See How They Run (2022, Tom George)

Sam Rockwell can do an English accent. See How They Run occasionally has him use it but mostly has him stone-face while sidekick Saoirse Ronan amiably chatters away. The movie only asks Rockwell to act once or twice; he can do it with the accent. He’s not really a stunt cast because the movie doesn’t have him do anything, so it doesn’t get anything from him. He and Ronan are fine together. She’s the one who acts, he reacts, so their scenes all work off her momentum. For a while, it seems like the film’s building towards them as a duo, which works.

Sadly, it doesn’t end up going there, instead taking an ill-advised diversion involving a big-time Shining nod (though Amanda McArthur’s production design sets it up, lots of red carpets), where detective Rockwell talks to the murder victim at an art deco bar. It’s part of the second red herring suspect—as narrator Adrien Brody (an American film director in London adapting a stage play) would say, comes with the territory in a whodunit. See How They Run constantly reminds it’s a genre piece and shouldn’t be judged too harshly. Usually to modest but satisfactory effect. The problem with the second red herring suspect isn’t the red herring; it’s the lack of a third. They just go right into the finish, which involves bringing in the supporting cast and putting Rockwell and Ronan in a charming but pointless driving montage.

Because once the film inexplicably gives up on Ronan and Rockwell as a duo, it becomes a relatively engaging Agatha Christie spoof. Ronan and Rockwell were just diversions. Though then, the movie ditches the suspect pool to a fantastic cameo and an elaborate in-joke involving Brody’s film director before finally settling on being an unofficial advertisement for the Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the world.

See How They Run is set in 1953, during the first cast’s run, meaning someone is playing Richard Attenborough—Harris Dickinson. Dickinson is 6’1” and change. Attenborough was infamously shorter; pretty sure it was a plot point in at least one picture, if not more (he was 5’7”). The problem with Dickinson is he’s never a suspect. Neither he nor wife Pearl Chanda. It wouldn’t matter except the movie’s short murder suspects.

The first prime suspect is screenwriter David Oyelowo, who doesn’t get along with the victim. He doesn’t get along with the victim, Brody, his boyfriend Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, or anyone else. Oyelowo gets the film’s “and” credit; he’s the closest thing to a stunt cast.

And he’s not up for the task. He’s okay, but never anything more, once too often less. It’s an adequate performance, nothing more. Ruth Wilson and Brody are the other supporting cast members with the most to do. Brody’s amusing as the unlikable American, while Wilson’s only around to fill in backstory for other suspects.

Director George often uses a split screen device to show different characters’ perspectives. It’s almost good once, but it’s a padding gimmick. Run’s artificially enthusiastic.

Luckily, the cast and production are enough to get it through. It’s not a good star vehicle for Ronan, but she’s definitely the star in it. Until the third act, anyway. The third act’s a mess.

See How They Run’s fine. Affable, likable, engaging, disposable, which puts it ahead of the Mousetrap play if the samples are any indication.

The Green Mile (1999, Frank Darabont)

The Green Mile takes place in a world where racism wasn’t really a big problem in 1930s Mississippi—not even grieving father Nicholas Sadler is going to say something racist to the Black convicted murderer of his daughters, Michael Clarke Duncan—but it also takes place in a world where the Christian God is real so… I mean, if you’re going to give them God, might as well let them magic away the racism. Because while the film’s a character study, it’s not about death row cell block captain Tom Hanks overcoming racism—no saviors, white or otherwise, possible here—it’s about him learning the cost of betraying a miracle. But without much religiosity. Screenwriter and director Darabont has to tow a very fine line to pull it all off and tow that line he does. Unwaveringly.

Even in the exceptionally tricky second-to-third act transition. Even at the finish with the lengthy narration. Whatever Darabont tries, he accomplishes, but not without a lot of effort from everyone involved. Green Mile is downright fastidious.

The film opens with old man in a retirement home Dabbs Greer living a somewhat mysterious life. Residents aren’t allowed unaccompanied on the grounds—one imagines it’s Maine, because Green Mile’s Stephen King—but he sneaks out every day to a mysterious cabin in the woods. He’s got a lady friend, Eve Brent, and pretty soon he’s sitting her down to tell his story.

