(Paul Greengrass, 2016)
Taking the original Bourne trilogy as a distinct sub-genre, Jason Bourne then attempts a sort of paint-by-numbers rendition of that sub-genre's greatest hits. So we get a hyper-kinetic fist fight, an insanely destructive car chase, Bourne taking out teams of agents while their bosses are confused in a control room, glimpsing him on cctv; Bourne feeling morose about his past sins. It gets worse: in that fist fight, it starts out hand-to-hand before Bourne (Matt Damon) improvises a weapon in response to his opponent (Vincent Cassell) drawing a knife - just as he did in both of the first two Bourne films.
Only in this case, none of those familiar elements is especially well done. Instead they feel tired, secondhand, even pointless.
That is always a risk with a sequel so far after the event: it feels unnecessary. It has been 9 years since Damon and Greengrass collaborated on The Bourne Ultimatum, and though original trilogy screenwriter Tony Gilroy sought to spin the franchise off in an alternative direction with the convoluted, Damon-less The Bourne Legacy, they did make a satisfying complete series of films. Tonally similar, thematically linked but distinct, and with a nicely shaped narrative, the Bourne saga could have just ended there and it would have been fine. But he has made too much money for Hollywood to allow that.
So here he is, and the storyline that drags him back into the open within the film seems unworthy of the character. It is complicated and dumb, involving the Mark Zuckerberg-like Riz Ahmed and some new software he has designed, which the CIA (spearhead here by Tommy Lee Jones) hope to use to help them to spy on everybody, all of the time. Bourne (living a life as a bare-knuckle street fighter, much like Rambo at the start of Rambo 3) is contacted by Nicki (Julia Styles), who tells him that he needs to see some files she hacked from the CIA, since they explain some more about his past. So now he's on the run, trying to uncover more about his own life, while new CIA tech-head (Alicia Vikander) is convinced he can be brought back in and her boss (Lee-Jones) and his pet assassin (Cassell) are bent on killing him.
Basically, much here is utterly boring. Too many conversations in control rooms, board rooms, hotel rooms. Bourne barely features, showing up at each action scene then more or less disappearing again after he's inflicted maximum damage and completed one ridiculous feat of physical daring and ingenuity. But the stakes feel low and forced, the existential questions underpinning the original films totally absent and replaced by bigger, louder, dumber set pieces.
Those set-pieces and the excellent cast keep this watchable through the long dry stretches. Damon - now the greatest movie star of his generation - grimaces and grunts and looks sad when he needs to do so, but he feels a bit too good for this role now.
Showing posts with label Tommy-Lee Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tommy-Lee Jones. Show all posts
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Friday, 5 December 2014
THE HOMESMAN
(Tommy-Lee Jones, 2014)
A modern Western that feels literary, in that it flirts with the baroque pulse of Blood Meridian or Butchers Crossing, The Homesman is something of an oddball wonder from writer-director-star Tommy-Lee Jones. It comes frustratingly close to greatness, however, before fudging that somewhat in the third act.
The beginning is startlingly bold: it sets out to look at something Westerns generally ignore - the brutality of life on the frontier for women. We meet Mary Bea Cuddy (Hilary Swank), a tough and capable spinster, working on her own neat Nebraska claim. When a gentleman neighbour comes for supper, she desperately proposes marriage, which he rejects on the grounds that she is plain and bossy.
We also meet three other women; each of them losing their grasp on sanity due to the harshness of their life on the plains. Jones has a way with a surreal, memorable image - here we see a woman walk naked from a house in the snow, nursing a baby on her breast, then casually toss the infant into an outhouse toilet. Each woman's condition is signalled with similarly cinematic economy. The story finds Cuddy volunteering to transport all three women back East to family, and she is joined by Jones' Briggs, a plain-speaking scoundrel with a mysterious past who she comes across left to hang from a tree in the middle of nowhere.
