Category: Directed by Steven Soderbergh

The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh)

The Limey is all about the foreshadowing. It’s about flashbacks, flash-forwards, and flash asides, but the foreshadowing figures into all of those devices. It’s got a “twist” ending, which then informs previous scenes but not like figuring out Terence Stamp is a ghost or whatever. Instead, it’s knowing something about why he half-smiles—and only something, another thing about The Limey is it’s Stamp’s story. To the point of excluding the audience. There’s a lot we don’t see in The Limey, but it happens. Arguably the most interesting aspects of Stamp’s character development occur offscreen. We get to see the action, which is the MacGuffin.

Juxtaposed against Stamp is Peter Fonda, and we get to see all his character stuff on screen, even though he’s an utter twerp from his first scene and will continue to be throughout the film.

Stamp is a recently released career criminal from the UK, come to Los Angeles to find out what happened to his daughter, Melissa George. Before the present action, George dies in a car accident. Not suspiciously enough for the cops to care, but enough for Stamp to fly over to find out what happened.

Fonda is George’s boyfriend. He’s a successful music producer, rich enough to be oblivious to reality, dim enough to make bad decisions, a sixties leftover who hasn’t done anything worth talking about since then. He’s already moved on to a new girlfriend—Amelia Heinle, who’s his friends’ daughter; he suggested her name to them when she was born. At first, it seems like he’s a major creep instead of just a weak one.

The juxtaposition is Stamp and Fonda living their respective legacies of the late sixties, Stamp a seemingly unstoppable old man vengeance, Fonda a narcissistic jackass.

The film’s first act is Stamp getting to Los Angeles and meeting George’s friends, Luis Guzmán and Lesley Ann Warren. Guzmán is an ex-con gone straight and sticking to it (very much unlike Stamp, who we learn spent most of his life and George’s in the nick), and Warren is a functioning LA action coach. Her sixties dreams didn’t come true, but she’s at least contributing to the world, not sucking from it (like Fonda).

Guzmán quickly becomes Stamp’s sidekick in the movie sense, but there’s a deeper emotional bond between the men the film doesn’t let us see. The Limey’s got a very detached narrative distance; director Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs forcibly push the audience away too. They make an effort to keep the viewer off guard, to keep The Limey in an almost dreamlike state, which then ties into Fonda’s wistful remembrances of the sixties.

Well, 1966 and some of 1967.

When Stamp meets Guzmán and Warren, the film flashes forward to different settings and activities, their conversations bopping forward and back until the conversation flows through the time and place jumps. Because The Limey’s all about memories; well, foreshadowing and memories.

Stamp’s investigation will eventually get him some attention from Barry Newman, who’s Fonda’s fixer. Newman brings in local psychopaths Nicky Katt and Joe Dallesandro to deal with the problem, which has some unexpected results. The acting in The Limey is incredibly measured and restrained. Stamp loses his temper at most twice and possibly then only in a daydream. Fonda has his freak-outs, but he’s usually trying to impress Heinle, so he keeps it in check. Newman’s restrained too, because as long as he can hire Katt, there’s nothing to get worked up about.

So Katt and Dallesandro are then Limey’s wild cards and where Soderbergh lets the performances get the loosest. One of Katt’s scenes is just a series of jaw-dropping but mundane observations from a psychopath. It’s momentarily funny, quickly becoming very concerning, with Katt establishing himself not just a clear and present danger to the good guys but to everyone standing near them. The Limey runs a confined ninety minutes and wraps its main story up with a tidy bow, but Katt and Dallesandro’s presence does a whole lot implying the world that story takes place in.

Ditto uncredited Bill Duke, who shows up at one point for a fantastic scene.

Speaking of uncredited one scene cameos, The Limey goes out of its way to include an “Entertainment Tonight” interview with George Clooney—after he and Soderbergh had made their first movie together—it goes on so long it seems intentional. But then even the shortest sequences in The Limey are fully intentional.

After the first act, after Stamp’s mission and compatriots are set up, the film introduces flashback footage to a young Stamp (as Limey is pre-obsequious CGI- de-aging, it’s footage from Ken Loach’s Poor Cow). Stamp occasionally talks through the clips, though sometimes they’re presented without context; they’re limited because they’re not really for this story. They’re about being young and making bad decisions—Stamp’s didn’t pay off, Fonda’s did. They’re presented without audible dialogue, just like flashbacks to George’s life in Los Angeles before her death, and also with Stamp’s memories of her as a child. Again, it’s all about the memories.

