The Company You Keep (2013)

The company you keep, you put yourself above.  I'm on to you!  I still have a soft spot for Hurricane...

Not that the hair-band Hurricane has anything to do with The Company You Keep, the latest Robert Redford directed film, based off a Lem Dobbs screenplay, which was based off the (presumably boring) book of the same name by Neil Gordon.

I might have just played my hand with the previous paragraph, but that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the film.  It's boring.  The Company You Keep is one of those films where they've assembled a great cast of pros (it's well acted at least), then setup a what appears to be a nice thriller/mystery, only to have it play out extremely slowly, with each reveal having no real impact.  This, again, is compounded by the fact this poorly paced film is over two hours.  BROKEN RECORD!  Hey, who said that?  At first glance, when you see the people involved in making the film, and the great cast, you think it might be an early Oscar contender.  Unfortunately, that isn't what we got here.

The Company You Keep begins with Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) being arrested.  We learn that she was a former member of a radical group wanted for a bank robbery and murder of a bank guard nearly 30 years ago.  Local reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) investigates and finds that Sharon was about to turn herself in anyway, and through friends tried to get a local lawyer, Jim Grant (Redford), to take the case.  Grant wasn't interested in the case even though it seemed like something in his wheelhouse.  Shepard presses on, only to find that Grant was also involved in the radical group, and was a suspect in the same bank robbery.  Don't worry, this isn't a spoiler to tell you this.

Grant goes on the run, contacting estranged friends and family in the effort to find Mimi (Julie Christie), a former partner of Grant's.  We aren't sure exactly why Grant is so desperate to find her, but upon seeing that Grant is wanted by the police, she goes out on her own to find him.

This is where The Company You Keep let me down.  You've got all these threads going on with Grant and Mimi, then The Beef (that's what I call LaBeouf) investigating, and the FBI (led by Terrence Howard) hot on their trail, but there's never any urgency to it.  Plot threads and characters are just dropped without any resolution or given much development.  It felt like a TV series that was meant to stretched into a season long arc, but was streamlined to only be two or three episodes.  You might think that means it has a frenetic pace with all the things going on, yet we got the opposite.  It's so slow that I actually had to fight off falling asleep for much of the the last third of the film.  Plus, the conclusion is so anti-climactic that you're left wondering why you bothered sitting through it all.

I'm not sure if this was an issue of the book not translating well, or maybe having to condense too much of it to fit into a movie.  There isn't even an entry for the book or author on Wikipedia, so my research is limited.  From what I can see on Amazon, the book's synopsis seems to have a much different setup than how the movie was, so perhaps too much was changed for the sake of adapting it.  It's shame because I really like Lem Dobbs as a writer, but it looks like he really misses working with Steven Soderbergh (they've done at least three films together).  I don't even think Robert Redford did that bad of a job directing, as he did a good job with the actors, and managed to make it interesting enough in the first half.

It is really well acted though.  Redford is great, as well as Julie Christie.  As hard as I am on The Beef, I actually thought he had the right blend of arrogance, mixed with an honest drive to uncover the truth.  The supporting cast is fleshed out with actors like Stephen Root, Nick Nolte, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper, Anna Kendrick, Richard Jenkins, Sam Elliott and Brendan Gleeson.  When you have such notable actors in smaller roles, you tend to think their characters may be more significant to the actual story, and are disappointed when they aren't in it more or aren't fleshed out enough.  It's just a shame to not see these people get something meatier to work with.  It makes me wonder if Redford just called in a bunch of favors to fill out his cast, or the actors just really wanted to work with him.  Can't say I blame any of them though.

The Company You Keep is yet another well-acted film with a star studded cast, but unfortunately the story comes up way short with its slow pacing and disappointing resolution.  It's not a bad movie, but it is pretty forgettable.  I actually saw this over a week ago and forgot that I never got around to posting my review.  This is not something you need to rush out and see, and has rental written all over it.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Snitch (2013) - Movie Review

Well, at least it's not another The Tooth Fairy...

