Cronenberg: Subtle, Sophisticated & Brutally Deep

by Brett Parker

Eastern Promises is a gangster picture that features throat slashings, blood splattering, raw sex, and vicious stabbings. Yet the most surprising thing about the film is how subtle it all is. Most crime pictures are made up of grand atmospheres that shove their intensity and violence right in your face. Here’s one that simply invites us into the characters lives and we find that what is brewing in their minds and souls is more gripping and exciting than any act of violence. Instead of being at the mercy of plot mechanics, the characters let their own motivations and ideals dictate the events of the story. The end result is a fascinating lived-in reality that doesn’t have to be showy to attract a film audience. This world will shake you all the same.

As the film opens, we see a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) deliver the baby of a young woman who doesn’t survive the birth. The baby is born alive and healthy, but the mystery of who the mother was hangs over Anna’s thoughts. Looking over her personal belongings, Anna discovers a diary written entirely in Russian. The diary carries the calling card of a nearby London restaurant and Anna goes to investigate. It is there in which Anna discovers a business that is the spring-board for Russian mafia in London. She meets Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the patriarch of a Russian mob family, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), Semyon’s reckless son, and Nikolai (Viggo Mortenson), Kirill’s mysterious valet and right-hand man. It becomes very clear to Anna that these people deal in shady affairs, but Anna’s bruised feelings over a miscarriage she had motivates her to fight for the baby without a mother and get to the bottom of the diary. The more she discovers within the diary, the more Semyon’s clan begins to unravel. The diary reveals painful secrets revolving around Semyon, Kirill’s flaws are brought to the forefront, and we slowly begin to realize why Nikolai is more knowledgeable and compassionate than most men in his position are.

What is first and foremost impressive about Eastern Promises is how perfectly this unlikely material fits in with director David Cronenberg’s auteur themes. His love of the flesh is strongly felt in the film’s use of tattoos. It is said that the tattoos of Russian gangsters are used to tell their personal histories and serves as a kind of criminal résumé. Cronenberg makes good use of the character’s tattooed flesh to give a feel of their experiences and myths. Of course the strongest example of the flesh is found in the film’s much talked about bath house sequence, in which a naked Nikolai fights off two fully-clothed and fully-armed assassins. Cronenberg displays the characters nakedness to convey both the vulnerability and stripped-down skill within Nikolai at that moment. The scene deserves its accolades, it is a great showcase of a great director’s skill.

Another theme of Cronenberg’s is the inner-workings of monstrous characters. Here, Cronenberg uses villainous Russian gangsters as a springboard to show how criminality can deeply affect a person’s mentality. At first, Kirill appears to be a typical spoiled gangster, with the usual need for violence and excess. Yet Cronenberg digs deep into the character to show the vulnerable child hidden within, who might even have some homoerotic tendencies about him. The most fascinating character is found in Nikolai, who at first appears to be the most sinister and hardened of these criminals. Pretty soon, his character is unraveled towards a surprise revelation that hits you like a ton of bricks. I will not reveal the intimate details of the surprise, but only to say that it brings an unexpected depth to the already strongly rooted idea of how criminality can corrupt the soul. In a time when twist endings have grown seemingly cheap and unremarkable, Cronenberg’s twist brings about a brilliant depth to an already efficient film.

Aside from Cronenberg’s directing, the film’s performances are just as focused and brilliant. Mueller-Stahl and Cassel are both award-worthy in their detailed and creepy character studies. Yet this is Mortensen’s show. He gives the best performance of his career so far by handling the complex nuances of the role with profound conviction and fascination. The performance, like the film, will knock you on your ass. It doesn’t do this with excessive action or intensified emotions, but with the internal intrigue of its characters. I loved how the film’s climax is not dependent on complicated plot action but by the characters simply realizing the underlying sadness of their personalities. It doesn’t tie up all the film’s loose ends, but its drama of the highest caliber is sure to impress. Eastern Promises is as rich and complex as any of Cronenberg’s best and it will stay with you long after you’ve seen it and will leave you with much to think about. Especially about what Nikolai really had to go through to get all of those tattoos.

