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Reviews
Death Sentence (2007)
Garbage, garbage, garbage
I usually enjoy films about righteous revenge, but this one was so silly that I walked out before it was over.
Clearly, the Director of this abortion could not decide who Kevin Bacon's character really was - a hyper-civilized wimp or an action hero along the lines of Charles Bronson. One minute, he is running away through alleyways in a terrified panic. The next minute, he is launching a reckless and totally improbable attack, with nothing but his white-collar fists, on a armed thug. For an executive, he seems to be a man with virtually no practical intelligence. He acts without thinking, without preparation, without weaponry, without realistic prospects of success. Everyone in the theater knows that such an idiot would only get himself killed - but the film has him blunder from one ludicrous success to another, by sheer chance, as if to demonstrate that the tattooed thugs are actually paper tigers.
Kevin Bacon is not comfortable in the role and seems as confused about his character as the viewer. There were several scenes where over-acting made viewers laugh out loud. I might have laughed myself, but by then was already on my way out of the theater.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Dumb, dumb, dumb
Spiderman III is one of the dumbest films I have ever slept through. Its pasteboard characters, its sub-literate moral prattle, its cornball special effects - will appeal only to little children.
It might at least pass for harmless entertainment - except that it goes far out of its way to teach a harmful message - which is, that you must "turn the other cheek", or risk becoming as bad as a person who injures you. Of course, this "moral" is unworkable and therefore cannot be consistently applied. Spiderman will continue to go after the bad guys, whatever syrupy lessons May Parker may try to foist on him. Still, it is demoralizing to be told that going after evil is itself evil - and such pap should not find its way into films that are shown to impressionable children.
The Hoax (2006)
"Hoax" is indeed a hoax
This movie purports to tell the story of how Clifford Irving tried to sell the faked "autobiography" of billionaire, Howard Hughes - how he concocted the idea, how he extorted money from publishers, how he had his wife, Edith, cash the publisher's check, and how he was finally unmasked by Howard Hughes himself.
But Hollywood is not satisfied with the plot elements furnished by history. Instead, it has produced a film that is not so much ABOUT a hoax, but IS ITSELF a hoax. Like Clifford Irving, the writers of the screenplay never let the truth stand in the way of telling the story they would like to tell: the story of "lying, corrupt, perfidious" Republicans and "virtuous, squeaky-clean" Democrats. While slyly suggesting to the audience that the film sticks close to the facts of the case, Hollywood grafts onto the saga of Irving and Hughes an elaborate fairytale about how Hughes bribed Nixon, leading to sundry conspiratorial complications too stupid to relate in detail. None of this material is true and none of it rings true. But since the film maker is more interested in playing politics than in making a movie, he is perfectly willing to sink his production under tons of extraneous, and unconvincing garbage.
Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (2005)
Accurate, convincing, poignant
Americans are familiar with free speech and its abuses, but not with the kind of tyranny that treats the simple assertion of truth as a capital crime. That is the situation bravely confronted by Sophie Scholl and other members of a group of students - "The White Rose", as they called themselves - that opposed the Nazi's during World War II. With unadorned directness and poignancy, this excellent film tells the story of Sophie's arrest, interrogation, trial and execution. It will come as news to some Americans - especially those who have read "Hitler's Willing Executioners" - that such a group existed. Actually, the celebration in film of the courageous exploits of these students began in 1982, with the release of "The White Rose". Among the unexpected treats of this movie is the portrayal of Sophie's interrogation with Mohr, the Gestapo investigator who sends her to her death. Mohr, anything but a one-dimensional character, is a Nazi by misguided conviction. His debate with Sophie about freedom and human rights doesn't change his mind, but does win his sympathy and respect. Another interesting feature of this film is its honest depiction of Sophie's Christian faith. We are all too accustomed to films that arbitrarily reduce religious faith to ignorance, bigotry and hypocrisy - but in this film, Sophie's faith is a source of wisdom and courage. This prompts the viewer to ask himself: Would a person who believed in nothing be willing to put his life on the line the way Sophie does?
The Namesake (2006)
Divided lives beautifully observed
"The Namesake" explores, with humor and intelligence, the lives of Ashok and Ashima Ganguli, a middle-class couple from Calcutta who take up residence in the suburbs of New York City. As Ashima gets ready to leave home, an older relative says, "Embrace the new, but don't forget the old." This could serve as the film's motto.
Arriving in New York, Ashima finds advanced levels of hygiene - you don't have to boil the water - side by side with advanced levels of squalor - homeless people stripping off their filthy clothes at the laundromat where she is expected to do washing that servants would have done for her in Calcutta. Ashok is amused to find that professors in America dress more shabbily than rickshaw drivers back home - another of the many paradoxes of affluence.