Don't worry, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's latest movie Snitch isn't some cheesy family movie.  Snitch is actually much closer to what I envisioned for The Rock when he first moved from wrestling to doing movies.  While a little smarter than you might expect, Snitch is far from being a great action film.  In fact, I really can't this a much of an action flick at all.  If you go into this expecting a action packed film filled with car chases and gun play, you're going to be really disappointed.  This is the first of at least four Dwayne Johnson movies coming out this year, so hopefully one of these will hit.  The guy deserves it.

It's another movie based on 'true events', and many of you know how I cringe whenever I see that in the opening credits.  Johnson plays John Matthews, the owner of a construction company.  Matthews' son, Jason (Rafi Gavron), is busted for accepting a box of drugs shipped by his friend.  Unfortunately for Jason, it's a large enough amount that it's considered intent to distribute.  Due to tougher mandatory minimum sentencing, he's going away for 10 years if convicted.  The whole thing is basically a setup to get first time offenders and lower level people to rat out others in up the ladder in exchange for reduced sentencing.  The problem for Jason is that his friend already snitched on him, leaving nobody for him to rat out.  John doesn't want to see his son rot away in prison for what his family believes was just a dumb mistake, so he makes a deal with a local politician (Susan Sarandon) to go undercover and help bring some drug dealers down.

Now, I had to look it up, and I guess you could say the "based on true events" part relates to that there are very strict minimum sentencing laws, even for first time offenders.  The funny thing is that there's actually a scene of The Rock looking this stuff up on Wikipedia.  It's if they're saying, "Don't worry, we actually did our research."  Or maybe they are daring us to look into it ourselves.  I did see that one of the criticisms of the minimum sentencing is that it takes the power away from the judges, not allowing them to issue sentences on a case by case basis.  I thought one of the themes of Snitch was how unfair this all seemed to be.  Jason didn't have any priors, and you can't help but wonder why they throw the book at him, when you can see that he wasn't a drug trafficker.

Sarandon's character (I don't recall her being mentioned by name, but The Rock would say, "It doesn't matter what your name is!") believes in the minimum laws, regardless of the situation.  She sees John's willingness to go undercover as a no risk play for her to get more drug dealers off the street and help her re-election.  Even the law enforcement agent (Barry Pepper) they are working with thinks she may be going too far in risking a citizen's life and family.  You start to wonder who the real bad guy is.  That's where I thought Snitch had a little more going for it than just a simple crime drama.  The issue with the story by Justin Haythe and Ric Roman Waugh (who also directed) was that it only scratches the surface of some of these underlying themes.  The movie could have taken more of a stronger stance or showed more of the behind-the-scenes political motivations, but it's not that deep.

The main problem with Waugh's direction is that he really drags the film out, where if it had gone deeper into some of these themes, you wouldn't have noticed the length as it would have been more compelling overall.  When a movie is this long (almost two hours), you hope there's going to be a good payoff at the end, but that's where Snitch really falls apart.  While the action picks up, it devolves into a big car chase with explosions and cars flipping everywhere.  It doesn't help the Matthews' plan had too many parts with a very small margin for error for it to have possibly worked.  It all ties up a little too neatly.

Plus, and this is one of the same issues I had with Identity Thief, is it normal for law enforcement agents and politicians to sign off on letting private citizens take the law into their own hands or go undercover on their behalf?  You look at John Matthews and he looks like a guy that can handle himself, but that doesn't mean he has the training needed to survive. Aren't they opening themselves up to huge liability if things go wrong?

Another issue I had was the use of too much handheld camera work, even in regular scenes.  There's a simple meeting that happens in the film and the camera just jittery and jumping around all the place for no reason.  I shouldn't get motion sickness watching people talk.