We know younger Greer is Hanks because of one of boldest moves in film narrative—we know Matt Damon’s not going to end up turning into Greer because of a bladder infection. It is the story of Greer’s worst bladder infection, cut to multiple Academy Award winner Tom Hanks essaying peeing with an untreated bladder infection in a prison in Mississippi in 1935.

And from that moment, Hanks nails the part. All the way through the next two hours and fifty minutes or whatever. No matter what happens—no matter who shows up in a stunning performance—it’s always Hanks’s movie, it’s always about his performance. When Darabont’s got to close his bookend, he takes it into account and figures a way to plug it in (though, post-CGI de-aging, there’s now a lot to say about using actors of different ages playing the same part and how it affects the verisimilitude of a picture).

Hanks runs the death row cell block–The Green Mile—as a place of serenity. No reason to agitate anyone. When the film starts, there are two prisoners awaiting execution—Graham Greene and Michael Jeter. The film takes place over a summer, with the time somewhat tracked by the executions. All of the execution scenes are tough, a couple more than others, and Darabont takes the time to inspect the men conducting the executions.

Green Mile’s a man movie. There are a couple significant parts for women, but it’s about the guys. It doesn’t try to comment toxic masculinity, but still does so because of the nature of the piece and of Darabont’s interests in the relationships between the characters. It gets into class a bit—and intentionally—while directly avoiding the race issues; Green Mile is kind of Norman Rockwell Gothic; Capracorn but sour. None of the characters are allowed to express themselves fully at work—Hanks and main work sidekick David Morse have an almost entirely silent understanding of one another—and contemporary, religiously informed gender roles don’t allow them to speak about it at home. But not even the inmates are allowed to express themselves, though sometimes it’s because they’re not able.

For example, Duncan’s character. He arrives almost immediately once the flashback starts, during an incredibly efficient introduction to Doug Hutchison’s vile twerp of a prison guard, and towers over the rest of the cast. Duncan’s just over 6’5” but Morse’s 6’4”, so they exaggerated things. Now, Duncan being a gentle giant—convicted of terrible crimes but afraid of the dark—allows Darabont to keep him passively imposing. More on the scenery than the scenes. Not having Duncan’s lack of character arc be a monumental cop out is kind of Darabont’s most incredible work, at least in how he plotted the script. It does help, of course, Duncan’s character’s initials are “J.C.” Because if you’re going to do space wizard magic, you can be obvious about it.

With Duncan and then final death row addition, Sam Rockwell, we don’t see them experience their time on death row. We see how guards Hanks, Morse, Hutchison, Barry Pepper, and Jeffrey DeMunn react to their experience of it. Greene and Jeter (especially Jeter), we see them experience it. Jeter works as a common ground between the narrative distances, which generally stick to Hanks with occasional exception. Nothing like someone not at Normandy having a video game flashback of D-Day, but, you know, not being present for mouse tricks.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017, Martin McDonagh)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri needs a lot of passes. On one hand, writer and director McDonagh writes really shallow female characters outside protagonist Frances McDormand (well, part-time protagonist). On the other, he’s got a really shallow way of characterizing racists—they’re literally too dumb to know better. And then he’s got this weird way of writing Black characters, only two of whom exist in the aforementioned town. Given they immediately hit it off romantically, it’s weird they never met each other. There’s a third Black character–played by Clarke Peters—but he’s from out of town. And he’s got a way of getting the crackers in line.

There have got to be TV movies from the eighties and nineties with more depth, but not with the caliber of the cast. McDonagh gets a bunch of great performances out of his cast, who have mostly easy parts. Like Sam Rockwell as the numbskull racist stormtrooper deputy? Rockwell can do it. He can do it well. But it also doesn’t take much, which is why the performances seems less impressive after Caleb Landry Jones is able to run their scenes together. Or Zeljko Ivanek. Or Peter Dinklage. Or Lucas Hedges.

