Archive for September, 2010

Going the Distance

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long’s romantic comedy Going the Distance while examining the pressures and joys of 21st century relationships fails to deliver on a solid front with the film undecided about whether the narrative is a comedy or a serious romantic drama. Highlights of the film include great visuals of New York and San Francisco and an awesome soundtrack coupled with some hilarious moments especially the dining room scene, the central premise of the film takes slightly too long to arrive at any serious conclusion.

Meeting halfway – would be the stopover in Jefferson?

Going the Distance is more about the arc of a relationship than the geographic separation that two people feel as they attempt to keep a relationship together across two coasts and timezones. Great Sunday afternoon viewing but Barrymore has done far better films and is immensely more talented than she makes out in this film… Grey Gardens proves that! This film is a coast to coaster but no smooth operator!

Reservation Road

Reservation Road is a profoundly tragic human drama about how the lives of two families are affected by a fatal hit and run accident one dark night on Reservation Road, in suburban Connecticut. Terry George best known for the harrowingly brilliant film Hotel Rwanda, brings this engrossing film version of the novel by John Burnham Schwartz to the big screen with a subtlety and sensitivity remininscent in all its despair of similar films like The House of Sand and Fog and The Ice Storm.

Colliding worlds with tragic consequences

With such talented actors at his disposal, including Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly and nominee Joaquin Phoenix, who both prove their endless range and depth of emotion and a welcome change for actor Mark Ruffalo playing the hapless lawyer who causes the accident, proceeding to pathetically endure the guilt and torment of someone that has committed an irreversible crime. Phoenix takes on the opposite male role of Media Professor Ethan Learner who desperately battles to make sense of an awesome loss, and invariably realizes that in any hit and run accident justice is never fair.

What makes Reservation Road so engaging and exceptionally sad as was the case in Jennifer Connelly’s earlier film House of Sand and Fog, was that it is the children who suffer the most. This film relies on the human emotions of loss, grief, guilt and a longed for revenge, while highlighting the difficulty of how ordinary citizens come to terms with an unexpected and tragic encounter that will irreparably change their lives forever. The eternity of Reservation Road, makes the film more compelling, for accidents can happen anywhere in the world. While even the most idyllic of places can be fraught with human suffering, sometimes its better concealed behind beautiful homes and garages in tranquil suburban Connecticut, than in other more volatile regions as illustrated in war-torn Rwanda, suffering just as universal, especially when children become the victims.

Reservation Road might appear to be another tear-inducing cinematic experience, the film also skillfully delves into the significance of loss and revenge in our contemporary worlds with a suspense so naturally frightening, where we so often seek comfort in all things technological, while grappling to deal with death and the subsequent grief it inflicts. Terry George and author Schwartz worked on the subtle script combined with some great performances especially by Connelly and Phoenix, making this film worthwhile. See it and don’t be afraid to shed a tear.

Iron Man

The superbly versatile character actor, Robert Downey Jnr has made a big screen comeback in the summer blockbuster Marvel comics’ film adaptation of Iron Man bringing a fresh twist on the superhero role. In recent years, we have seen numerous film trilogies about super heroes, from the X-Men to Spiderman become box office successes.

Downey returns to form with a Money Spinner

Iron Man opens promisingly with Downey Jnr playing Tony Stark a weapons manufacturer on a visit to Afghanistan. He is chatting boisterously with American soldiers in the back of an armoured vehicle, while sipping on a fine whisky, a decadent contrast to the passing landscape of the bleak Afghan province of Kunar. Stark poses for photographs and does not to take life seriously even though he is responsible for inheriting an empire that builds weapons of apparently mass destruction. Portrayed as somewhat of a playboy, as seen in flashbacks whereby Stark goes from gambling at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas while missing his own awards ceremony to seducing a blonde reporter at his immense Malibu mansion. All the while, drinks in hand, he casually races to his private Californian airstrip to board a luxury jet en route to Afghanistan, where he is due to present the latest product from Stark industries, Jericho, a rocket launcher with magnificent destructive capacities.

The self-indulgent Tony Stark is soon captured by a militant group of rebels, living in the Afghan mountains, certainly suggestive of the Taliban. There he is forced to build another weapon for this guerilla group, but aided by a mysterious fellow prisoner, he builds an iron suit, which is powered by a flashy blue battery that keeps shrapnel from entering his heart. The film follows similar superhero plots whereby the hero returns to his native California after annihilating his captives and finds that his very newly acquired powers are being undermined by those closest to him.

Besides the inconsistencies in storyline, evident of a group of screenwriters marrying diverging plot points, Iron Man follows most superhero storylines, from Spiderman to the more recent Ghost Rider, always ultimately rescuing the female lead, in this case, Stark’s efficient assistant Pepper Pots played with a surprising subtlety by Gwyneth Paltrow. What was so attractive in this film was this standard plot being treated with a subverted and ironically mature undertone, given that the hero is a middle-aged millionaire who draws on his own emotional vulnerabilities to eventually fuel his physical transformation from careless warmonger to conscientious saviour. Iron Man, the super hero, almost is an anti-hero, defeating the villain and saving the distressed damsel, while still retaining his own personal insecurities.

Thus, Downey’s performance fits perfectly with this subversion of a traditional superhero, as he smirks and delights in a clearly comic role, with significantly relevant undertones; especially enhanced by the fact that Iron Man doesn’t actually possess any supernatural powers, his ironclad flying suit is entirely his own creation.

Salt

Salt is a fast paced action thriller which is intriguing and admirable for the wonderful casting of Angelina Jolie as the title character and Liev Schrieber so refreshing in this female version Mission Impossible style thriller set in Washington DC and New York, shot with the same vigour and energy as the Bourne trilogy less the exotic locations.

Australian Director Philip Noyce whose impressive credits include the brilliant Rabbit Proof Fence and The Quiet American directs Salt with panache and a strong control of the pace, plot and environment of shady double agents and counter-intelligence. Noyce has worked with Jolie before on the serial killer thriller The Bone Collector back in 1999, so he returns to familiar territory with the new thriller Salt set in the murky world of US counter-espionage with a superb supporting cast including Liev Schrieber and the hugely underrated Chiwetel Ejiofor of the famed Stephen Frears film, Dirty Pretty Things and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster.

Salt is a combination of the Boys from Brazil and In the Line of Fire with a fast-moving plot and fantastic action sequences reminiscent of Angelina Jolie’s earlier roles in Tomb Raider, Wanted and Mr and Mrs Smith.  Salt is a riveting thriller and worth the twist in the tale.