It then becomes a strange mix of elements - picaresque odyssey, darkly comic buddy film, savage western - held together by some beautiful imagery, and the fine chemistry between the leads. Swank is never too kind to Cuddy, who is always, and sometimes annoyingly, herself. Jones plays the kind of part he could play in his sleep, and he does it well.
His direction is better; beautifully textured and patiently paced, The Homesman feels quite unlike anything else, some of its baffling twists defying logic and prediction, but each working on its own terms.
A modern Western that feels literary, in that it flirts with the baroque pulse of Blood Meridian or Butchers Crossing, The Homesman is something of an oddball wonder from writer-director-star Tommy-Lee Jones. It comes frustratingly close to greatness, however, before fudging that somewhat in the third act.
The beginning is startlingly bold: it sets out to look at something Westerns generally ignore - the brutality of life on the frontier for women. We meet Mary Bea Cuddy (Hilary Swank), a tough and capable spinster, working on her own neat Nebraska claim. When a gentleman neighbour comes for supper, she desperately proposes marriage, which he rejects on the grounds that she is plain and bossy.
We also meet three other women; each of them losing their grasp on sanity due to the harshness of their life on the plains. Jones has a way with a surreal, memorable image - here we see a woman walk naked from a house in the snow, nursing a baby on her breast, then casually toss the infant into an outhouse toilet. Each woman's condition is signalled with similarly cinematic economy. The story finds Cuddy volunteering to transport all three women back East to family, and she is joined by Jones' Briggs, a plain-speaking scoundrel with a mysterious past who she comes across left to hang from a tree in the middle of nowhere.
It then becomes a strange mix of elements - picaresque odyssey, darkly comic buddy film, savage western - held together by some beautiful imagery, and the fine chemistry between the leads. Swank is never too kind to Cuddy, who is always, and sometimes annoyingly, herself. Jones plays the kind of part he could play in his sleep, and he does it well.
His direction is better; beautifully textured and patiently paced, The Homesman feels quite unlike anything else, some of its baffling twists defying logic and prediction, but each working on its own terms.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
LINCOLN
(Steven Spielberg, 2012)
There's always something with Spielberg, in his later work at least. Some issue, some error of judgement, something too conspicuous to be ignored. Think of the little girl in red, in Schindlers List. Or the intercutting of sex and murder in Munich. Or the framing device in Saving Private Ryan. Or the last shot in Minority Report. Always something, some distracting misstep.
For the most part, Lincoln doesn't even really feel like a Spielberg film. It seems to owe more of its personality to screenwriter Tony Kushner. Thats another way of saying that it feels somewhat like a play for long stretches; for this is a long procedural focused on political manoeuvring, on schmoozing and strategising, on persuasion and argument. This is a long procedural focused, most intently, sometimes tediously, often magnificently, on talking.
The story follows Lincoln in the weeks before the crucial House of Representatives vote on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery once and for all. The Civil War is near an end, and the President, so loved by his people, must balance the desire to end the war with the need to ensure that slavery is done with the conflict's end. He is surrounded by forceful personalities with their own agendas and styles, from his wife, still suffocating on her grief for their dead son (Sally Field) and his politically clever Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) to the various figures fighting for control of the Republican party, most notably the radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Then there are various Democrats (Lee Pace, for example), Lincoln's older son, desperate to enlist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), General Ulysses Grant (Jared Harris), not to mention the swirl of minor politicians, military men and civil servants never far away. There are so many familiar faces on show here, most of them in tiny parts, that it is almost a distraction from the story. That story basically comes down, as so many political dramas do, to the struggles of lobbyists for a few crucial votes before the bill is before the house. The most memorable lobbyist here is a bloated, quite brilliant James Spader, as one of the few men not awed by the presence of Lincoln.
Much of Kushner's writing here is tremendous; long dazzling speeches clashing and intertwining, and Spielberg, working with his regular Director of Photography, Janusz Kaminski, makes it all look beautiful in a slightly-too-neatly-art-directed kind of way. But if you aren't interested in the period, or the subject matter, then this may well be a struggle.