Ever since The Rundown, I've been waiting for Dwayne Johnson to have that hit that puts him up there with the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, but it just hasn't worked out that way yet.  The irony is that he's a better actor than either of them, has just as much charisma, and is infinitely more articulate. I also hear he's a pretty good cook, too.  Johnson stretches a bit out of his comfort zone and gets a chance to show some emotional range here.  It's definitely his most serious work so far. Another thing that stands out about him is, well, how much he stands out.  He really is a beast compared to the average guy. Even when he casually walks around he looks like he can knock down a wall if he's not careful.

The rest of the supporting cast does a good job.  Barry Pepper looks like he's auditioning for a role in Justified, and I think he'd fit in pretty well actually.  Susan Sarandon is always a welcome sight on screen, who automatically adds class and hotness to anything she's in.  Now that Shane is dead on The Walking Dead (spoiler!), Jon Bernthal gets to play an ex-con that introduces The Rock to Omar Little from The Wire (Michael Kenneth Williams).  Bernthal and Williams get a decent amount screen time, but again, it seems like there was more to their characters hinted at by the story, but not delved into enough.

Snitch has a few good things going for it, mainly Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and a smarter than expected setup, but in the end it's undercut by a plodding pace and tonally inconsistent ending.  It's a shame because there was some potential here for it to be a much better film, and a few tweaks here and there would have made this above average.  Snitch is ultimately a very average, and somewhat forgettable, film that will make for a good rental in a few months.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Cloud Atlas (2012) - Movie Review

As the poster says, "Everything is Connected."  Well, the good news is that at least this isn't connected to the Matrix sequels.

Cloud Atlas is based on a book by David Mitchell.  It features six interlinked and complex stories, ranging from the 19th century, to a post-apocalyptic future.  It's been said by many that this was an unfilmable book, and I can see why.  It's incredibly ambitious and I give the writing/directing team of Tom Tykwer, Andy and Lana Wachowski credit for taking a shot at something this huge.

If you can't tell already I wasn't in love with Cloud Atlas.  I'm not going to recap all six stores (you can see a brief outline here or here), but many of them will make you think of other films.  I was reminded of stuff like Blade Runner, Amistad or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  In the film, these six stories are told in a very choppy manner.  This kind of story telling is usually problematic for me.  Just when you'd get into one story, they'd switch to another.  The problem for me was that the stories had varying levels of interest.  There were some I wished the whole movie would have been about, and others I could have done without entirely.

When you're dealing with a marathon of a movie like this, you really have to keep the audience's attention.  The good part is that I was never really bored, and it managed to keep my interest.  I wanted to see how it all played out.  That doesn't mean I didn't start to squirm in my seat a bit as we approached the end though.  I checked my watch at one point thinking we were at least two hours into the film only to find that we were just barely at the halfway point.  Plus, with all the jumping around, there's never a good moment to take a pee break.  Based on that alone, this is a tough movie for me to recommend seeing in the theater.  It's better suited for watching at home.  I saw this on IMAX, and despite the impressive visuals, I didn't feel like there was anything I would have missed by seeing this at home.  Plus, it may even take multiple viewings before you really form a final opinion about it.  I feel like I need to see this again just to be sure, but I'm certainly not going to do that in the theater.

I have a general rule about movies based off books: if the movie is done well, it should make you want to go back and read it.  I didn't feel that here.  Even a bad movie like Alex Cross made me think there was something to get out of the novels based on the character.  The point I'm making here is that after Cloud Atlas, I felt kind of empty.  I didn't get anything out of it emotionally.

The overall look of the film is fantastic.  The older parts of the story felt authentic, and the futuristic ones were stunning at times.  There were a few parts where it felt there was a little too much CG, but overall it was well done.  The one issue I had with the look of the film was the makeup used for the actors.  While some of it was great and made some of the actors unrecognizable, at times it was absolutely terrible and took me out of the film with how bad it was.  It's that distracting.  Also, you may have heard the complaints regarding the use of non-Asian actors playing Asians, using makeup and CG to make them look Asian.  While I understand the complaint, I also understand the need to do things the way they did.  When moving between all of these stories, you're trying to show how these people are linked, or are even the souls of previous characters.  It's really hard to visually convey that using different actors.  Plus, if you think about it, in the future I would expect to see more people of mixed-ethnicity, and the line would be really blurred as far as that goes.  Having said that, it looked laughably bad at times.