Wait, Hedges doesn’t have a scene with Rockwell, but Hedges is great and would be able to run the scene. Because Rockwell’s a victim of sorts too. His momma—Sandy Martin in an odd performance—raised him bad because she’s a numbskull racist too, what else would happen. And if it weren’t for sheriff Woody Harrelson’s terminal cancer, he might have a chance to teach Rockwell to stop torturing Black people in custody–which is a running “joke” for the first act and a bit of the second. Apparently McDonagh wanted to go for the audience who’d laugh at everyone repeatedly talking about torturing Black people but know it’s wrong. The torturing, not the laughing. His audience is very much the people who want to defend the laughing.

Harrelson gives an incredibly phoned in performance as the sheriff, who’s unable to solve the murder of McDormand’s teenage daughter (a good Kathryn Newton in flashback), so McDormand takes out three billboards drawing attention to that inability. Harrelson’s got the cancer subplot, he’s got the wife and kids subplot (though no one in the film is less important than Harrelson’s wife, Abbie Cornish, whose personality is her Australian accent), he’s too busy for a crime solving subplot.

McDonagh works a compelling enough melodrama—though, again, it’s frequently cringe-y and not just because all the guys are with women twenty years their junior and said women are just dehumanized ditz jokes—through the second act, but then fizzles when he tries to make it about the mystery. And the redemption arcs. So much redemption, so many abandoned characters.

If it were better, it’d be a mess, but McDonagh’s never able to pull it off after his first big twist. He’s only got two; neither are good. But the second one is at least in the finale, where there ought to be a big twist. The other one is where there shouldn’t be one so it draws attention and McDonagh never recovers from it.

Technically good performance from John Hawkes as McDormand’s abusive ex-husband who regularly beats her in front of their kids, which the kids have normalized and turned into a joke. Does Hawkes make the situation believable? No. But he’s good. Samara Weaving’s good as his nineteen year-old girlfriend who apparently supports him on her wages at a petting zoo or something.

Brendan Sexton III has an appropriate cameo, but it’d have worked better if I’d known it was him. Nick Searcy has a good cameo, but his name’s not on the movie because I think it came out he was too racist even for a vaguely edgy production like this one to promote. It’s in the first act when McDonagh’s writing for McDormand is best. Great scene.

Ben Davis’s photography is fine. McDonagh shoots it Panavision and can’t fill the frame, which is a bummer. Carter Burwell’s there to remind you Frances McDormand was in a Coen Brothers movie once so if you watch through half-closed eyes it seems like a Coen riff on a redneck gothic melodrama character piece. Only the movie ditches McDormand and switches to Rockwell in the third act to give it a very literal ending for the people in the audience who weren’t paying enough attention.

Otherwise, McDonagh’s direction is good. He’s very good with the cast. The problem’s his lack of insight.

McDormand’s good enough to carry it too, so when he shifts it to Rockwell, who can’t because it’s a nothing arc, way too little, way too late, Ebbing takes a big third act stumble.

It’s fine, actually. If it had a good finish with all the icky bad asterisks on it, it’d be worse. Once it’s clear McDormand and Rockwell don’t have great parts and Harrelson’s out of it… it’s fine. Just with a bunch of asterisks.

The Best of Enemies (2019, Robin Bissell)

Chris Rock has a joke about waiting to see if the evening news—it’s an old joke—report on a crime is going to have a Black perpetrator or a White one, just so he (Rock, a Black man) can figure out if his white coworkers are going to ask him if he knew the perp (if he’s Black).

In other words, I had to check and see if Best of Enemies writer, director, and producer Robin Bissell was a White person. He is. He’s also fifty, which… isn’t a demographic to be making The Best of Enemies in 2019. Or ever, really. There was never a good time for a fifty year-old White guy to make a movie about a North Carolina Klan leader in the early seventies realizing Black people are people because they can be nice to him. Best of Enemies is basically the reverse of those White “liberals” who tell Black people to stop complaining or they’ll have to vote GOP next time when, in reality, you know they all voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein anyway. It’s about lead Sam Rockwell—the aforementioned Klan leader—realizing not just Black people are people but also how the system is rigged against poor Whites and Blacks alike and that rigging seems to be the point.