Sidney Lumet: A Return to Form

by Andrew Jupin

So far this year’s film output has been more or less mediocre. However there have been a few exceptions thanks to the likes of Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum), David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises) and yes, even Judd Apatow (Knocked Up). But between the usual weak period of January through April and then the nothing-but-dreadful summer season—thanks for absolutely nothing Sam Raimi—there wasn’t really a film to come along and pelt me over the face with any sort of bravado or cinematic dexterity. I will say that David Cronenberg came real close. Close enough that this article could also easily be about him. However I sat down early last week to view what will quite possibly become the best film of 2007: Sidney Lumet’s, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

Two sons (Ethan Hawke and Phillip Seymour Hoffman) plot the robbery of their parents’ (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) jewelry store. Their plan goes wrong and takes the family into a tailspin towards a horrific and maddening conclusion. On the outside, this film is a simple heist movie: a robbery is planned; the robbery is executed; something goes wrong; there are serious repercussions that follow; punishment ensues, etc. This is something we have seen dozens of times in dozens of films—Lumet himself showed us this same formula in his 1975 robbery film, Dog Day Afternoon. But Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is so much more than a simple heist film. As a matter of fact nothing is simple about it. The layers of this film are endless with the double crossing, the familial issues, the infidelities, the violence, the hatred, the desperation, they are all here and they are all pushed to extremes. This film has everything and it is all executed to perfection by a master director. The acting is stupendous across the board. Hoffman excels once again as Andy, the older, more desperate of the two brothers. He is conniving, ruthless and dastardly in every sense of every one of those words. Ethan Hawke shines as Hank, the down-on-his-luck, divorced father of one with unending child support payments and a nowhere job. And Albert Finney is stunning as Charles, the boys' victimized father who can't help but favor one son over the other.

Lumet is a wizard technically and always evokes the best from his actors. This film is of course no exception. The camera works in wondrous ways here. At the right instances, it sits back and just captures moments. It sits quietly in the back of the room and watches and listens, gathering important information for the audience. But when it needs to, when it is obligated, the camera scrutinizes the actors; getting right in their faces, moving in closer, judging with every frame.

Lumet’s New York in the year 2007 is a very personal place. It is still very much real and still unidentifiable to outside viewers. Lumet has never been keen on showing typical ‘movie’ New York, but rather, the real streets, the real neighborhoods, the real stretches of city where people walk and talk and work. There are no landmarks or famous venues; just streets, buildings and people compose his frame. Lumet’s New York is a dangerous place where the lower classes live in darkened apartments with bad lighting and few pieces of furniture while the rich live in sterile, straight-out-of-the-catalogue apartments that are just as dark; not in the physical sense, but in the emotional, spiritual sense.

The narrative structure is broken up into several different segments allowing the audience to interact with different characters at similar times. This allows the viewer to get everyone’s side of the story. This helps because a simple, straightforward narrative this film is not. They at first can appear distracting, especially with subtitles telling us whose side of the story we are watching and when it is taking place. But this device is not just inserted to make the film look flashy. No, it instead helps us to get a better understanding of where each character is coming from. It helps to understand why they are doing what they are doing and what—or who—is making them do it.

Lumet has once again produced a stunning masterwork; one that I hope garners him the critical claim he most certainly deserves. There has yet to be a better film this year. I can only wish that the film is able to reach a wide enough audience. Lumet, who garnered criticism in 2001 for refusing to stop the filming of a television show during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been in dire need of a hit film. For a man whose debut feature gave us 12 Angry Men, expectations are always high. Last year’s Find Me Guilty was more or less lauded by critics and he hasn’t been able to find praise in at least ten years since the release of 1997’s Night Falls on Manhattan. I sincerely encourage everyone to see this film, especially those curious as to how you make an excellent, compelling, well-crafted piece of cinema in today’s Spiderman 3 film culture.