And regrets.

So, foreshadowing, memory, and regrets.

Soderbergh and editor Sarah Flack cut the hell out of the first act, presenting The Limey as a jumble of Stamp’s thoughts, with Fonda’s half of the film eventually leading to it calming down a bit. But while The Limey always looks good (photography by Edward Lachlan) and sounds excellent (Cliff Martinez’s score is terrific, and the sixties pop soundtrack is outstanding), it’s how Soderbergh and Flack use the editing to guide the narrative and establish the distance.

It really makes you wonder how Dobbs’s script worked; was it fragmented, or did Soderbergh break it up later.

Great performances from everyone. Stamp’s mesmerizing. Fonda, Newman, Guzmán, Katt, Heinle, and Warren are all excellent too. Warren gets the least to do, active character-wise, but is phenomenal doing it. Heinle gets the least character (she could be a figment of Fonda’s imagination for her first two scenes) but makes herself an essential insight to Fonda.

The Limey’s spectacular. Soderbergh and Stamp take it seriously but also not too seriously, and then once everything’s revealed, it’s more affecting than seemed possible. So good.

No Sudden Move (2021, Steven Soderbergh)

I spent most of No Sudden Move hoping against hope it’d somehow end well. Unfortunately, by the end of Move, I’d forgotten it started as a potential pulpy franchise for Don Cheadle (twenty-five years after Devil in a Blue Dress maybe he could get the one he deserved). The third act is such a slog, the stunt cameo reveal is so protracted, and the “real world” reveal is so labored, I’d forgotten what the movie was even ostensibly about.

No Sudden Move, if the stylized opening titles, the stylized music, and the stylized visuals (director Soderbergh and cinematographer “Peter Andrews” shoot the entire thing with slight fisheye lens) don’t give it away, is a series of homages to various film noir classics. There are some very obvious homages, then some less obvious ones, then the ones where recycling now familiar homages thanks to other movies using the same homage device. After a very gimmicky and very effective first act MacGuffin, it’s clear there’s not going to be anything new to Move so might as well enjoy the good acting, directing, and nostalgia.

It works until the third act, which goes entirely awry starting with a very bad stunt cameo. At first it seems like the second half is going to be all stunt cameos but when Kevin Scollin turns out not to be Steve Guttenberg, then the single stunt cameo is just… unfortunate. The twists and turns of the third act are all unfortunate as well; Move’s never ambitious—aggressively racist Italian mob flunky Benicio Del Toro abuse of Black man Cheadle ends in their second scene together and while there’s a little more to the female characters than you’d expect in a fifties noir… there’s not much more (and we’re not counting Soderbergh’s fisheye thing as ambitious, he’s just carrying a gag on too long)—but it’s always pretty good. The film finds a decent balance of dangerous and engaging. It’s never quirky, but it’s occasionally wry.

And Cheadle’s great.

Del Toro’s really good too, but the part’s not as good. Then as the film progresses, Cheadle’s part gets worse and Del Toro’s follows suit. David Harbour—playing the suburban dad whose family is in danger from hired guns Cheadle, Del Toro, and a very effective Kieran Culkin—is third-billed. He gets a lot to do but not really. Ditto cop Jon Hamm. Move assembles a picture perfect cast and gives them very little to do. Cheadle at least gets something to do for long stretches of the film. No one else.

Lots of good acting in the supporting parts. Brendan Fraser’s the guy who puts the job together, Ray Liotta and Bill Duke are the warring local crime bosses who both have it out for Cheadle, Amy Seimetz as Harbour’s wife. There really aren’t any female roles. Seimetz gets more than everyone else, but she’s still mostly there to support Harbour or son Noah Jupe. Jupe’s okay. It’d be better if he were better.

It’d be better if the writing for him were better too.

Hamm in particular is completely wasted.

Harbour’s good, but it’s far from a breakout part or performance. The third-billing is a bit of deceptive aggrandizing.

I’m tempted to give a list of movies to watch instead of No Sudden Move, which is far from the reaction I wanted to have. Even with the fisheye, I was rooting for No Sudden Move and making a lot of allowances for Ed Solomon’s script. But the third act is just too much of a mess. And Soderbergh completely gives up on it with the directing too; after waiting for him to leverage the fisheye the entire movie (there’s maybe one shot of Harbour where the fisheye emphasizes his perspective), Soderbergh has to go high contrast to hide the lack of budget and it looks really, really bad. Twelve year-olds filming toy dinosaurs in their backyards with Super 8s have done better action shots.