The worst material is the scenes meant to humanise the lead; Lincoln and his relationships with his wife and sons is over-familiar, dull and uninspired. The best are the scenes depicting the President when he brushes against normal people and his genius for finding common ground and the right word is revealed. His habit of launching into long tangential stories and his own delight in those tales is an appealing side of his character, and one which Day-Lewis illuminates with a happy grin and a rolling pleasure in language and its power. He is typically fantastic here, transformed and utterly convincing, suggesting both the iconic image and the human being underneath. He is so calm and clever, so good-humoured, that his few flashes of fire are all the more powerful for it.
He is only really rivalled by Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens, spectacularly insulting his opponents in the house, his hard carapace concealing a sense of morality and honour that provides perhaps the films most moving moment near its climax.
That climax is where Spielberg missteps. Lincoln reaches an emotional high point when the Amendment is passed. There is celebration in the streets. Lincoln and his son listen to bells ringing from a window of the White House.
And then the film keeps going. We see Lincoln meet with Southern delegates. We see him dress to go to the theatre. We see him walk away from the camera to his death, in a shot upon which Spielberg lingers just so we know what it means. It is a moment redolent of the other Spielberg, the sentimental family entertainer, not the adult filmmaker who has been responsible for most of what has preceded it in this film. That other Spielberg peeks through a few times over the course of Lincoln - mainly whenever John Williams' score swells - but generally he is kept at bay by Kushner's literate, wordy script and the intensity of focus upon the actors here.
There's always something with Spielberg, in his later work at least. Some issue, some error of judgement, something too conspicuous to be ignored. Think of the little girl in red, in Schindlers List. Or the intercutting of sex and murder in Munich. Or the framing device in Saving Private Ryan. Or the last shot in Minority Report. Always something, some distracting misstep.
For the most part, Lincoln doesn't even really feel like a Spielberg film. It seems to owe more of its personality to screenwriter Tony Kushner. Thats another way of saying that it feels somewhat like a play for long stretches; for this is a long procedural focused on political manoeuvring, on schmoozing and strategising, on persuasion and argument. This is a long procedural focused, most intently, sometimes tediously, often magnificently, on talking.
The story follows Lincoln in the weeks before the crucial House of Representatives vote on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery once and for all. The Civil War is near an end, and the President, so loved by his people, must balance the desire to end the war with the need to ensure that slavery is done with the conflict's end. He is surrounded by forceful personalities with their own agendas and styles, from his wife, still suffocating on her grief for their dead son (Sally Field) and his politically clever Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) to the various figures fighting for control of the Republican party, most notably the radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Then there are various Democrats (Lee Pace, for example), Lincoln's older son, desperate to enlist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), General Ulysses Grant (Jared Harris), not to mention the swirl of minor politicians, military men and civil servants never far away. There are so many familiar faces on show here, most of them in tiny parts, that it is almost a distraction from the story. That story basically comes down, as so many political dramas do, to the struggles of lobbyists for a few crucial votes before the bill is before the house. The most memorable lobbyist here is a bloated, quite brilliant James Spader, as one of the few men not awed by the presence of Lincoln.
Much of Kushner's writing here is tremendous; long dazzling speeches clashing and intertwining, and Spielberg, working with his regular Director of Photography, Janusz Kaminski, makes it all look beautiful in a slightly-too-neatly-art-directed kind of way. But if you aren't interested in the period, or the subject matter, then this may well be a struggle.
The worst material is the scenes meant to humanise the lead; Lincoln and his relationships with his wife and sons is over-familiar, dull and uninspired. The best are the scenes depicting the President when he brushes against normal people and his genius for finding common ground and the right word is revealed. His habit of launching into long tangential stories and his own delight in those tales is an appealing side of his character, and one which Day-Lewis illuminates with a happy grin and a rolling pleasure in language and its power. He is typically fantastic here, transformed and utterly convincing, suggesting both the iconic image and the human being underneath. He is so calm and clever, so good-humoured, that his few flashes of fire are all the more powerful for it.