The Brave One Hits High Notes (Mostly)

by Brett Parker

I don’t exactly know why Hollywood is returning once again to the Death Wish well, but I must admit I’m very entertained by what it’s pulling up. A couple of weeks ago we saw Death Sentence, which starred Kevin Bacon as a loving family man who loses his son at the hands of a vicious gang. To avenge his son’s death, he goes after the hoodlums with a whole lot of fire power. This week, the Death Wish formula strikes again with The Brave One, in which a woman loses a loved one and goes after lowlife thugs with a lot of bullets and a lot of anger. While Death Sentence was a grotesque nightmare that treaded on slasher film territory, The Brave One is a psychological drama that brings full dramatic weight to what it feels like to be a vigilante.

Jodie Foster stars as Erica Bain, the host of a talk radio show that celebrates the romanticism of living in New York City. Indeed, Erica appears to be living the New York dream: great job, great apartment, and a successful fiancé named David (Naveen Andrews). One night, Erica and David walk their dog through central park and encounter a group of sinister thugs. The thugs brutally attack them, leaving Erica in a coma and David murdered. After awakening from her coma and realizing what has happened, Erica grows paralyzed with fear of the city she once loved. She is afraid of another attack at the hands of the city’s worst. This leads her to illegally buy a hand gun for protection. One night at a convenience store, Erica witnesses a madman shoot the clerk and steal money. In defense, she shoots the gunman dead. Instead of being traumatized by this event, Erica feels liberated from her fears. She feels true justice is being done and her courage is being reclaimed. This leads her on a spree of vigilante killings, in which everyone from criminal lowlifes to corporate slime are blown away at the hands of Erica’s vengeful rage. Pretty soon, homicide detective Mercer (Terrance Howard) is on to her, but sympathizes with her victimized soul. Erica takes a liking to him because he seems to be one of the few New York cops who actually cares about true justice. They form an unlikely friendship that grows more tense once the evidence from the murders begin to pile up. Things grow even more complicated when Mercer supplies her with clues to the identity of David’s killers.

What makes The Brave One special is not just that it shows a woman executing vigilante murders, but that it asks why and how a woman would do this. The film asks hard questions about vigilante ideals and explores the psychological workings of an innocent person who slowly becomes a justified murderer. Director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview With the Vampire) is skilled at crafting moody atmospheres of loss and dread. Here that atmosphere helps to give the audience the sense of the intense feeling that is haunting Erica to the core. A simple scene in which Erica is terrified to walk out her front door is made to be truly scary thanks to Jordan’s considerable skill. He picks some very interesting angles on this material. It is interesting how Erica becomes more comfortable, even addicted, to her newfound murderous ways (“Why don’t my hands shake?” she asks after shooting two men).
What’s even more fascinating is the friendship that develops between Erica and Mercer. In most revenge films, the vigilante has an intelligent cop snapping at their heels. Mercer represents that aspect of the formula. But while most cases show the vigilante at odds with the cop, The Brave One shows the two grow a strong affection and understanding for each other. They both share a sadness for victims and a need for true justice. It is through this common bond in which they find a comfort they cannot find anywhere else in the world. There’s a great scene in which Mercer takes Erica to a diner and drops obvious hints that he knows what she’s done. He doesn’t do this as a threat, but as a subtle warning and an offer of true help (“What would David think?” he asks her).

This all eventually leads to an ending that is meant to be satisfying but only raises peculiar questions about the film’s message. I won’t give much of it away, just to say that it says a lot for vigilante revenge and not a whole lot for our justice system in general. What exactly is the ending saying? Is street justice the only true justice left in the world? Can only wild animals take care of the other wild animals? Like A History of Violence, the ending deals with violence we’re willing to accept in order to sleep better at night.