One of the strengths of the film is the cast.  You need actors with range to be able to play all the various roles.  However, some of the actors are playing the opposite sex at times, and again, some of it was either jarring or just plain silly.  The one time I thought it was effective was when Hugo Weaving played a nurse in the only story set in present time.  I also thought it was funny that Weaving played an evil character in every story.  That guy is just doomed to be a villain.  I'm fully expecting him to pull out a sword in The Hobbit and chase after Bilbo at some point.

There were a few times where you can't help but look at him and go, "Oh that's Tom Hanks in bad makeup", but many of the roles allowed him to stretch all over the place, and I thought it was a great overall performance on his part(s).  I was also really impressed with Halle Berry, who needed a movie like this to remind us why she was an Oscar winner.  I was also surprised with Jim Sturgess, who is an actor I haven't thought too much of based on his prior films.  He has a role in one of the future stories that might have been my favorite of the whole film.  Jim Broadbent was great, as he always is, but I love seeing him played those crazy-eyed, crazy-haired characters he does so well with.  I also enjoyed when Keith David or Hugh Grant would show up, but both suffered from some of the bad makeup mentioned previously.

Once again I have to give credit to Tykwer and the Wachowskis for taking a shot. The fact that it's not a complete disaster is an accomplishment.  Even if Cloud Atlas had been a huge mess, we need people to keep taking chances and make films like this.  Otherwise, we doomed to a future of endless Paranormal Activity and Adam Sandler movies.

I think for most, Cloud Atlas is one of those films that people are going to either think is genius or not get it at all.  I come somewhere in the middle of that.  It's an ambitious, but flawed film.  There are impressive visuals, and some interesting stories, but it's a mixed bag.  It's length and disjointed storytelling might put off casual viewers, but I do think there's a lot here to enjoy.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Arbitrage (2012) - Movie Review

I was interested in getting some insight into what Arbitrage was and how it related to the film, so I looked it up and found that, 'arbitrage' loosely translates to 'rich, white people problems.'  Okay, I made that up.  In all seriousness, I couldn't figure out how actual arbitrage had anything to with Arbitrage.

Richard Gere plays Robert Miller, a hedge fund manager who's in the process of selling his company.  He's also trying to cover up a $400 million dollar loan being used to cook his books and cover for a loss until the sale goes through.  I was never really quite clear on what the deal was with this $400 million, and even when it was explained later, I still wasn't.  Like last year's Margin Call, you never quite understand the financials or what they're are talking about, but at least Margin Call feels like a smart movie that knew what it was talking about.  Arbitrage felt like it was faking it's way through it.

Miller has a lovely and supporting wife (Susan Sarandon), so naturally he's cheating on her with an emotionally-unstable artist that's half his age (Laetitia Casta).  The movie sets up Miller as an unlikable asshole and never does anything to make you root for him as the movie goes on.

One night he goes for a drive with his mistress, and gets into a car wreck that kills her.  He flees the scene, which was stupid because he's pretty much the only guy anyone would suspect, and contacts an old acquaintance, Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), to use as an alibi.  It takes only hours before the lead police detective (Tim Roth) is questioning his role in the accident.  Miller knows that if this gets out, it will kill the sale of his company, not to mention expose the $400 million he's hiding, so he's trying to deal with both cover-ups simultaneously.  It's here where the movie kind of lost me.  What was this movie trying to be?  A financial thriller or a crime thriller?  In trying to be both simultaneously  it felt a little all over the place, and it really hurt the film.  Each story could have been told separately.  In fact, this felt like something that should have been on a TV series, like a season of Damages.