Less on the second part, however, because it might be interesting to see that development in Rockwell’s life and the film avoids any interesting developments.

I’m going at Enemies a little harder than usual for a few reasons. First, Taraji P. Henson is top-billed. She’s the Black woman community organizer who works with Rockwell and contributes to his ability to see the humanity in… you know, humans. Rah for him, sure, but a movie? Not sure it’s worth a movie. Especially since the movie sets itself up to be this great anti-buddy buddy pic between Henson and Rockwell and it’s not. Henson, it’ll turn out somewhere in the very lengthy two hour plus runtime, is red herring. She’s got nothing to do in the movie. Not even supporting player scraps after the movie shoves Rockwell into the lead. So The Best of Enemies, which ostensibly is about two “born enemies”—a Klan leader and, you know, a Black person—becoming something together, is really just a White Savior movie for Rockwell. And he’s not even the most interesting White Savior in the picture.

John Gallagher Jr.’s the most interesting White Savior. He’s just in a bit part, which is too bad because he’s a lot more useful a character than some of the bigger stunt casts in bit parts—fifth-billed Wes Bentley, for example; around to be the creepy, greasy Klan guy who you think is going to crack and kill someone.

And then there’s Nick Searcy, who’s—as usual—quite good. This time he’s quite good as a piece of shit upper class racist who gets Rockwell’s poor White Klan boys to do his dirty work. Is the film aware of… Nick Searcy’s optics? Like. You can leave a lot at the door. You can’t leave Nick Searcy at the door. It’s not a good enough part for it really to be worth it. Though no one’s part is really good enough.

Henson’s great. Even after Bissell’s scared to give her scenes with other Black people. Or maybe he’s not scared. Maybe he just doesn’t have the interest in her story. She and Rockwell are working on a charrette, which doesn’t make the Apple dictionary (says something, I imagine), and is “any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem.” The problem in Enemies is school integration. Rockwell and Henson end up co-chairs, forced into working together by facilitator Babou Ceesay. Cessay’s in town doing the charrette because the judge doesn’t want to have to rule on school integration and wants to pass the buck.

It’s not a metaphor for the film’s proclivity for passing the buck, but only because Bissell wouldn’t know how to do a metaphor.

Technically, the film’s fine. It’s clearly on too low of a budget to do the period well. Almost no extras in the exteriors of strangely empty streets and so on. Bissell’s not bad at composition. He’s perfectly pedestrian, which does the film no help in getting over the budget constraints. Presumably most of the money went to Rockwell and Henson, who both do their best, but… there’s only so far they can go with the script and what the script gives them. Or, in both their cases, what the script doesn’t give them. Henson just doesn’t get material. Rockwell gets material but no character development arc. The whole point of the movie is shitbag racists are people too but Bissell never wants more than a caricature from Rockwell. Maybe a 3D one, but still just a caricature. You can see Rockwell getting bored in Enemies. The part doesn’t give him anything to do. Not really. Not sincerely. Some of his best scenes in the movie ought to be the ones where he’s just hanging out with wife Anne Heche, only there’s so much expository dumping in those scenes—because Heche isn’t a big-time racist, she just loves one. So she makes him different than the Bentleys or the Searcys of the film. Her and Rockwell having a son with Downs in the South in 1971 and still, you know, loving him. Best of Enemies exploits its cast in a lot of ways—after a while, if she’s not just building up Rockwell’s humanity, Henson’s part is reduced to crying helplessly—after a certain point, Bissell can’t even pretend he’s not just objectifying anguish… but no one gets it worse than Kevin Iannucci as the son. Bissell’s a callous filmmaker.

Probably because he can’t figure out how to make the movie work. Possibly because it’s not Rockwell’s movie but Bissell can’t imagine it any other way.