No Sudden Move’s not not a waste of time and energy. There’s good acting but for nothing.

Out of Sight (1998, Steven Soderbergh)

Right up until the third act, Out of Sight has a series of edifying flashbacks, which reveal important facts in the ground situation; almost enough to set the start of the present action back a few years. The film starts in flashback, which isn’t immediately clear, and then the series of consecutive flashbacks builds to inform the opening flashback. The film opens with George Clooney getting arrested for a bank robbery, the film proper starts two years later when Clooney’s planning a prison escape.

Or does it, because it’ll soon turn out there’s something from two years before the start of movie with the arrest and it’s really important.

We—the audience—get to know Clooney more through the flashbacks than the present action. In the present action, outside having a strained friendship with ex-wife Catherine Keener (in a fun credited cameo, the film’s got a bunch of both), we don’t learn anything about Clooney except he really, really likes Jennifer Lopez. Lopez is the U.S. Marshal who happens across Clooney’s prison break and he takes her hostage, only for her to outsmart one of his partners, played by Steve Zahn, and escape.

So the movie is Clooney and his partner, Ving Rhames, trying to pull off one last job while Lopez is after Clooney because of professional pride and a bewildered enthusiasm, while Clooney is trying to flirt with Lopez. At no point does Out of Sight not embrace the fantastical nature of their attraction; Clooney’s a weary career criminal, Lopez is a gun enthusiast who likes beating the shit of out bad guys when they deserve it, and she can’t figure out if Clooney deserves it. Those deliberations lead to some inevitabilities, some more tragic than others. All of them wonderful. Clooney and Lopez’s chemistry, under Soderbergh’s lens, Anne V. Coates’s cuts, Elliot Davis’s photography, David Holmes’s music, Scott Frank’s script… is singular. Lopez is great in Out of Sight, while Clooney’s just very, very good. But Lopez is just as singular as their chemistry. And it’s her movie… right up until the third act turns out to be a poorly engineered addition on the actual plot.

If Out of Sight is about Lopez’s Three Days of the Condor with Clooney, it’s pretty great. There’s not enough of a finale scene between the two of them; it’s like Soderbergh and Frank split it up, but what the film’s already established is Lopez and Clooney need to spend more time together, not have more scenes together with a lot less time. It’s a strange bummer because it’s this very obvious rising action and they screw it up. But it’s pretty great. And it’s Lopez’s movie. Obviously.

But if it’s about Clooney’s last big score, which conveniently involves the exact same cast of characters as appear in the flashback so there can be all sorts of neat reveals as the runtime progresses… Out of Sight is a fail. It’s a high fail. But it’s a fail. There’s just not enough of a story to it. Soderbergh’s direction is always great, but Frank’s writing isn’t as invested in the homage to seventies crime thrillers thing Soderbergh is doing. It’s underprepared. Beautifully shot, with some great dialogue, but this aspect of the film feels artificially constrained. Because the actual protagonist in the crime arc ends up being Zahn’s in-over-his-head stoner. Zahn’s fine. He’s not great. He needs to be great for it to work. So even if it weren’t a problem character in the narrative, it’d also be a problem performance. But a fine one. There aren’t any bad performances in Out of Sight, just great ones, good ones, middling ones, and concerning ones (i.e. was Isiah Washington’s terrifying sociopath just his real personality). Soderbergh gets really good performances out of the cameos too (with the exception of Michael Keaton, pointlessly crossing over from another Elmore Leonard adaptation, Jackie Brown). There aren’t a lot of comic moments in the film and Soderbergh clamps down hard on all of them. Keaton’s scene has Dennis Farina elaborately messing with his head in pseudo-polite conversation. Farina’s sadly the least of the good performances. There’s also no meat to the part.

Luis Guzmán gets a good small part in the first act. He’s good. Rhames is good, Don Cheadle’s real good, Albert Brooks is good. Really nice performances from Viola Davis and Nancy Allen, like Soderbergh goes out of his way to showcase their acting. It’s very cool.