Without stooping to exaggeration or stereotype, Nair depicts the bi-polar world that the Ganguli's have chosen to live in. One pole is the teeming world of Calcutta, with its rich traditions, omnipresent religion, and all-embracing familial ties. This is a world of warmth and safety - sometimes to the point of suffocation. The other pole is the anonymous American suburb, where the rootless individual can invent himself and where anything is possible. But this is also a world where a person is left to his own devices, where traditions atrophy and family ties are reduced to the barest minimum. Nair illustrates these contrasts in dozens of well-crafted scenes.
Two themes especially grip the viewer of this film: The first is Ashima's encounter with America, which runs the gamut from rejection and disgust, to sympathy and acceptance. The other is the education of the Ganguli's son, Gogol, who develops from a surly adolescent wiseacre into a person who understands both his American identity and his Indian roots. Until he understands his roots, he regards his parents as clueless outsiders and their ideas as strange prejudices. The moment when he finally understands his father is memorable and very poignant.
Cast Away (2000)
It's all about love
I liked this movie, but I can't say the same for the reviews found on this website. Far too many of these fall into 2 categories: Those who thought the movie was a Crusoe-like story of survival and loved it, and those who thought the film was an ad for Fedex and hated it. But the movie is neither about "man against nature" nor about Fedex.
Cast Away is about love - about the difficulty of finding it in a world obsessed with success, about the freakish accidents that can produce or destroy it, about an ordeal that led one man to re-think what is meaningful in life, and about the need to bring to the pursuit of love the same resourcefulness and courage that enabled the hero to survive on an island for 5 years.
Tom Hanks is superb as Chuck Noland - creating immense sympathy for an ordinary guy trapped - not against his will - in a job that is eating him alive. How many actors could have made Noland's attachment to "Wilson" believable? Yet Hanks does.
The last section of the film, much reviled by many, is immensely touching. Noland has survived 5 year's of utter isolation hoping to be reunited with his fiancé and has resigned himself to death at least a few times before he is miraculously rescued. Anyone who remains dry-eyed during his meeting with Kelly, when their rich feelings are both acknowledged and of necessity abandoned - is unworthy of being allowed in the theater to see a film of such quality as this one.
That Noland's hard-earned wisdom about love and family will not be wasted makes for a marvelous ending to the film. It has required all of his ingenuity and endurance to survive on the island. It will now require strength of a different kind to accept the irrevocable loss of Kelly and open himself to a new experience, perhaps with Bettina. The last scene, with Noland standing at the crossroads, as the haunting theme is reprised for the last time, as Bettina drives toward her house and as Hanks looks into the camera with new-found resolve - is classic - though again, cynics are absolutely barred from enjoying it.
Munich (2005)
The word is "ambivalent"
It seems to me that "Munich" is not pro-Palestinian, though it may be less pro-Israeli than one would expect from the director of "Schindler's List". What distinguishes "Munich" is Spielberg's determination to portray the Israeli retaliation for the massacre of its Olympic team in morally ambiguous, rather than heroic, terms.
There are no villains in this film. The Israelis are conscientious, morally complex, and sympathetic, not to mention diverse. So are their adversaries. Avnar, for example, is more interested in his baby, his wife and his cooking than in getting revenge against Black September. He takes the mission reluctantly and carries it out with increasing pangs of guilt, pangs which ultimately lead him to leave Israel. We don't see the Palestinian characters at such close range, but what we do see - innocent artistic pursuits, family lives, good-humored banter, honest patriotism - hardly makes it any easier for the Israeli team to kill them.
What Spielberg has done is to produce a film that argues against violence in general, which he sees as an endless and futile cycle of action and reaction. Seen this way, is Black September's assault on the Israeli Olympic team an unprovoked attack or a retaliation for previous wrongs? Is Avnar's mission a justifiable form of retaliation or just another link in an endless chain of violence? Everything about the plot and the characters emphasizes the alleged futility of the mission and as we watch, the team begins to lose confidence in its own rectitude as well as its competence. It is hard to kill people at close range who appear perfectly decent. Have the higher ups identified the right people? What happens if an innocent person, even a child, happens to get in the way? Then, each time the team scores a kill, they hear that their enemies have launched a new attack in response. They wonder if they are really getting anywhere. They also wonder if the entire business has not compromised them as decent people. Are they really any better, or any different, from the Black September organizers they are pursuing? By the end of the film, Avnar is so disillusioned with the mission and the bosses who recruited him, that he leaves Israel to live in Brooklyn. His nights are sleepless and his days spent looking over his shoulder for assassins.
Those who agree with this point of view - which is essentially rather close to pacifism - will rate the film very highly. Even those who don't agree - and I am one of them - will give Spielberg credit for having made a complex and interesting film that provokes thought, while rejecting easy answers and simplistic formulations.