It’s a waste of the cast. Maybe not Bentley but everyone else. Bentley’s fine he’s just not promising. Everyone else is at least promising. Like Bruce McGill. Or Nicholas Logan, who’s creepy as the bland blond Klan redneck (versus Bentley’s greaser one, who needs a Johnny Reb cap to be distinct).

Really good songs on the soundtrack. Seventies stuff. Because they were listening to early Bowie in South Carolina in 1971. It’s Bissell bumbling his way through softening the audience with nostalgia.

Is there a good movie in the true story? Probably. The clips over the end credits of the real people Rockwell and Henson are playing is a better movie than the previous two hours and five minutes and they’re just clips.

There’s some good acting work in the film and Jeannine Oppewall’s production design is good and whoever did the line producing did well, but… The Best of Enemies is way too shallow. Bissell knows there’s a movie in the story, he just can’t find it. Especially not in his script.

Lawn Dogs (1997, John Duigan)

There’s a lot going on in Lawn Dogs. Lots of good things, lots of strange things, lots of bad things; the worst is probably housewife Kathleen Quinlan’s lover molesting her daughter, Mischa Barton. The film doesn’t want to deal with it. Lawn Dogs is lots of visual splendor, courtesy director Duigan and cinematographer Elliot Davis–set in a affluent Kentucky subdivision–and the film uses that visual splendor and the film’s general quirkiness to pivot away from ever dealing with the more difficult elements. On one hand, the story needs it to maintain its lyrical quality. On the other, it means there’s only so far the film can get.

Because even though it’s from ten year-old Barton’s perspective, it’s filtered. Barton knows what’s going on with mom Quinlan and the late teenage lover, David Barry Gray, but never shows how that knowledge affects her. She gets around to telling her parents–Christopher McDonald is the dad–about it, only to recant because Gray’s father is more affluent than McDonald and McDonald’s got political ambitions; Barton then recants. For a moment, Quinlan is about to become more than a precisely performed caricature and then Lawn Dogs drops that idea. McDonald only gets some depth at the very end, so it’s exactly disappointing but it’s a definite decision Duigan and writer Naomi Wallace are making with the narrative distance. These people are pushed back. Barton’s closer, Sam Rockwell–as the neighborhood lawn mower and Barton’s secret buddy (Rockwell’s twenty-one)–is closer. But McDonald and Quinlan? They’re so far back and so two dimensional and played for such dark humor, they don’t even cast shadows.

At the start of the film, Barton–who’s recovering from two open heart surgeries and being a social pariah before the family moved back to Kentucky for McDonald’s political ambition–happens across Rockwell’s trailer. He runs her off, she keeps coming back. Eventually he relents and allows himself to be befriended. The film is split, mostly, between Barton and Rockwell. While Barton gets a lot of time but not a lot of insight (she’s ten after all and living partially in a fairytale of her own mental construction), Rockwell gets a little less time but there’s the insight. It’s subtle, but it’s clear. Wallace’s script makes sure–without exposition–Rockwell’s character is clear. The most efficient aspects come when it’s how the rich people treat Rockwell, the subtle ways they humiliate him and, in some cases, objectify him. And his poverty. There’s a lot about class in Lawn Dogs, even if Barton’s too young to really understand it and Rockwell’s not going to talk about it. It’s quietly devastating; he wants to protect her from the damage she does with her privilege. She’s ten, after all.

Bruce McGill is the subdivision rent-a-cop. He’s worked his way up; not enough to live in the subdivision, but enough to crap all over Rockwell every chance he gets. McGill’s got the third best part in the film. He’s just pretending to be a caricature so he can fit in with the rich people.

The film hints at a timeline–Barton’s got her last heart doctor checkup–but doesn’t stick to it. It’s about she and Rockwell’s friendship and how the discovery of it destroys lives. Along the way, there’s a bit of fun, a lot about how living with crappy parents McDonald and Quinlan weighs on Barton (even if she can’t express it), and then some about Rockwell. There’s this vignette, completely separate from the rest of the film, where they visit his parents–Beth Grant and Tom Aldredge–in a mobile home park.