Though no one’s real super cool. Out of Sight’s careful with its potential crime glorification. Clooney’s a tragic figure, he just also happens to be George Clooney. Lopez finds herself in his attempt at a fantasy world, one where he lets himself get distracted by their chemistry, then reality—Cheadle and Washington are vicious killers—crashes in. Only not because Lopez isn’t part of the movie in the third act.

It’s also never close. Like. Sight runs a nimble two hours and there’s never a moment you think it’s actually going to work out as well as it should. The third act is a disaster if anyone but Soderbergh and crew are pulling it off. They leverage Lopez and Clooney’s chemistry to get across the finish line; it’s craven.

It’s also real good. It’s a usually faultlessly executed motion picture and Lopez is phenomenal.

Fallen Angels (1993) s01e03 – The Quiet Room

The Quiet Room really, really, really, relies on its twist. The ending is really predictable too; like, director Soderbergh and writer Howard A. Rodman do way too well on the foreshadowing. Because Room is a slightly exaggerated noir–part of the “Fallen Angels” TV anthology–nothing really needs to be foreshadowed. There’s a twist Soderbergh and Rodman set up in the first third, the end just delivers on it in an extreme way. Two twists for the price (or time) of one.

By the last third, when it’s just the countdown to the reveal, both lead performances softly crater. Soderbergh makes sure the lovely Emmanuel Lubezki and luscious Armin Ganz production design slow the descent. But the descent is inevitable because it’s just a noir TV anthology episode. With a source short story. And a somewhat salacious twist, at least as far as noir goes; if Quiet Room were going for homage, it might work better. Instead, it tries to be something different.

Joe Mantegna and Bonnie Bedelia are dirty cops. They’re having a love affair, which no one knows about; besides them, the only significant character is Mantegna’s teenage daughter, Vinessa Shaw (in the most important performance and the consistently worst). Mantegna is a single dad, out all hours because he and Bedelia have a shakedown racket going. Bedelia collars prostitutes and then beats information out of them about their johns so Mantegna can go and shake down the johns. Peter Gallagher has what seems like a great cameo as one of them, but then J.E. Freeman is one of the other ones and he’s freaking amazing in a much smaller role. Freeman walks away with the whole thing. Especially given how it finishes up.

Mantegna is mostly all right. He really whiffs when he needs to make it work. Bedelia’s better. Neither of them get good roles though. It’s all about Freeman though, performance-wise.

Soderbergh’s direction is fine. He’s got a handful of nice shots and does well with the actors. Sometimes well with the actors. There’s only so much to do with the script, especially as it starts barreling towards the inevitable conclusion. Soderbergh doesn’t do anything to slow its descent, much less stop it.

Haywire (2011, Steven Soderbergh)

Haywire’s plotting is meticulous and exquisite. And entirely a budgetary constraint. It’s a globe trotting, action-packed spy thriller with lots of name stars. The action in the globe trotted areas, for instance, is more chase scenes than explosions. Haywire doesn’t blow up Barcelona, lead Gina Carano chases someone down the streets. She doesn’t land a 747 in Dublin, she has a chase scene on the rooftops. And director Soderbergh does phenomenally with those sequences. While Carano’s in real danger and Soderbergh’s shooting realistic DV, David Holmes’s music riffs back to sixties spy movie music and contextualizes things. You still get to have fun watching the spy movie. You’re supposed to have fun. It’s just a different kind of spy movie.

One where the action set pieces are what Carano does, whether it’s stunts or fight scenes, she’s the action. Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs space out the action sequences, sometimes not actually going with a big Carano sequence in the situation. Sometimes the film focuses on her adversaries or allies. Soderbergh and Dobbs do a lot of action thriller without a lot of money.

The film starts with Carano–former Marine and spy-mercenary–is on the run. We don’t know from who, because when Channing Tatum shows up to bring her in, they don’t say the character’s name. It becomes obvious pretty soon, but Soderbergh and Dobbs go through all the motions to give Haywire a conspiracy thriller foundation. They don’t have time to engage with it–or, presumably, money–but it’s part of the film’s texture. Some creative decisions in Haywire just plump up the film. Soderbergh’s not trying to make a low budget spy thriller, he’s making a spy thriller with a low budget. He’s not… chintzing.

So after the first Carano action sequence, the film gets into flashback and explains Barcelona and Dublin, which keep coming up in dialogue. They seem less destinations for major spy intrigue and more stops on a tour group’s European vacation. Nicely, both sequences really pay off. They live up to the hype, even if the hype was really nonspecific so Dobbs and Soderbergh could up the mysteriousness.