A History of Violence (2005)
A decent flick, with a flash of inspiration
"Tom Stall" seems, at first, a thoroughly nice, if somewhat dull fellow whose life mirrors the virtues of the small Indiana town where he lives with his wife and two kids. He is mild and self-deprecating to a fault, plainly a stranger to the anger, brutality and criminality of the big city.
We are surprised - and so is Tom, from all appearances - when he deftly kills a pair of murderers who invade his cafe one day at closing time. Against his will, he becomes a "hero" and his exploits are celebrated in the media.
Unfortunately, the publicity brings three gangsters to town, who claim to know "Tom" as "Joey" and to have some scores to settle with him. He says he has no idea who they are and his wife and kids, along with his neighbors and most of the audience, believe him. However, after some suspenseful moments, we learn that he is, or at least "was", "Joey Cusack", the brother of bigtime Philadelphia mobster, "Richie Cusack", and a person with a well-deserved reputation for violence. It seems that after a falling out with his brother several years earlier, he left Philadelphia and assumed a different identity. The revelation that "Tom" has a "history of violence", raises questions about who he actually is. Is he still "Joey", or has he really become a different person, "Tom"?
Tom/Joey is summoned to Philadelphia to meet Richie. As it turns out, Richie plans to have him strangled, but Tom/Joey is simply too strong and too quick. He turns the tables on his attackers and leaves them all - including Richie - dead on the floor of his brother's mansion. Then he returns home.
By now, of course, his wife and children are thoroughly disillusioned. They no longer know who he really is, gentle, unassuming "Tom", or savage, ruthless "Joey". It is obvious that their trust has been shattered and will take time to rebuild, if indeed that is possible at all. The movie ends with Tom and his family silently eating dinner together, amid tensions you could cut with a knife.
This is not a great movie, even if you are convinced, as I am not, that people can suddenly and radically change who they are by an act of will. A lot of the scenes are hokey and unreal. Some are laughable. There are also a lot of dull moments, so few will complain about the scene where Maria Bello flashes her sex at the camera, however gratuitously. For me it was the high point of the film.
The Constant Gardener (2005)
More manure for the garden
"Constant Gardener" is a moderately skillful, utterly predictable piece of left-wing propaganda, masquerading as "powerful drama". It has a plot of sorts: "Radical girl" meets repressed, "spineless boy" who stupidly serves the establishment. She knows that the drug companies are evil and that in their mad pursuit of profits are conducting unethical and even lethal clinical tests on the African population. Naturally, anyone who threatens to expose the drug companies is simply "offed" by their army of hired thugs. After the drug companies murder "radical girl" for getting too close to the truth, "spineless boy" discovers that he has a backbone after all. No longer the timid, ineffectual man who escapes the world by pottering around in his garden, he fearlessly pursues his own investigation and digs up the necessary evidence, before he too is murdered.
If you are one of those who "know", despite the unambiguous lessons of history, that private property and profits are "evil", then you will find the plot plausible and may even recommend this abortion to others. On the other hand, if you have some contact with the real world, you will wish you had brought an air-sickness bag to the theater with you. There is no doubt that all of those involved in the making of this film, as well as all those reading this review, use pharmaceutical products, nor that drugs have improved the lives of billions of people. Anyone who occasionally reads a book or newspaper knows that drugs are expensively and exhaustively tested for safety and that blunders are both rare and ruinous for the drug companies. Any drug company that wishes to turn a profit will NOT do so by developing a drug that kills people. Finally, if drug companies really murdered those who criticize them or sue them, then why is there no shortage of plaintiffs ready to take them to court? And why are the people who made this movie walking around without body guards? Of course, the reason is that the plot is a paranoid fantasy. Those who enjoy wallowing in that kind of idiocy will enjoy the film. Others should give it a miss.
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Hollywood, Hollywood!
Hollywood excels at making movies that are all razzle-dazzle. "The Day After Tomorrow" is no exception. Under the slick surface, this movie operates on the level a ten-year-old, who understands nothing about science, but loves to watch things explode or freeze or come tumbling down into piles of twisted metal. To this remarkable talent for appealing to the lowest of tastes, Hollywood adds another tendency that is even less amusing, i.e. its insistence on building its ridiculous scenarios around the obsessions and prejudices of the Left. Many will see "The Day After Tomorrow" as just another disaster movie, an innocent way to kill 90 minutes. On another level, however, it attempts to promote the views of Al Gore, by "predicting" that if the US does not ratify the Kyoto Agreement and reduce greenhouse gases, no matter what that costs us, we may all wind up emigrating to Mexico. One of these days, perhaps someone will make a film in which the prophets of doom are proven wrong, as usually happens in the real world. But when that happens, it won't be a film made in Hollywood.