From the first shot of the park, it’s clear this lower working class existence is far more rewarding than the sterile perfection of the subdivision. Kids playing, for instance. In the subdivision, there’s only this one other kid–Miles Meehan–who’s younger than Barton and an already accomplished sociopath. The interlude with Grant and Aldredge, which deepens Rockwell’s back story without actually informing his character at all, is fantastic stuff. It just doesn’t much matter to the rest of Lawn Dogs because even if Barton gets to see Rockwell’s soul laid bare… she can’t really understand it. She’s ten.

One of the film’s greatest successes–of the actors, the direction, and especially the script–is never to make Rockwell and Barton’s friendship creepy. Rockwell’s character is aware of its inappropriateness, but he’s filled with (a previously unknown ability to capacity for) compassion for Barton. Meanwhile Barton has cast Rockwell in her mental fairytale, though his role keeps changing. Though the fairytale thing is really only first and third act. It doesn’t keep up through the second, which is too bad. At least in Barton’s understanding of her life through the fairytale’s lens, there’s some effort to show her understanding.

The acting from the leads is great. Rockwell’s better, obviously, because some of Barton’s performance is just about being a naive kid. It doesn’t always need a lot. Duigan and editor Humphrey Dixon edit the performances to maximum effect. It’s not so much Barton is wise beyond her years than Rockwell isn’t wise enough for his own. They’re wonderful together.

Good music from Trevor Jones; he toggles ably the cockeyed modern fairytale, the yuppie condemnation, the rural poverty, and the working class redemption. Again, there’s a lot going on in Lawn Dogs and–at the very least–Rockwell and writer Wallace (and McGill) get it. Even if Duigan wants to avoid it by doing some gorgeous composition with cinematographer Davis. The film’s gorgeous and quirky and intentionally distracted from itself.

The other supporting performances–Eric Mabius as Gray’s friend and a rich boy with an illicit crush on Rockwell, as well as Angie Harmon as a rich girl having an illicit affair with Rockwell–are good. Gray’s the weakest performance in the film, but also the thinest part. He’s just a dangerous predator.

McGill is really good. He gets overshadowed, sure–and rightly, Barton and Rockwell are great–but he’s really good.

Lawn Dogs is an accomplishment. Just could’ve been more of one if Duigan and Wallace wanted to deal with the tougher issues they raise instead of avoid them.

3/4 ★★★

CREDITS

Directed by John Duigan; written by Naomi Wallace; director of photography, Elliot Davis; edited by Humphrey Dixon; music by Trevor Jones; production designer, John Myhre; produced by Duncan Kenworthy; released by The Rank Organisation.

Starring Mischa Barton (Devon Stockard), Sam Rockwell (Trent Burns), Christopher McDonald (Mr. Stockard), Kathleen Quinlan (Mrs. Stockard), Bruce McGill (Nash), Eric Mabius (Sean), David Barry Gray (Brett), Angie Harmon (Pam), Beth Grant (Mrs. Burns), and Tom Aldredge (Mr. Burns).


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Mr. Right (2015, Paco Cabezas)

Mr. Right has shockingly poor direction. Daniel Aranyó makes the shots look good, though the CG-assisted bullet time thing is bad, and Tom Wilson’s editing is perfectly competent, but director Cabezas is really bad. He shoots the film with a Panavision aspect ratio and does not know what to do with that frame so it looks like, frankly, someone has cut the top and bottom off.

I suppose he does okay with the long shots. Or at least better with them than anything else. When Sam Rockwell, who plays the title character (he’s a hitman, it’s supposed to be an ironic moniker), dances around and beats guys up and then kills them? One can imagine how Mr. Right might work with a better director and a significant rewrite. Cabezas wastes the New Orleans location shooting; no one is supposed to be able to waste New Orleans location shooting.

The film also wastes Tim Roth, though maybe not. Maybe Roth has just gotten past the point of caring, which might explain his phoned in performance. At least Rockwell can be indifferent to the bad material and still enthusiastic. He does have to carry his love interest, Anna Kendrick, through a lot of the stupidity. Kendrick should be the film’s protagonist, but she’s not. Instead, she’s just the girl. It’s weird since the movie opens with her and she gets most of the first act.