Then it’s the flashback catching up to present and the film resolving. Ninety-three minutes of not entirely lean–though subplot-free–narrative. Carano works her way through various other spies and government officials. They’re sort of in glorified cameos, but it never feels like it. The magic of the pacing. Bill Paxton, for example, is in a cameo role. He’s in two scenes. One on the phone. But Dobbs and Soderbergh pace it where Paxton feels like an active supporting player. It’s impressive to see executed. Paxton’s fine–it’s a cameo, he’s got nothing to do–but the feat is how the filmmakers pull it off.

Paxton’s Carano’s dad. Ewan McGregor is her spies for hire boss, Tatum is a fellow spy for hire, Michael Fassbender is a fellow (but British) spy for hire. Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas as government guys who hire spies for hire. Anthony Brandon Wong and Mathieu Kassovitz are the guys the spies for hire go after. No one trusts anyone else. Something Dobbs and Soderbergh take their time addressing, which shifts the film from spy action to spy thriller, both for the film itself and Carano’s understanding of her situation.

So Carano.

As dubbed by Laura San Giacomo.

Yes, really.

Physically she’s great. The stunts, the fighting. It’s all nearly silent–trained killers don’t exchange banter in the seedy international spy ring underbelly of Dublin–so it’s just the fight, just the choreographer, just Carano and the actors and the stunt fighters. The fights are excellent. Soderbergh’s editing and photography, the fighters, Carano–great.

Carano dramatically? She’s really likable. Sympathetic. But the performance is hinky; the dubbing explains it. Carano’s dialogue is already terse so San Giacomo doesn’t really build a character. And the comedy moments are a little off. But it’s fine. Carano does well. The physicality of her performance is spot on. Soderbergh builds the movie–tone-wise–around her action sequences. The chase in middle flashback informs how something in the first act present was done. Exquisite. Always exquisite.

The cameos are all good. Bandares and Douglas have the most fun, though different kinds of fun. Tatum’s good. McGregor’s good. Fassbender’s more just effective. He’s a glorified cameo too. The movie’s Carano, Tatum, and McGregor.

Under pseudonym, Soderbergh also shot and edited Haywire. Technically it’s great. There’s great editing, there’s great photography, seperate sometimes, together sometimes. He does some excellent work in Haywire. With Holmes’s music an essential support. Holmes gets to foreshadow the slight change in tone for Haywire; how the filmmaking, narrative, and music shift gears–the music goes first.

There’s a lot of awesome to Haywire. It’s just an action movie on a budget with a problematic lead performance. The film does well not drawing attention–or even acknowledging–its constraints. But they’re there nonetheless.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Edited, photographed, and directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Lem Dobbs; music by David Holmes; production designer, Howard Cummings; produced by Gregory Jacobs; released by Relativity Media.

Starring Gina Carano (Mallory Kane), Ewan McGregor (Kenneth), Channing Tatum (Aaron), Michael Fassbender (Paul), Michael Douglas (Alex Coblenz), Antonio Banderas (Rodrigo), Anthony Brandon Wong (Jiang), Mathieu Kassovitz (Studer), and Bill Paxton (John Kane).

THIS POST IS PART OF GIRL WEEK 2018 HOSTED BY WENDELL OF DELL ON MOVIES.

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Winston (1987, Steven Soderbergh)

Watching Soderbergh’s first film, Winston, it’s interesting to see what he continued developing and what didn’t exactly make it.

There’s some lovely ambient music here, as Soderbergh opens the film gently, with his two protagonists on the steps of some building at a university. Most of the film is shot around an unnamed university and it’s not quite clear how it figures in to the characters’ lives. Presumably, at least the woman—played by Sherrill Ducharme—attends it or teaches there.

Winston primarily concentrates on one of her suitors, played by David Jensen. She tells him he has a rival and the whole thing starts wearing him down. Soderbergh has a lengthy, beautifully shot (if dramatically questionable) dream sequence in the center of the short.

Soderbergh’s script is better than the performances he gets from Jensen and Ducharme. Both are fine, but the script is even better.

Winston’s nearly perfect.

