(Andrew Bujalski, 2015)
Bujalski pulls an abrupt hard left after the uniquely bizarre wonders of Computer Chess with this relatively slick rom-com. And yet the slickness is all in the production design and the sharp digital photography; underneath it feels strangely of a piece with his earlier, so-called "mumblecore" work, where people try to find happiness and stumble through relationships.
In this case those people are Danny (Kevin Corrigan), a stoner and recent divorcee who inherits a fortune from his estranged mother and has absolutely no idea what to do with it, so he spends it paying strangers off Craigslist $200 to fix his huge tv and decides to hire a personal trainer to get him in shape. That leads him to the gym owned by Trevor (Guy Pearce), who lives in shorts and a t-shirt and talks an awful lot about achieving "goals". He and Kat (Cobie Smulders) have an awkward relationship, having had an "unprofessional" affair some time before. When Kat becomes Danny's trainer, he is smitten, and that complicates her relationship with Trevor.
Classic eternal triangle stuff, then? Well; not really. The film seems to be heading one way before moving off in another entirely, portraying a realistically complex entanglement of friends, colleagues and lovers. These are people unsure of what they want or afraid to try and get it, people who blow their chances to communicate with one another repeatedly. Recognisably normal human beings, in other words.
Corrigan seizes a rare lead role with glee and plays Danny as a confused but likeable clown. Pearce is dryly hilarious as Trevor, and Smulders is perfect as Kat, all temper tantrums and spontaneous gestures she herself doesn't understand. Their relationship, filled as it is with conflict and longing, is beautifully nuanced by Bujalski, whose skill as a writer is growing.
Visually, he remains a little less convincing, although the way this film becomes more intimate and plays with space in his compositions is subtle and pleasing.
Showing posts with label Giovanni Ribisi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Giovanni Ribisi. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Thursday, 17 January 2013
GANGSTER SQUAD
(Ruben Fleischer, 2013)
Gangster Squad plays like somebody saw The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential and thought: I can do that.
Only they couldn't.
Instead what they made was a dumbed-down, simplified version of similar material. This is James Ellroy for the Playstation generation; what it takes from Ellroy and classic gangster pictures are the superficial things - the hats, the suits, the cars, the art deco architecture, the tommy guns. What it misses out is what makes Ellroy so good and so distinctive - the vicious characterisation, the sprawling narratives, the gaudy peppering of sex and violence, the intensity, the wit.
This is a film that manages to do everything it does badly. A massive climactic tommy gun battle is tedious and predictable. The romance between Ryan Gosling's charming detective and Emma Stone's moll is dull and somewhat perfunctory. Ganglord Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, channelling a villain from Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy) intimidating then having inept underlings murdered in creative ways is second-hand and cliched. The scene where Josh Brolin's heroic cop O'Meara rounds up his squad is laughably silly, as is his voiceover narration ("Evil can only thrive when good men do nothing") while his relationship with his pregnant wife is copied more or less verbatim from The Untouchables but lacks the sincerity and charm of the equivalent scenes in that film.
The story follows the establishment of an off-the-books squad of Los Angeles cops in 1949, brought together in order to wage covert war against the massively powerful and ruthless mobster Cohen.
In reality the story lurches along from one middling action scene to the next, doling out cardboard character beats in between. It all looks very slick and pretty; too much so. These cops are immaculately tailored, their cars gleaming, hair beautifully coiffed. Every twist and turn is telegraphed, and Fleischer mainly seems to be showcasing his own ability to handle a big property like this one perhaps in the hopes of landing a big studio blockbuster as his next movie.
The real shame of it is the immense waste of that cast, filled with great faces and huge talent as it is. Only Penn really registers. Brolin is boring, Gosling seems to be parodying himself, and nobody else has enough of a character to really play. Instead they just concentrate on looking good and advancing the plot, much like the film itself.
Gangster Squad plays like somebody saw The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential and thought: I can do that.
Only they couldn't.
Instead what they made was a dumbed-down, simplified version of similar material. This is James Ellroy for the Playstation generation; what it takes from Ellroy and classic gangster pictures are the superficial things - the hats, the suits, the cars, the art deco architecture, the tommy guns. What it misses out is what makes Ellroy so good and so distinctive - the vicious characterisation, the sprawling narratives, the gaudy peppering of sex and violence, the intensity, the wit.
This is a film that manages to do everything it does badly. A massive climactic tommy gun battle is tedious and predictable. The romance between Ryan Gosling's charming detective and Emma Stone's moll is dull and somewhat perfunctory. Ganglord Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, channelling a villain from Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy) intimidating then having inept underlings murdered in creative ways is second-hand and cliched. The scene where Josh Brolin's heroic cop O'Meara rounds up his squad is laughably silly, as is his voiceover narration ("Evil can only thrive when good men do nothing") while his relationship with his pregnant wife is copied more or less verbatim from The Untouchables but lacks the sincerity and charm of the equivalent scenes in that film.