Rockwell doesn’t even get a name until almost halfway into the picture, so it really ought to be Kendrick’s show. She’s affably annoying but she does try. Trying counts in a film like Mr. Right because actors trying is all there to a film when the direction is so hapless.

Good supporting turns from James Ransone and Anson Mount should help the film a lot more than they do. RZA is likable and almost good but not exactly. Max Landis’s script is all about broad humor and Cabezas can’t direct it. It’s astounding Rockwell is able to power his way through the material, even more impressive he’s able to bring his costars along with him. It’s unfortunate he has to carry Kendrick; she ought to have enough to do to get through on her own, but no. Landis and Cabezas give her less and less as the film goes on.

Also good support from Katie Nehra, who has a thankless part as Kendrick’s friend.

Michael Eklund is not good. It would help if he was good. He’s second fiddle to Ransone’s comedy villain.

Mr. Right has its charms–Rockwell and Kendrick, who don’t exactly have chemistry but they do appear to be having fun. While it should be much better, it could be a lot worse.

1/4 ★

CREDITS

Directed by Paco Cabezas; written by Max Landis; director of photography, Daniel Aranyó; edited by Tom Wilson; music by Aaron Zigman; production designer, Mara LePere-Schloop; produced by Bradley Gallo, Michael A. Helfant, Rick Jacobs and Lawrence Mattis; released by Focus World.

Starring Sam Rockwell (Dancer), Anna Kendrick (Martha McKay), Tim Roth (Hopper), James Ransone (Von Cartigan), Anson Mount (Richard Cartigan), Michael Eklund (Johnny Moon), Katie Nehra (Sophie), Jaiden Kaine (Bruce) and RZA (Steve).


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Poltergeist (2015, Gil Kenan)

It’s hard to imagine Poltergeist being any better. Even if director Kenan was any good, there’d still be David Lindsay-Abaire’s atrocious screenplay, and even if both those elements were any good, there’d still be the acting. And even if the acting was better–and a better script would probably help on that front–there’d just the photography and editing and music.

Poltergeist is so broken, there’s just no point in fixing it.

There’s no point in talking about Kenan at length. He’s bad with actors, he can’t make scary scenes, he can’t compose a shot. Without a major gimmick, there’s no point for a Poltergeist remake and Kenan’s got nothing. Unless the producers thought the problem with the original was it was too good so they figured out a way to make it bad (Lindsay-Abaire’s script plays like a truncated version of the original).

Are any of the actors good? No. Jane Adams is odd comic relief; in some ways, Jared Harris is the best as the celebrity ghost hunter just because he’s not so obviously phoning it in. Though it’s possible the reason Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt’s performances are so mediocre is because they could never figure out what Kenan was doing with the camera.

The film makes Rockwell and DeWitt’s son, Kyle Catlett, the ostensible protagonist. Except the film doesn’t seem to understand how protagonists work. Because it’s so inept.

Poltergeist is too incompetent a film to be a cynical remake. It’s actually rather pitiable.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002, George Clooney)

As the dangerous mind in the title (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), Sam Rockwell should be entirely unsympathetic. The film spends its first act mocking Rockwell and inviting the viewer to participate. With the exception of his chemistry with Drew Barrymore’s saintly character, there’s nothing redeeming about Rockwell’s character. Yet he’s tragically endearing.

The film is based on Chuck Barris’s autobiography, where the game show host says he worked as an assassin for the CIA. Charlie Kaufman’s script–and Clooney’s direction of that script–never really raises a question about it. Even though there are real entertainment people giving interviews (it opens with Dick Clark’s recollections of Barris), Clooney approaches the spy stuff straightforward. It’s the story of a successful showbiz guy who was a spy.