He is only really rivalled by Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens, spectacularly insulting his opponents in the house, his hard carapace concealing a sense of morality and honour that provides perhaps the films most moving moment near its climax.
That climax is where Spielberg missteps. Lincoln reaches an emotional high point when the Amendment is passed. There is celebration in the streets. Lincoln and his son listen to bells ringing from a window of the White House.
And then the film keeps going. We see Lincoln meet with Southern delegates. We see him dress to go to the theatre. We see him walk away from the camera to his death, in a shot upon which Spielberg lingers just so we know what it means. It is a moment redolent of the other Spielberg, the sentimental family entertainer, not the adult filmmaker who has been responsible for most of what has preceded it in this film. That other Spielberg peeks through a few times over the course of Lincoln - mainly whenever John Williams' score swells - but generally he is kept at bay by Kushner's literate, wordy script and the intensity of focus upon the actors here.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
ROLLING THUNDER
(John Flynn, 1977)
Probably better-known these days as one of Quentin Tarantino's favourite films than for any other reason, Rolling Thunder was originally written by Paul Schrader in his 1970s pomp, just a year after the (similar in a few respects) triumph of Taxi Driver. The screenplay was rewritten by journeyman Heywood Gould, but Schrader retains a credit, and you can hear his voice throughout the film.
His story follows Air Force Major Charles Rane (William Devane), who returns to San Antonio, Texas after seven years in a Vietnamese POW Camp. His homecoming sees him rewarded by his grateful hometown with a silver dollar for every day of his incarceration, a new red chevy, and the news that his wife is leaving him for another man. Things get worse when a gang of thugs invade his home, torture him for the whereabouts of those silver dollars - the meeting between his hand and a garbage disposal is unforgettable - then murder his wife and child and leave him for dead. So Rane sets out for revenge with the help of an old POW buddy (Tommy Lee Jones) and Mexico and gunplay inevitably ensue.
That plot makes the film sound like a typical piece of 70s B-movie pulp, and that is what Rolling Thunder is. But it is more interesting than a synopsis suggests. Alongside the sleaze and nastiness and the casually racist portrayal of Mexico, its depiction of its Vietnam veteran protagonists presents them as almost inhuman. Both Devane and Jones constantly - and with no little foreboding - wear sunglasses, their eyes hidden, faces unreadable. They are damaged men, utterly desensitised by the violence inflicted upon them. This gives rise to a few amazing scenes. If Devane's explanation of how to survive torture and consequent homoerotic re-enactment with his wife's lover is disturbing, then his explanation that he is "dead", that they had taken something from him and he would never feel anything again explains both that and his entire performance. He underplays throughout, mostly expressionless, only really seeming to come alive in the scenes of violence. His insistence upon living in the garden shed as if it were his cell in Vietnam contrasts with Jones' prison; he is suffocating within the warm embrace of his family, his haunted eyes flat in response to their banalities. Like Devane, his glee at the apocalyptic violence of the climax is nicely, frighteningly played. Where Devane is prickly and complicated, Jones is beautiful, magnetic.
But Rolling Thunder does succeed as a piece of pulp, too. Director Flynn works with a lean, muscular economy, like Walter Hill, only lacking his ambition and imagination, but with a similar gift for staging and even, at times, for composition. Noirish lighting and precise cutting add to the murky atmosphere, and the action scenes are terrific; brutishly, graphically violent and blunt in their clarity. There are some fine pulp details, too: the hissably awful villains, Devane sharpening his claw until it is a blade, Jones' lack of response with a whore turning into delight once the gunfire starts, and the gratuitous nudity at various points.
Easy then to see just what Tarantino likes so much.