Jodie Foster has become one of those rare actresses who can play whatever role she wants whenever she wants to. She gets the kind of material most actresses would kill for. Indeed, a victimized woman who takes control of her fear and fights back would be a great role for any starlet. It almost goes without saying that the always wonderful Foster delivers the goods perfectly in her performance. She strips the character raw and shows the audience what makes her tic at her emotional core. We can almost picture a lesser actress going over the top with this type of role, but Foster is fully convincing in her acting skills. Also great is the role of Mercer that is brought to life by the wonderful Terrance Howard. The thankless role of the suspecting police detective is given an unexpected depth by the screenplay and Howard’s charisma and focus help it to fully surpass our expectations. What a great actor. Foster and Howard seem like an unlikely duo, but these skilled pros have a wonderful chemistry. Their on-screen friendship is the best part of this film. Like Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in 3:10 to Yuma, they’re fascinating as two people on opposite sides of the law who find a peculiar connection beneath their differences.

So as of right now, you have a choice between two vigilante stories at your multiplex: Death Sentence or The Brave One. Which one is the better film? That’s a rather tough call. Despite their similarities in structure, the two films are very different from each other. Death Sentence is an exaggerated and violent vision of a suburban nightmare while The Brave One is probably the most intelligent drama one could gather from the vigilante formula. Death Sentence is strong on its violence yet weak on its drama, while The Brave One is vice versa. Death Sentence is gripping and terrifying, but it’s not as thoughtful or patient as The Brave One. I could compare these films all day. Let’s just say they cancel each other out and that’s that. I’ll say one thing though: these vigilante films really pack a punch. They stir me up during the viewing then make me leave the theatre feeling emotionally drained. That’s probably one of the highest compliments one could give to a Hollywood thriller.

Shoot 'Em Up May Be Silly, But it Sure is Fun

by Brett Parker

Shoot ‘Em Up is exactly what the title promises it to be. Most action movies are accused of favoring style over substance. Here’s one that throws substance completely in the fire and runs amok with its style. The film is wall-to-wall action sequences that go so over the top, it breaks the Earth’s atmosphere. The film is completely absurd, but at no point is it unaware of this. If you’re willing to be a good sport and have an open, action-junkie mind, then you’ll be delighted with this self-reflexive fun.

Clive Owen stars as Mr. Smith, who appears to be -- for all intents and purposes -- a carrot-eating drifter. One night while sitting at a bus stop, he watches a helpless pregnant woman try to outrun a bad guy with a gun. Mr. Smith decides to help the poor woman and follows them into the warehouse, where he disposes of the bad guy and delivers the baby. The fact that Mr. Smith kills the bad guy with a carrot and shoots off the baby’s umbilical cord with a gun pretty much announces that this movie is not to be taken seriously. That point is only confirmed when countless bad guys show up to find the baby and Mr. Smith opens fire on them with the skills of a John Woo protagonist. The bad guys are led by a criminal mastermind named Hertz (Pail Giamatti) who wants the newborn baby dead, for reasons later revealed (and revealed to be Bonkers!). Ever the moralist, Mr. Smith escapes with the baby and spends the rest of the film trying to protect it with the help of his hooker friend, Donna (Monica Bellucci). Yet Hertz is hot on their trail with a whole lot of guns and a whole lot of fury. This leads to a series of laughable adventures that involve bone marrow, politicians, breast milk, punk rock, and death by carrots.

This is one of those action movies that has to be seen to be believed. This is not because of big-production technical skills, but because the plot and the action are so preposterous that it is downright laughable. I mean that as a compliment. Like Hot Fuzz, the film is an hilarious celebration of mindless action grandeur. It’s clearly a parody, only a couple of degrees away from being a Naked Gun movie. A lot of action movies have an absurdity to them yet they masquerade as serious pictures. Shoot ‘Em Up announces itself as preposterous from jump-street and disregards any sense of seriousness you’d expect it to have. This frees itself to have loads of fun with the material and you will too. Through the course of the action, we see a man flying through one car windshield into another to open fire on its passengers, a man using his broken hand as a gun (literally), a shoot-out on a children’s playground, and a shoot-out that takes place during a freefall from an airplane thousands of feet in the air (take that Point Break and Eraser). Of course some viewers may be turned off by this insane suspension of disbelief, but action sequences, like most movie scenes, work well as long as they’re well done and absorbing enough.