The conflicts caused by that absurd contradiction are where Confessions devastates. The relationship between Rockwell and Barrymore, which is a third plot line, separate from both the spy stuff and the TV stuff, doesn’t actually give the film its humanity, it gives it its emotional veracity. Rockwell, who’s phenomenal throughout, has a lot more acting hurdles to jump in the spy stuff–the TV stuff is almost straight comedy. The romance with Barrymore is a period piece but is intricately tied to the reality of the film.

It’s great. Clooney and Rockwell do a great job. Rockwell’s breathtaking, Barrymore’s good, Clooney’s got a small part, Julia Roberts has a small part–they’re both really good.

Confessions is flashy and noisy and precise and singular.

4/4 ★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by George Clooney; screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, based on the book by Chuck Barris; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by Stephen Mirrione; music by Alex Wurman; production designer, James D. Bissell; produced by Andrew Lazar; released by Miramax Films.

Starring Sam Rockwell (Chuck Barris), Drew Barrymore (Penny Pacino), George Clooney (Jim Byrd), Julia Roberts (Patricia Watson) and Rutger Hauer (Keeler).


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Better Living Through Chemistry (2014, Geoff Moore and David Posamentier)

Given its ninety minute length and having Jane Fonda perform the comically explicit narration, it might be easy to dismiss–or just describe–Better Living Through Chemistry as a genial amusement. Certainly lead Sam Rockwell can do this role in his sleep. He's a small town pharmacist in a bad marriage (Michelle Monaghan is great as the controlling wife); his father-in-law runs his life, his teenage son is starting the awkward years, no one takes him seriously.

Except unhappily married trophy wife Olivia Wilde.

What actually makes Chemistry so different is how writers-directors Moore and Posamentier seem to have no idea what they're doing. There are all sorts of tangents the film goes on, all sorts of great little moments between Rockwell and Monaghan then later Rockwell and Harrison Holzer (as his son). It's all over the place, with the affair between Rockwell and Wilde ostensibly the foundation of the narrative.

Only it's not. It's a device to go into a series of rapid comic set pieces–as Rockwell tumbles out of control, only everything turns out to be regimented. All of these set pieces go well, thanks to Rockwell and his abilities in both physical comedy and just lovably obnoxious. There's no heavy lifting for the actors in Chemistry, except maybe Holzer, but strong, assured performances in a well-written, if unambitious picture, isn't a bad thing at all.

Nice supporting work from Norbert Leo Butz and Ken Howard rounds things off.

Chemistry is controlled and it's calculated and it pays off well.

2.5/4 ★★½

CREDITS

Written and directed by Geoff Moore and David Posamentier; director of photography, Tim Suhrstedt; edited by Jonathan Alberts; music by John Nau and Andrew Feltenstein; production designer, Heidi Adams; produced by Joe Neurauter and Felipe Marino; released by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Starring Sam Rockwell (Doug Varney), Olivia Wilde (Elizabeth Roberts), Michelle Monaghan (Kara Varney), Norbert Leo Butz (Agent Andrew Carp), Ben Schwartz (Noah), Ken Howard (Walter Bishop), Jenn Harris (Janet), Peter Jacobson (Dr. Roth), Harrison Holzer (Ethan Varney), Ray Liotta (Jack Roberts) and Jane Fonda (Jane Fonda).


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All Hail the King (2014, Drew Pearce)

It's too bad All Hail the King wasn't the epilogue to Iron Man 3. It's a continuation of Ben Kingsley's story from that film and it's the best thing out of Marvel. At fourteen minutes.

Writer-director Drew Pearce only has three scenes in the film–he uses a montage opening to establish, so maybe three and a half. He gives Kingsley a bunch of great lines and a fantastic plot. It eventually follows up on elements from all three Iron Man movies. It's a humorous wink at the idea of dropped subplots and forgotten supporting characters.

In addition to the dialogue and the acting–Scoot McNairy and Lester Speight are also great–Pearce's direction is outstanding. He has numerous jokes throughout, often letting them develop from a dramatic situation. That approach works perfectly with Kingsley's British stage boob.

While it's a showcase for Kingsley, it's equally one for Pearce. King is near perfect.