The story follows the establishment of an off-the-books squad of Los Angeles cops in 1949, brought together in order to wage covert war against the massively powerful and ruthless mobster Cohen.
In reality the story lurches along from one middling action scene to the next, doling out cardboard character beats in between. It all looks very slick and pretty; too much so. These cops are immaculately tailored, their cars gleaming, hair beautifully coiffed. Every twist and turn is telegraphed, and Fleischer mainly seems to be showcasing his own ability to handle a big property like this one perhaps in the hopes of landing a big studio blockbuster as his next movie.
The real shame of it is the immense waste of that cast, filled with great faces and huge talent as it is. Only Penn really registers. Brolin is boring, Gosling seems to be parodying himself, and nobody else has enough of a character to really play. Instead they just concentrate on looking good and advancing the plot, much like the film itself.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
CONTRABAND
(Baltasar Kormákur, 2012)
Mark Wahlberg's stock screen persona differs little from his offscreen persona; lying somewhere between Jason Statham and James Cagney, he generally plays an honest, blue collar tough guy who has to be driven to violence, but excels at it when that occurs.
Contraband is really no different. Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, an expert smuggler gone straight who is dragged back into "the life" by the stupidity of his young brother-in-law, who finds himself in debt to some bad people after a run goes wrong. To pay the debt and get some lowlifes (led by Giovanni Ribisi) off his back, Farraday takes on one last run, bringing him to Panama and into contact with some dangerous Latin gangs, all while his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two little boys are left at home in New Orleans, somewhat at the mercy of the criminal elements newly reinterested in his business.
All of that is terribly stale; familiar elements rearranged into a slightly different order. The plot is overly complex, with the Panamanian excursion in particular turning into an overstuffed - if entertaining - series of suspense and action beats one after another, including a Double-cross, a massive gun battle and a race against time, all of it presided over by Diego Luna chewing scenery as a deranged Gang chief.
The script has a few good lines and no interesting characters, but Baltasar Kormákur's direction enriches it somewhat; he keeps it grungey, gritty and grainy, thick with atmosphere and dense with texture. This is a portrayal of a New Orleans seldom seen in cinema, and Panama city registers vividly in that passage too, while life aboard a colossal cargo ship is pungently rendered, all cheap, scuffed carpets and oily corridors.
Contraband is best appreciated for its exemplary collection of shifty, distinctive character actors in the supporting and villain roles, modelling various brands of facial hair and sneer; from Ribisi and Luna to the ever-reliable Ben Foster and J.K Simmons, together with Lukas Haas and Caleb Landry Jones. They, far more than Wahlberg and Beckinsale, its star turns, mean that it's rarely boring, even at its most predictable and derivative.
Mark Wahlberg's stock screen persona differs little from his offscreen persona; lying somewhere between Jason Statham and James Cagney, he generally plays an honest, blue collar tough guy who has to be driven to violence, but excels at it when that occurs.
Contraband is really no different. Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, an expert smuggler gone straight who is dragged back into "the life" by the stupidity of his young brother-in-law, who finds himself in debt to some bad people after a run goes wrong. To pay the debt and get some lowlifes (led by Giovanni Ribisi) off his back, Farraday takes on one last run, bringing him to Panama and into contact with some dangerous Latin gangs, all while his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two little boys are left at home in New Orleans, somewhat at the mercy of the criminal elements newly reinterested in his business.
All of that is terribly stale; familiar elements rearranged into a slightly different order. The plot is overly complex, with the Panamanian excursion in particular turning into an overstuffed - if entertaining - series of suspense and action beats one after another, including a Double-cross, a massive gun battle and a race against time, all of it presided over by Diego Luna chewing scenery as a deranged Gang chief.
The script has a few good lines and no interesting characters, but Baltasar Kormákur's direction enriches it somewhat; he keeps it grungey, gritty and grainy, thick with atmosphere and dense with texture. This is a portrayal of a New Orleans seldom seen in cinema, and Panama city registers vividly in that passage too, while life aboard a colossal cargo ship is pungently rendered, all cheap, scuffed carpets and oily corridors.
Contraband is best appreciated for its exemplary collection of shifty, distinctive character actors in the supporting and villain roles, modelling various brands of facial hair and sneer; from Ribisi and Luna to the ever-reliable Ben Foster and J.K Simmons, together with Lukas Haas and Caleb Landry Jones. They, far more than Wahlberg and Beckinsale, its star turns, mean that it's rarely boring, even at its most predictable and derivative.
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