The main cast also helps with the film’s fun. The film displays highly likeable stars playing fun riffs on their personas. Clive Owen, who is arguably the coolest man alive, uses his trademark edge and wit to perfection as Smith, who is not only a wizard with a gun but spits one-liners that would make James Bond red in the face. Paul Giamatti rediscovers some of that old Pig Vomit intensity to make for a fun villain while Monica Bellucci goes beyond just looking pretty and finds the right balance between funny and sympathetic. It’s great fun watching these top-notch actors revel in action clichés. It would’ve been less interesting if low level B-Actors were cast instead.

Shoot ‘Em Up is a movie made all in good fun and it is very difficult not to feel that same fun watching it. It may be lightweight and disposable, but those are the exact qualities that are used to its advantage. There are stories of how director Michael Davis cheerfully pitched the film to studios by exploiting the goofiness of the action scenes and how Clive Owen found the script’s energy so hilarious he couldn’t say no. Indeed, its movies like this that remind us why we love action movies in the first place. Seriousness can be the destroyer of fun. Sometimes the less serious an action picture is, the more enjoyable it is. That’s probably why I enjoyed Casino Royale more than The Bourne Ultimatum. All-in-all, this film is worth the casual screening.

3:10 to Yuma Arrives Better Than Expected

by Andrew Jupin

The new vision of 3:10 to Yuma brings to mind that classic statement, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, considering that sentence alone has a few grammatical breakdowns that are worth fixing, I suggest that you pay it no mind. At first glance, James Mangold’s outing into the old West seems superfluous. Critics will argue that this is just another instance of Hollywood going back into the vault and fooling with an old, untouchable classic. The problem is that, although I find myself growing tired of the rehashing in contemporary cinema, not all films made before 1970 were perfect. So I decided to go in to 3:10 to Yuma with an open mind and a clear conscience. I don’t care that Glen Ford was in the original. I wanted to see for myself.

Leaving the theater I found myself neither blown away or angry. Mangold’s film takes on the same story of the original. A down-and-out rancher by the name of Dan Evans (played this time by the Man of One Thousand Movie Roles, Christian Bale) decides to help a group of local officials escort the great Wild West outlaw, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the next town in order to catch a train bound for a prison. What train you ask?

That’s right…the 3:10 to Yuma. Along the way lots of Western shenanigans occur. People shoot guns at each other, horses run really fast, villains wear dark clothes and yes, they even drink whiskey. But it’s through a combination of those expected genre elements and a cast of superb leading men and phenomenal character actors that the film winds up working really well.

Ben Foster plays Charlie Prince, Ben Wade’s psychotic second in command who will stop at nothing to free Ben from the long arm of the law. Dallas Roberts is Grayson Butterfield, the railroad tycoon who’s train Wade robbed. Character Actor of the Century award winner Alan Tudyk—last seen in the dreadful un-comedy Death at a Funeral—is his usual great self as the town doctor along for the ride. Even Peter Fonda manages to hop aboard and deliver a pretty solid performance as a bounty hunter/former outlaw. Also, look out for an uncredited Frat Packer in a role where, while he’s great in his own right, he is dwarfed by the likes of Bale and Crowe. He sticks out like a sore thumb is what I’m trying to tell you.

3:10 to Yuma turns out pretty much as you would think it would. There are no surprises, no cheap shots, and little-to-no computer graphics (aside from one hilarious equestrian incident). It’s exactly the film I expected it to be, but at the same time, above my expectations on so many performance levels that it really does turn itself into one pretty solid return to the Western Genre. Oh and the good news is that if you enjoy hearing the times and destinations of trains barked by disgruntled cowboys...you're in for about a dozen treats.