars prequels have been the most popular, though we’re not kidding ourselves that poeple are looking for info about the actual films. The post about how to make The Flash movie is a sentimental favorite.

1. Now that the blog’s growing bigger, it’s probably time for some big people clothes. Specifically, we’re looking for someone to create our new header. If you’ve got the design skills and think you can help, please contact us at the email shown back up and to the right there.

To wrap things up, and by way of crossing our fingers for the next 100 posts, the clip below is the famous “cuckoo clock” segment from The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten.

Wednesday we’ll have a review of the new DVD edition of L.A. Confidential. Thanks again for reading.

-Michael Kabel

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Review: Eagle Eye

Contrived, derivative actioner keeps its eyes on the product placement prize.

One of my favorite movie quotes comes from 1995′s vastly underrated Strange Days: “Paranoia,” one of the characters explains, ”is reality on a finer scale.” Later, another character asks the story’s protagonist, “The question isn’t ‘Are you paranoid?’ It’s ‘Are you paranoid enough?” Misunderstood as a Virtual Reality rock video, that film was really an examination of the way technology was steadily eroding the individual will at the turn of the millennium. In the thirteen years since its release, thanks in no small part to the shabby example set by our government, America has become more paranoid than ever, both as a people and as a nation. And the worst of it is that that condition shows no sign of going away.

Eagle Eye wants to be about paranoia, and about how 21st Century Americans are all ghosts in a giant machine of computer files and encrypted data that define us as individuals and place us within society itself. Subject to some expert hacking and a little determination, we are liable to having our lives turned upside down and twisted inside out, because we are all “on the grid” of the Information Age. Such an idea is a compelling if not wholly unprecedented theme, and that idea sometimes bubbles to the film’s shiny surface. But arrhythmic pacing, far fetched plotting and too many product placements ultimately make it collapse under its own cumbersome weight.

Can you hear me now? LaBeouf, Monaghan

Shia LaBeouf (Transformers: The Movie) plays Jerry Shaw, a minimum wage slave and designated prodigal black sheep of his career military family. When his (contrivances begin here) twin brother is killed, Shaw finds his bank account stuffed with cash and his apartment loaded with enough ordinance to stage a guerrilla war. Then a mysterious female voice begins giving him directions over his cel phone, directing him from Chicago to Washington, D.C. in the company of single mom Rachel Holloman. (Michelle Monaghan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) The same voice is threatening to kill Rachel’s young son, who’s himself away on a band trip to the nation’s capital. It turns out Shaw’s dead brother was actually an analyst with a top-secret Pentagon intelligence project, one that seeks to assassinate most of the federal government in one fell stroke.

LaBeouf didnt realize the Decepticons already had him surrounded.

Rather than try to describe any more of the plot, I’m just going to list some of the plot devices: runaway artificial intelligence; explosive crystals detonated with sound frequencies; robot loading cranes; hidden floors at the Pentagon; preemptive military strikes on Arab villages; drone planes; pinwheeling eighteen wheeler trucks; twin sibling biometrics; and finally, the staggering credulity and incompetence shown by law enforcement officials in hundreds of other movies just like this. Perhaps more audacious, and more egregious, are the cribbed plot points and story elements lifted wholesale or in part from other films, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Enemy of the State, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Wargames, The Parallax View, and The 39 Steps. Recognizing which parts of this film came from those better ones makes for a good diversion when Eagle Eye’s pacing falls slack, as it does several times.

LaBeouf, Monaghan enter the Circuity City Home Theatre of Despair

Director D.J. Caruso (The Shield) takes his directing style from a single page of the Michael Bay/Armageddon playbook, the one that says keep everything slick and glossy while stacking the supporting cast full of respected character actors in order to give the outlandish script some gravitas. Armageddon had Billy Bob Thornton, and he appears here as well. Actually, his flair for snarling lines like “You’ll be demoted to some kind of job that involves touching shit with your hands” brightens the film at several moments. Michael Chiklis, William Sadler, Rosario Dawson, and Anthony Mackie also appear as various military and/or police personnel.

Pretty: Monaghan

As for the leads, LaBeouf does his best but is neither compelling as a man distanced from his own twin or forceful enough to convey any fugitive intensity while hunted halfway across country. Monaghan’s character is better written, and she does a fine job of making Rachel both strong and terrified without whining or playing to the camera. But there’s only so much any woman can do in a film about computers, guns, robots and soldiers. Monaghan is a beautiful and promising actress who, after this and Made of Honor, needs to pick better scripts immediately and from now on.

The true stars of the film, however, are in many ways the products and corporations shamelessly and relentlessly marketed throughout. Executive producer Steven Spielberg has never been shy about putting products into his films, and here that commercial instinct overheats and very nearly explodes. The use of the Sprint phones alone, the company logo always prominently displayed, defies any claim to artistic integrity.

A couple of times lately I’ve written about movies that had something on their mind besides action and suspense. It seems an exaggeration to say the same about Eagle Eye, which feels in every way like screenwriters John Glenn and Travis Wright tried to write a blockbuster based on what they perceived as zeitgeist in the age of identity theft and government wiretapping. In other words, the film’s topical resonance is only a launching platform for semi-mindless boom boom boom action sprinkled with what the producers, studio, and director think people care about. But such second-guessing and condescension happen everyday in the movie business, regardless of whether the public realizes it or not. It’s enough to make any filmgoer feel manipulated, maybe even paranoid.

-Michael Kabel
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