The Informant! (2009, Steven Soderbergh)

How does Steven Soderbergh pick projects–more, what kind of artist’s statement would he make? The Informant! is his best film–among all his other rather good films–in a while and it owes more to what he learned on Ocean’s Eleven 12 and 13 than on any of his other films. It’s a great time, but it’s a great time with a bunch of humanity. I think I’ve said it before, but one can look at a Soderbergh film and see where he’s learned something from a previous effort but this identification doesn’t hinder the work at all. It’s still brilliant, even if it’s clear he developed some approach or method from, say, Solaris.

I knew, off the bat, The Informant! was going to be amazing for a couple reasons. First, the opening titles. It looks like The Conversation, only with the titles in this goofy font. Then, the music. Marvin Hamlisch. The score’s this amazingly fun, vibrant, colorful thing of its own. It’s incredible to see a nearly mainstream picture with this kind of approach. It makes up for Matt Damon wasting his time in those Bourne movies.

Damon’s performance in the film probably has to be his best, if only because he too is mixing genres. He’s creating a real person, but with all the humor stuff he learned in the Ocean’s films. And Soderbergh’s use of Scott Bakula against type as a sensitive FBI agent.

Or Melanie Lynskey’s outstanding performance as Damon’s wife.

A fantastic film.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Stephen Mirrione; music by Marvin Hamlisch; production designer, Doug J. Meerdink; produced by Gregory Jacobs, Jennifer Fox, Michael Jaffe, Howard Braunstein and Eichenwald; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Matt Damon (Mark Whitacre), Scott Bakula (Agent Brian Shepard), Joel McHale (Bob Herndon), Melanie Lynskey (Ginger Whitacre), Thomas F. Wilson (Mark Cheviron), Allan Havey (Dean Paisley), Patton Oswalt (Ed Herbst), Scott Adsit (Sid Hulse), Eddie Jemison (Kirk Schmidt), Clancy Brown (Aubrey Daniel), Richard Steven Horvitz (Bob Zaideman) and Tony Hale (James Epstein).

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Che: Part Two (2008, Steven Soderbergh)

Bolivia didn’t do Butch and Sundance any favors and it doesn’t do Che any either. Che: Part Two isn’t just a downer for Del Toro’s franchising revolutionary (he’s bringing the revolution to Bolivia, whether they want it or not), but it’s an entirely depressing film too. There’s probably not a positive way to tell this story–Che goes to Bolivia and gets killed–but Soderbergh spends the film’s running time (it’s a breezy two hours ten, moves beautifully, probably because the scenes usually are identified with their respective time in relation to the start of the picture) whacking the viewer over the head with bleakness.

The film opens with the kind of text crawl George Lucas would lust for if he cared about doing a good text crawl, then there’s a beautiful televised Castro address on Che’s situation (Soderbergh films the Castro of the first part, Demián Bichir, discreetly, like they didn’t get him back for Part Two). It’s a simple shot of a television playing the address. It’s just great, really implying Soderbergh’s going to be a lot more visually inventive in Che: Part Two than he was in the first part. Fast forward… he isn’t. Che: Part Two is an entirely different film from the first one (not releasing them with their less interlaced titles would have been a fine move… but Part Two is different enough Del Toro didn’t even, necessarily, have to come back for it).

There’s some beautiful shots as Del Toro arrives, in a wonderful disguise, in Bolivia and finds his way out into the wilderness. But the Bolivian countryside is not a good looking place. Soderbergh got Peter Andrews to shoot it grey. The jungles appear devoid of life. The farmers Del Toro and his comrades encounter seem beyond poverty… nothing could grow in Che‘s Bolivia. Not even a revolution.

Che: Part Two‘s a constant downer, as it’s a film about failure. Che goes to Bolivia to inspire a revolution but he can’t. Revolutions, it would seem, can’t be exported. The film’s barely about Che. After opening in a manner to suggest a deeply introspective examination, Soderbergh immediately pulls back. Instead of following Del Toro around, Part Two splits its attention between the government response to Che (they call the United States, who are all too happy to supply military advisors) and the various members of Che’s small group. Franka Potente–identifiable, presumably, because she’s the only woman in the cast, not because she’s a recognizable film personality–gets one group, then some other guys get emphasis. Matt Damon shows up at one point, proving he’s definitely not Johnny Depp. It’s a distracting cameo.

When the film finally does return to Del Toro, it’s a little late. Del Toro doesn’t have much time and he does great work, but it’s not enough. Soderbergh, for the majority of Che: Part Two (or so it would seem, it moves so fast, it’s impossible to properly gauge the time without clocking it), creates this amazing war film. It’s this cat and mouse war movie, with Del Toro and his guerillas hunted by the numerically superior Bolivian army. Soderbergh creates all this sympathy for the supporting cast, just because they’re so terribly outnumbered.