As the cops get closer to nailing him, he continues to lean heavily on Jimmy to keep up the alibi. You continue to get irritated with Miller, because you realize that he picks this one guy in his world he knows won't rat on him.  Even when faced with a prison term, Jimmy won't rat him out. He continues to string Jimmy along, begging him to be patient until he can take care of his business. At one point, even Jimmy's girlfriend tells him to give him up, and by then I wish he had, too. Miller didn't deserve that kind of loyalty, and it was clear Jimmy was being taken advantage of.

I credit the performance of Richard Gere for being able to make Robert Miller compelling to watch even though there is no reason at all to like him.  He's doing shady business dealings, lying to everyone, cheating on his wife, and taking advantage of someone to keep his ass out of trouble. Model citizen, huh?  Anyway, Gere carries the movie and it's one of his better roles in recent memory.

Maybe this was the point, but the worst part of this, is despite all of this - SPOILER ALERT - there's no consequence to any of his actions, other than his wife leaving him.  You're actually glad she leaves him at the end.  Were they trying to make a statement saying that evil, rich business men get away with cheating and murder?  There's also something the police do at the end that made me scratch my head at how ridiculous it was.  It undermined the movie a little bit because it gave Miller's character an out he didn't deserve.

Besides Gere, Arbitrage features a very strong supporting cast.  I always like Tim Roth, and here he plays streetwise cop that knows Miller is guilty and really wants to see him burn.  He's a little corny at times, but it seems like he had fun with the role.  I'm sure he's hoping he'll get a chance to play a variation of his character from Lie to Me, and I'd like to see that.  Susan Sarandon has a great scene at the end, but she's barely in it.  Then again, she's been in so much stuff lately that maybe she only had a day or two to shoot her scenes.  Their daughter is played by Brit Marling, and while I really enjoyed her in Another Earth, I felt she was very flat here.  The guy the really surprised me was Nate Parker.  He ends up being the only really sympathetic character in the film and showed some nice internal conflict and range.

Arbitrage was written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, and it's once again another movie that suffers from not quite knowing what it's identity is.  It actually felt like something that could have been a adaptation of a novel, but then they couldn't figure out what to get rid of to make it all fit in a movie, so they just left everything in.  He did a good job with the performances and I did feel like there was some tension, but there were a few too many plot holes for me to get much out of the story.

Arbitrage is a movie that feels like it's being trotted out as Oscar bait, and while there is a pretty compelling performance by Richard Gere, the movie itself is too uneven to say it elevates to those heights.  It's not a bad movie, but it's not as good as it thinks it is, and ends up being kind of forgettable.  It's a rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Robot & Frank (2012) - Movie Review

If I ever get a robot, I want it to speak with Patrick Stewart's voice.

Set in the near future, Frank (Frank Langella) is an ex-burgler living in a small home on the outskirts of town.  His dementia is getting worse, and is losing the ability to take care of himself.   His son (James Marsden), growing tired of driving out to take care of him, buys him a robot caretaker.

Frank's not too wild about the robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) at first, but he learns that the robot isn't programmed to know if an activity is illegal or not.  Even better, Frank learns the robot can also pick locks.  This enables Frank to plan a few more robberies, which keeps his mind engaged and gives him something to do again.  His mind isn't completely gone though, as he spends some time flirting with the local librarian (Susan Sarandon).

For a time, Frank's daughter (Liv Tyler) comes to take care of him, and deactivates the robot.  This upsets Frank, as it's clear that he's become attached to the robot, and also time is running out on the robberies they have planned.  Eventually, he's able to convince her to let him keep the robot, and she leaves.

The robberies are successful, but the local authorities (led by Jeremy Sisto), knowing Frank's history, question him and surveil his house.  The robot points out to Frank that his memory can be used against him and advises him to format his memory.  This puts Frank in a tough spot.  This robot is his only friend and is it right to erase its memory, even if doing so will keep him out of jail.