Probably better-known these days as one of Quentin Tarantino's favourite films than for any other reason, Rolling Thunder was originally written by Paul Schrader in his 1970s pomp, just a year after the (similar in a few respects) triumph of Taxi Driver. The screenplay was rewritten by journeyman Heywood Gould, but Schrader retains a credit, and you can hear his voice throughout the film.
His story follows Air Force Major Charles Rane (William Devane), who returns to San Antonio, Texas after seven years in a Vietnamese POW Camp. His homecoming sees him rewarded by his grateful hometown with a silver dollar for every day of his incarceration, a new red chevy, and the news that his wife is leaving him for another man. Things get worse when a gang of thugs invade his home, torture him for the whereabouts of those silver dollars - the meeting between his hand and a garbage disposal is unforgettable - then murder his wife and child and leave him for dead. So Rane sets out for revenge with the help of an old POW buddy (Tommy Lee Jones) and Mexico and gunplay inevitably ensue.
That plot makes the film sound like a typical piece of 70s B-movie pulp, and that is what Rolling Thunder is. But it is more interesting than a synopsis suggests. Alongside the sleaze and nastiness and the casually racist portrayal of Mexico, its depiction of its Vietnam veteran protagonists presents them as almost inhuman. Both Devane and Jones constantly - and with no little foreboding - wear sunglasses, their eyes hidden, faces unreadable. They are damaged men, utterly desensitised by the violence inflicted upon them. This gives rise to a few amazing scenes. If Devane's explanation of how to survive torture and consequent homoerotic re-enactment with his wife's lover is disturbing, then his explanation that he is "dead", that they had taken something from him and he would never feel anything again explains both that and his entire performance. He underplays throughout, mostly expressionless, only really seeming to come alive in the scenes of violence. His insistence upon living in the garden shed as if it were his cell in Vietnam contrasts with Jones' prison; he is suffocating within the warm embrace of his family, his haunted eyes flat in response to their banalities. Like Devane, his glee at the apocalyptic violence of the climax is nicely, frighteningly played. Where Devane is prickly and complicated, Jones is beautiful, magnetic.
But Rolling Thunder does succeed as a piece of pulp, too. Director Flynn works with a lean, muscular economy, like Walter Hill, only lacking his ambition and imagination, but with a similar gift for staging and even, at times, for composition. Noirish lighting and precise cutting add to the murky atmosphere, and the action scenes are terrific; brutishly, graphically violent and blunt in their clarity. There are some fine pulp details, too: the hissably awful villains, Devane sharpening his claw until it is a blade, Jones' lack of response with a whore turning into delight once the gunfire starts, and the gratuitous nudity at various points.
Easy then to see just what Tarantino likes so much.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
CAPTAIN AMERICA
(Joe Johnston, 2011)
Like Superman, Captain America is a character much-derided by those (lets call them casual Super-hero fans) who favour edgier, seemingly more complex modern Super-heroes such as Batman, Spider-Man and Wolverine. That is somewhat understandable. On the surface, he seems an overly-literal, simple-minded creation. Visually he is a walking flag, resplendent in red White and blue, his costume encompassing both stars and stripes, together with little (eagle?) wings on the mask. His creation as a propaganda tool during the Second World War now makes him seem dated and irrelevant. His characterisation can be - in the wrong creative hands - reductive and silly, restricting him to the role of the big strong boy scout. Then there is the shield...
Well, Johnston's fun blockbuster addresses most of these issues and displays a fine understanding of just what makes the character of Captain America so compelling. Nicely grounded with a vivid grasp of a certain sort of zippily pop-cultural view of the Second World War which is perfectly suited to the character, the film spends its first act establishing its characters and making Chris Evans' Steve Rogers a truly likeable and sympathetic underdog. With the classical simplicity which is very much a hallmark of Marvels best characters, also present whenever nerdy Peter Parker cuts loose as the wiseass god of skyscrapers Spider-Man or when weedy, repressed Bruce Banner gives into his rage and levels buildings as the Hulk, Rogers' transformation into the "Super Soldier" Captain is made tremendously satisfying by how realistic, convincingly mounted and well-acted his sickly asthmatic beginnings are.