Che: Part Two is a tad more political than the first installment. The Bolivian president–a fine, if underused, Joaquim de Almeida–is not a good guy. The Bolivian army is not good (and not just because they went after Butch and Sundance). Che: Part Two, at its best moments, is about someone so moved with his dream, he can’t see when the kindling’s failing to catch. The film’s a complete downer.

Lou Diamond Phillips is good in a small part. Alberto Iglesias’s music is fantastic.

It just doesn’t connect.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. van der Veen, based on a diary by Ernesto Guevara; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumárraga; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designers, Antxón Gómez and Philip Messina; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; released by IFC Films.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara), Carlos Bardem (Moisés Guevara), Demián Bichir (Fidel Castro), Joaquim de Almeida (President René Barrientos), Pablo Durán (Pacho), Eduard Fernández (Ciro Algarañaz), Marc-André Grondin (Régis Debray), Óscar Jaenada (Darío), Kahlil Mendez (Urbano), Cristian Mercado (Inti), Jordi Mollà (Captain Mario Vargas), Gastón Pauls (Ciros Bustos), Antonio Peredo (Coco), Jorge Perugorría (Joaquin), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mario Monje), Franka Potente (Tania), Othello Rensoli (Pombo), Armando Riesco (Benigno), Néstor Rodulfo (Miguel), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Aleida March), Norman Santiago (Tuma), Rodrigo Santoro (Raul Castro), Mark Umbers (George Roth) and Yul Vazquez (Alejandro Ramírez).

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Che: Part One (2008, Steven Soderbergh)

There’s a majesty to Che: Part One, the endless, blue Puerto Rican (I think) sky standing in for Cuba. Soderbergh loves that sky. Soderbergh’s Panavision frame doesn’t allow for much in the way of lyricism–I think the first shot of that nature comes in the last twenty minutes of the film. It’s a great looking film throughout, but Soderbergh lets the subject matter control the viewer’s perception. When he finally does throw in this wonderfully composed shot, it gives the viewer pause, reminding him or her it’s just a filmic narrative.

It should be hard to forget Che‘s a narrative–Soderbergh applies some of those masterful filmic pseudo-non-fiction skills he used in Traffic (to a similarly dispassionate result)–since it opens in a rather traditional manner. A (temporarily) unseen Julia Ormond is interviewing Benicio Del Toro about the early days of the Cuban Revolution, the planning days, and–on cue–the film flashes back. This interview–Ormond finally shows up visually following her introduction in the regular narrative–frames the entire film. It’s a traditional move and probably not a good one. Che‘s an epic biopic–it’s essentially the Lawrence of Arabia treatment, if a tad shorter–it doesn’t do anything to break the format. Like most biopics, Che keeps the viewer outside Che’s head. Del Toro gives a great performance, especially since his character is the least dynamic in the entire film.

Che’s a passive character in the film, certainly not as charismatic as Demián Bichir’s Castro. Del Toro infuses the character with a righteousness–there’s never a moment of doubt the man isn’t fully committed to doing what he says. I’d heard the film doesn’t paint Che in a positive light, but I must have had water in my ears. Soderbergh and screenwriter Peter Buchman tell the film from a viewpoint where there’s no way not to see Che as a hero. Che: Part One‘s Communist propaganda to be sure–it’s no wonder it didn’t get a real American distributor–but it’s impossible to imagine it told in any other way. The only time the film ducks out on any responsibility is in terms of Che’s marriage. There’s a big, “I’m married,” revelation scene with adoring revolutionary Catalina Sandino Moreno… immediately followed with Del Toro flirting with her every few minutes. It’s a cheap move–the film goes far to avoid giving too much background on Che, instead letting Del Toro do incredibly heavy lifting creating the character with little story support–the scenes where he’s acting as a physician are incredible, since this element’s introduced early on, so watching the soldier back down in an internal struggle to the physician… it’s lovely.

Soderbergh hasn’t fired Peter Andrews yet and Andrews’s cinematography is beautiful. It’s not just that blue sky, it’s the lush greenness. The last quarter or so of the film is a big urban battle sequence and it’s absolutely amazing. Che‘s never really a war movie, but Soderbergh’s direction of the city-set battle is peerless.