This was an impressive debut for director Jake Schreirer.  He kept things moving and easy to follow.  The robot has a simple design, similar to modern robots by Honda, so the premise never seems hard to believe.  Based on how our technology is advancing, this genuinely feels like something that could happen just a few years from now.  The script by Christopher D. Ford hits all the right notes.  It's smart, funny and sweet.  The story is fairly straightforward, but I felt it was emotionally complex.

Frank Langella is always great and he gives another fantastic performance.  He's able to say so much with those soulful eyes of his and it's hard to not get wrapped up in what's going through his mind.  It's a very small cast, and they all play their parts well, but this is really just about Frank and his robot.  Their interaction is touching and humorous.  I wasn't expecting to be as moved by this as I was, nor was I expecting how funny it turned out.

Movies like Robot & Frank are why I love movies.  It's a smart movie about aging and the fragility of memory, but it's also a charming and funny buddy movie.  Led by Frank Langella's wonderful performance, this might be one of my favorite films of the year.  I highly recommend checking it out if it's playing at a theater near you, like The Vine (www.vinecinema.com).

4.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Jeff, Who Lives at Home - Movie Review

When a movie starts with the main character waxing philosophic about the movie Signs, you first know that marijuana must be involved, but that you might be in for a film that's a little bit different.

The movie follows Jeff (Jason Segel), who...wait for it...still lives at home.  Shocker, I know!  Jeff spends his days smoking pot and hanging out in the basement of his mother's house.  While you might think that Jeff is a slacker or loser (and you wouldn't be wrong), he's struggling with figuring out what he's supposed to do with his life and his place in the universe.  Aren't we all?

It's his mother's birthday and the only thing she wants from Jeff is to pick up some wood glue and fix a shutter.  Before Jeff finally leaves the house, he receives a wrong number from someone looking for "Kevin" and this name gets stuck in his brain.  As Jeff believes that there are no wrong numbers, he considers this to be a sign and looks for clues as he heads out of the house.  While following wherever these clues take him, he randomly runs into his older brother, Pat (Ed Helms).

Pat has his own problems in that he's in a marriage that struggling and doesn't seem to listen to anyone.  The biggest example of this is that against everyone's better judgement he buys a Porsche he can't afford.  Anyway, after Jeff and Pat run into each other, they happen to notice Pat's wife, Linda (Judy Greer), with another man.  They then follow Linda around and try to figure out what she's up to.

The story continues to build as they follow Linda and the signs that the universe is presenting Jeff.  The movie always feels like it's moving along and building to a resolution.  It's on the shorter side, as it's only 83 minutes and the events take place over just a single day.  

The main thing that helps make the movie work is that despite each character's flaws, they still come off as human and likable.  Jason Segel portrays Jeff with such a sweet naivete that when bad things happen to him in the movie, it really breaks your heart.  While it's a smaller cast, everyone is very good.  Jeff's mom, played by Susan Sarandon, has her own subplot involving her trying to find out the identity of a secret admirer from her work.  Maybe it's just me, but I still find her sexy as hell.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home was written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass.  Mark Duplass you may know from his role as 'Pete' on The League.  His wife, and The League co-star, Katie Aselton, has a small cameo in the movie.  I don't think this was as strong as their previous offering, 2010's Cyrus, and I still thought it was a little too 'mumblecore'-ish.  For a a movie that's is short as it is, it did feel like it dragged in a few parts and could have been a little funnier, rather than feel so improvised.  That's not to say it isn't funny though.  I found many things to laugh at throughout the movie.

I wanted to mention that I thought Michael Andrews score was interesting and added to the kind of quirky nature of the film.

While I liked Jeff, Who Lives at Home, I kind of feel a little disappointed at the same time.  Considering the cast and the previous works of the Duplass Brothers, I was just expecting a little more out of it as far as pure comedy.  I do think it's a very sweet movie with a nice message about keeping an open mind, looking for signs and trying to figure out your destiny.  I give it credit for making me care about the characters and actually feel something.  Because of those qualities, it manages to stand out from other comedies.  Due to its shorter length though, I think it's better suited for a rental.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars