As an avowed, no-nonsense peddler of cinematic excess, director Michael Bay would in some respects seem to be the ideal candidate to bring to the big screen the deliciously weird and over-the-top true crime story at the center of Pain & Gain, starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson. Unfortunately this down-and-dirty air-quote character piece, a florid and casually misogynistic action dramedy that marks Bay’s least expensive production since his debut film, comes unglued early on, and then spends two hours-plus thrashing about wildly, to only middling effect. Madly trading off rambling voiceover narration from character to character, like a relay race baton, Pain & Gain takes the tale of a group of brutal yet idiotic criminals and twists it into a series of hyper-masculine poses masquerading as some sort of statement on the new American dream. It’s like Bottle Rocket by way of Savages, but not really in a good or interesting way. For the full, original review, from Screen Daily, click here. (Paramount, R, 129 minutes)
Daily Archives: April 24, 2013
Which Way Is the Front Line From Here?
On April 20, 2011, 40-year-old photographic journalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed by mortar fire in Misrata, Libya, where he was covering that country’s bloody civil war. His death marked the end of a brilliant and difference-making career during which he covered conflicts in Liberia and Afghanistan, and helped notably reshape notions of war photography.
Helmed by his friend and co-director on the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, Sebastian Junger, and debuting on HBO in conjunction with “Sleeping Soldiers,” an outdoor exhibition of Hetherington’s work at the International Center of Photography next door to HBO’s headquarters in New York City, Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington serves as a fitting capstone for a warm-hearted man who saw the best in people during some of the worst circumstances.
Hetherington, who with his crooked but quick smile sort of favored a taller Daniel Tosh, was born to well-off parents in Great Britain, but gravitated toward photography in some of the world’s most war-ravaged regions. His work received several major awards, including four World Press prizes. Integrating multiple media formats in his work, Hetherington had a special gift for forging sympathy with his subjects; he rejected as nonsense the notion that interaction with his subjects ruined the objectivity or sanctity of images, noting, “I’m a big white guy in their country, it’s stupid to pretend I’m not.”
From 2007 through 2008, in eastern Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, Junger and Hetherington holed up with the Second Platoon, Battle Company, at a remote outpost named for a fallen comrade. The resultant film of the year-long embedding, Restrepo, would debut at the Sundance Film Festival and go on to be nominated for a Best Documentary Academy Award. After many years in Liberia and other spots, the movie was in some ways the culmination of Hetherington’s quest to understand and document the different human emotions crystalized in armed conflict. (One of his favorite photos from the time period, entitled “Man Eden,” underscored what someone would later tell Hetherington — that war represents men’s best, most socially acceptable chance to express and receive unconditional love.)
Junger, who sits for interviews but doesn’t try to impress his own stamp of personality on the film, also doesn’t try to inject a lot of stylistic flash into Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? After all, there’s no need to. Hetherington’s life was an interesting enough one that it stands on its own, and the footage here — inclusive of his time in Liberia, outtakes from Restrepo, and his time in Libya, and buoyed by reminiscences from family and colleagues — is engaging, thoughtful stuff, no matter its surface narrowcast appeal. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (HBO Films, unrated, 78 minutes)
Not Suitable for Children (Blu-ray)
Ryan Kwanten headlines director Peter Templeman’s Not Suitable for Children, a romantic dramedy of young adult drift that trips familiar wires of too-cute-by-half when its forces upon its protagonist the plot device of him coming to grips with testicular cancer.
The story centers around a trio of twentysomething roommates — Jonah (Kwanten), Stevie (an appealing Sarah Snook) and Gus (Ryan Corr) — who enjoy their shared lives of hedonistic, responsibility-free partying. Things come to an abrupt halt, however, when Jonah is diagnosed with the aforementioned disease, and told that he’d be rendered infertile by the most aggressive treatment that would save him. This news triggers a strange reaction in him — Jonah suddenly wants to become a father. Predictable antics ensue, with the intention of tugging heartstrings.
Michael Lucas’ choppy, prefabricated screenplay trades in well-worn set-ups and base-level complications and dialogue, playing its hand pretty much entirely in the first act until settling into a plaintive slog. This would be less of a problem if the film had greater stylistic pizzazz or a more compelling lead, but Kwanten (HBO’s True Blood) delivers a mostly one-note turn, of blinking himbo entitlement. Why would Jonah actually be a good father, really? Why, because that’s the entire reason for the movie’s existence, of course.
A fairly hearty slate of supplemental material anchors Not Suitable for Children‘s Blu-ray debut, which comes in a vortex case and is presented in a 1080p 2.35 widescreen transfer, with a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track. Apart from a bit of over-saturation, it’s a solid transfer, and the aural design is mostly hiccup-free, if just a bit heavy in the bass mix in some of the more raucous scenes. A behind-the-scenes featurette runs under 15 minutes, but the Blu-ray’s best offering is nearly a hour’s worth of interviews with Templeman and his cast, which is nice for those inclined to have a more forgiving attitude toward the movie. A gallery of trailers, for both Not Suitable for Children and other Well Go USA home video releases, rounds things out. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)
Thale
Supernaturally tinged Norwegian mystery-horror import Thale unfolds, on a narrative level, like some weird hybrid of Sunshine Cleaning, Splice and Lady in the Water — a work that dances around a couple moods and genres without ever really wholeheartedly committing to one in particular. Telling the story of a surprise woodland contact between a pair of guys and an awakened, captive huldra — a nymph-like creature of Scandinavian folklore — writer-director Aleksander Nordaas’ work gives off a certain eerie vibe that, along with its regional specificity, add up to give the movie a pungent originality. But Thale is ultimately all wind-up, failing to take its characters to more interesting places.
The unflappable Leo (Jon Sigve Skard) heads up “No Shit Cleaning Service,” a crime scene scrubbing company. Perhaps against better judgment, he’s thrown a bit of work to his friend Elvis (Erlend Norvold), with vomitous consequences. Tasked with finding the scattered remains of an old man at a cabin in the woods, Leo and Elvis instead discover a mute girl (Silje Reinåmo, above) and a bunch of audio tapes in which said man can be heard talking about the girl’s highly adaptive nature, and how she’s “different than” her sisters. As Elvis starts to seemingly become able to bridge the communication gap they also make a couple rather shocking discoveries (she has a tail, for one), leading them to question just how dangerous this girl might be.
If there’s a nice fog of intrigue that surrounds Thale for a good long while, there’s also an imperturbability to the entire movie, which kind of dawdles and drags. For a long time Thale isn’t really a horror movie, even in any Gothic sense, but instead just a mystery about this girl’s origins, and how she’s survived seemingly on her own for an indeterminate length of time. This works, but only up to a point. At around the 45-minute mark, there’s a nice conversation between Leo and Elvis in which some of their vulnerabilities are stripped bare, and for a moment it looks as if Thale is going to dive headlong into a story of fraternal drift, with its mysterious title waif serving only as a joint kickstarter and metaphorical connection for the two. This doesn’t come to full fruition, but it would have likely been more rewarding than some of the moves Thale ends up making.
At a certain point, the movie’s slow-peddled nature either becomes wholly mesmeric or a bit of a put-on. For me it was the latter — it felt like a lot of artful dodging in service of a story that wasn’t really fully fleshed out, or at least not taken in interesting directions. Thale doesn’t really delve substantively into mythology — its characters aren’t scientists, admittedly — so when others come looking for Thale, plunging Leo and Elvis into a greater danger, it feels like a leap into tension unearned, nipped from some screenwriting manual.
Serving as his own cinematographer, camera operator and editor, Nordaas delivers an enigmatic aria in many respects. A director like Brad Anderson would be able to turn this into a work of suffocating anxiety, though. As is, Thale is a movie that’s a bit less than the sum of its parts — interesting around the edges, but not fully developed, and lacking any sort of revelatory punch. Still, genre cineastes with an affection for foreign treats may find enough here to validate their curiosity.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, Thale comes to DVD presented in a solid 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, free of any edge enhancement or grain issues. Audio comes by way of two discrete tracks — a Norwegian language 5.1 version, and an English language 2.0 track. Unfortunately, apart from chapter stops and a couple trailers for other XLRator Media releases, there are no supplemental bonus features of which to speak, which further undercuts this title’s value, which might otherwise be a bit higher for genre fans and would-be DIY filmmakers. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Half, click here; if Amazon is your thing, meanwhile, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)