The film’s got a large cast and lots of characters have nicknames, lots have distinctive physical characteristics (so the viewer can recognize them immediately). At times, it feels as though Che wouldn’t be about Che if the film didn’t have the framework (there’s more than the interview, it also covers Che at the United Nations). The film doesn’t do anything to lionize the character in a general sense (it’s impossible to reconcile that iconic image of Che with Del Toro’s creation)–he’s a hero, but because of the way the film’s story is told.

Soderbergh films like Che: Part One always make me forget he’s capable of real emotional depth. It seems like he reserves such explorations of the human condition for his lower budgeted projects. I wish, just once, he’d try the reverse.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Peter Buchman, based on a memoir by Ernesto Guevara; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumárraga; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designer, Antxón Gómez; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; released by IFC Films.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara), Demián Bichir (Fidel Castro), Santiago Cabrera (Camilo Cienfuegos), Vladimir Cruz (Ramiro Valdés Menéndez), Alfredo De Quesada (Israel Pardo), Jsu Garcia (Jorge Sotus), Kahlil Mendez (Leonardo Tamayo Núñez), Elvira Mínguez (Celia Sánchez), Andres Munar (Joel Iglesias Leyva), Julia Ormond (Lisa Howard), Jorge Perugorría (Vilo), Édgar Ramírez (Ciro Redondo García), Victor Rasuk (Rogelio Acevedo), Othello Rensoli (Pombo), Armando Riesco (Benigno), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Aleida March), Roberto Santana (Juan Almeida), Norman Santiago (Tuma), Rodrigo Santoro (Raúl Castro), Unax Ugalde (Vaquerito), Roberto Urbina (Guile Pardo) and Yul Vazquez (Alejandro Ramirez).

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King of the Hill (1993, Steven Soderbergh)

Two major things about Soderbergh’s approach to a memoir adaptation. They’re somewhat connected, so I might not manage to separate them out. King of the Hill has no frame, it has no narration. It has no context. It does not feel, at all, like a “true” story because there’s no attempt to classify itself as a true story. It drops the viewer right in, gives he or she a subtitle notating the setting and time and nothing else. Soderbergh creates, at times, a stylistic euphoria–starts right at the beginning doing it even, maybe the third or fourth scene–and the approach makes King of the Hill different. Even though it’s based on a memoir, by never involving “reality,” Soderbergh makes the plot’s conclusion unsure. Anything could happen.

As innocuous as the story might sometimes get–since Jesse Bradford’s protagonist is so self-sufficient it’s hard to remember he’s thirteen–Soderbergh infuses the film with a constant danger. Sometimes the danger is age-appropriate, sometimes it’s a lot bigger. Around the midway point, I had to remind myself Soderbergh was not telling a story about his youth. I had to remind myself Soderbergh wasn’t alive during the film’s time period, it wasn’t based on his childhood–the film envelops the viewer. Soderbergh immediately establishes his characters and then everything else is experienced at Bradford’s pace. Characters enter and leave the story, with the entire story through Bradford’s perspective. The viewer occasionally gets other things, very brief glimpses from other character’s perspectives, but the whole show is Bradford, which might be why he’s never been able to follow it up.

The other performances are excellent too, with Adrien Brody in the film’s flashiest role. Soderbergh’s cinematic storytelling here is accomplished, there’s no other word. He incites the viewer to figure things out by a character’s presence, not to be cute, but because a successful King of the Hill viewer is a participatory viewer. It might by with the film did so terribly. Also good are Cameron Boyd as Bradford’s brother; Amber Benson as his friend–I find I’m not enumerating the adults as much, which is because of the way the film portrays them. It’s difficult to put them, having just watched the film, in an easy to discuss context. Spalding Gray is quite good in his small part as is Kristin Griffith in her two scenes.

The film’s character relationships are complicated and hard to unravel. Soderbergh manages moments of severe gravity with silence from the characters and Cliff Martinez’s delicate score. Martinez and Soderbergh seem to take some of the tone–and the music’s effect on the tone–from Badlands, which is an odd influence for a movie about a kid–King of the Hill is not a kid’s movie at all. It isn’t a feel good movie. It’s a sometimes unsettling film about survival and self-sufficience. Without ever using the word “depression,” Soderbergh has made one of the best films about the Great Depression.

It’s kind of like Maugham with kids (and in America and during the Great Depression).