Indeed, Captain America gets its textures right throughout, stealing liberally from Raiders of the Lost Ark and sprinkling in some nice retro-futurist designs for its Hydra villains Nazis-with-black-magic World. There is also some wit in the details; the sequence where Rogers is used as a propaganda tool for selling War Bonds may just be the films best passage and actually provides an explanation for the ridiculous symbolism of that costume.
The cast give good accounts of themselves: Evans is convincing and winning throughout and effortlessly handles the action scenes, Tommy Lee-Jones is as good as ever in a one-note part, Hayley Atwell makes her vague cypher of an idealised strong 1940s Woman relatable and even affecting, and Hugo Weaving manages to make the Red Skull both disturbing and hilarious with what seems an outright Werner Herzog impersonation. The action scenes are competent if never inspired, but the patient pacing of the love story and Rogers' growth as a hero give it a surprising emotional charge by the slightly underwhelming, somewhat rote, underexplained climax. The coda, then, seems bizarre and even an attempt to shortchange the audience in advance of next years massive all-star The Avengers, which will feature this hero alongside Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Hawkeye.
It is also more than a little overlong, but its visual richness and the ease of the storytelling mean that Captain America mostly works as a fun summer blockbuster in its own right.
Like Superman, Captain America is a character much-derided by those (lets call them casual Super-hero fans) who favour edgier, seemingly more complex modern Super-heroes such as Batman, Spider-Man and Wolverine. That is somewhat understandable. On the surface, he seems an overly-literal, simple-minded creation. Visually he is a walking flag, resplendent in red White and blue, his costume encompassing both stars and stripes, together with little (eagle?) wings on the mask. His creation as a propaganda tool during the Second World War now makes him seem dated and irrelevant. His characterisation can be - in the wrong creative hands - reductive and silly, restricting him to the role of the big strong boy scout. Then there is the shield...
Well, Johnston's fun blockbuster addresses most of these issues and displays a fine understanding of just what makes the character of Captain America so compelling. Nicely grounded with a vivid grasp of a certain sort of zippily pop-cultural view of the Second World War which is perfectly suited to the character, the film spends its first act establishing its characters and making Chris Evans' Steve Rogers a truly likeable and sympathetic underdog. With the classical simplicity which is very much a hallmark of Marvels best characters, also present whenever nerdy Peter Parker cuts loose as the wiseass god of skyscrapers Spider-Man or when weedy, repressed Bruce Banner gives into his rage and levels buildings as the Hulk, Rogers' transformation into the "Super Soldier" Captain is made tremendously satisfying by how realistic, convincingly mounted and well-acted his sickly asthmatic beginnings are.
Indeed, Captain America gets its textures right throughout, stealing liberally from Raiders of the Lost Ark and sprinkling in some nice retro-futurist designs for its Hydra villains Nazis-with-black-magic World. There is also some wit in the details; the sequence where Rogers is used as a propaganda tool for selling War Bonds may just be the films best passage and actually provides an explanation for the ridiculous symbolism of that costume.
The cast give good accounts of themselves: Evans is convincing and winning throughout and effortlessly handles the action scenes, Tommy Lee-Jones is as good as ever in a one-note part, Hayley Atwell makes her vague cypher of an idealised strong 1940s Woman relatable and even affecting, and Hugo Weaving manages to make the Red Skull both disturbing and hilarious with what seems an outright Werner Herzog impersonation. The action scenes are competent if never inspired, but the patient pacing of the love story and Rogers' growth as a hero give it a surprising emotional charge by the slightly underwhelming, somewhat rote, underexplained climax. The coda, then, seems bizarre and even an attempt to shortchange the audience in advance of next years massive all-star The Avengers, which will feature this hero alongside Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Hawkeye.
It is also more than a little overlong, but its visual richness and the ease of the storytelling mean that Captain America mostly works as a fun summer blockbuster in its own right.
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