The Town review

I still say that Ben Affleck's directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone" is one of the best from an actor turned director. If you've never seen it, seek out ASAP. It's a great crime drama that's also set in the gritty Boston streets, but for as much blood and bruises that are in it there is also a lot of soul and terrific performances. Affleck's "The Town" isn't as strong, but it's still very damn good. Don't walk in looking for a straight away cops and robbers heist picture as there isn't quite as much emphasis on that as there is on the characters of Doug (Affleck) and Claire (Rebecca Hall). The opening is a fast paced and well executed bank robbery in which Doug and his crew including long time friend James (played perfectly by Jeremy Renner) take the money and run out the back, but also take a hostage as a just-in-case situation which happens to be Claire. They let her go, but James takes her drivers license and the next day informs the rest of the crew that the Claire he notices that she lives about four block away from them and could possibly rat them out to the FBI.

Doug decides to take a job tailing her just to make sure that doesn't happen and in the course of things meets and begins seeing her socially. Doug isn't the usual simple hard nosed bad ass robber thug like his buddies; he does have a heart and a brain although throughout the movie to two rarely agree. On the bank robbers tail is FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) who is a by the book, but harder to shake than most cops. And almost just as dangerous as him to Doug is the mystery man behind the gang known as 'The Florist' played by Pete Postlethwaite. It's not a large role, but damn does he make it count. Actually the same can be said of Blake Lively who plays Krista, Doug's ex. Lively mixes trashy sex appeal with actually care. It's an underused character, but she does exceedingly well each time she gets her shot. In the end though all performances were thoroughly fantastic and Affleck has again assembled great talents and pulled from them some fine, fine work including himself.

Now the reason (right now) I don't feel it's quite great is due to it's pacing and conventions. Some of the "The Town" drags a bit and gets dry. Mainly it's when the FBI is playing catch up while will slowly see Doug and Claire's more than likely doom relationship blossom more and more. However... I will say that the final act in my opinion fully elevates the entire picture. "The Town" is a world we've seen and often times seen done a bit better, but how it all pans out in it's novel fashion is lovely, strong and completely convincing. In addition to the great performances Affleck gets out of this cast he also crafts a strong, ear blasting shoot out near the end that is almost at Michael Mann level. There seems to have been a lot of attention places into the bigger pieces of the movie to make them feel authentic, dramatic and visceral as opposed to just being cool. Affleck's pacing sometimes even feels like work done in the 70's by Lumet or Friedkin in the crime genre.

Really "The Town" is really terrific thriller that I may come to fully love down the line. There's a lot of strong work on the screen here that ought to get some awards attention. Despite the weird backlash that Ben Affleck endured in the early 2000's I think it's safe to say it's over. Here is proves to not just be a terrific writer, but also a director and actor. He goes full Boston southie and never turns back once. Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner, who I actually thought DID deserve the Best Actor win for "The Hurt Locker" does the same and does the kind of character work similar to Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas". The difference is how feelings about his character change from beginning to end and the impact he has. I do intend to sit down and re-watch this soon to see how it suits me then, but for know all I can say is if you're looking a for a conventional crime drama that's still got the goods, the action, the emotion and the characters then look no further than "The Town".

2-N-1 reviews (The Wolfman and Brooklyn's Finest)

"BROOKLYN'S FINEST"

TV has nearly killed the gritty joy of cop stories and it sucks. Seriously almost every channel this season has got at least three cop or cop-like shows starting up. Shockingly enough some will succeed even given the high market flooding of the genre. Interestingly enough though is that film wise it's all kind of slowed down. It almost seems like the people still making the occasional cop picture are the ones that have made a name for themselves for doing so. One such person is director Antonie Fuqua of 'Training Day' and 'Shooter' fame. His newest crime opus "Brooklyn's Finest" isn't as strong, but it is an engrossing and entertaining crime yarn all the same.

The film follows three cops, all different very people and working completely unrelated cases. There's Don Cheadle, a cop who's been undercover for what seems to be a year plus with rough gangsters and is tired of it. He wants out and he wants the promotion and desk job he was promised. The wish might be granted, but first he must sell out Casanova; an old friend played by Wesley Snipes. This might be easy, but the two have a history and Casanova saved his life once so there's all those... emotions. Then there's Ethan Hawke who works vice squad doing drug busts. His house is infested with dangerous mold that's slowly effecting his pregnant wife. Furthermore said house is tiny and with two more kids on the way plus the four others... well you can figure that out. So he hatching a plan to take drug money and buy a new house. Lastly there is Richard Gere who is retiring. He's a burn out and alcoholic with no impressive police history, but has done nothing wrong. However slowly he begins to see what he could do to redeem himself in a certain light.

All these actors perform magnificently and Fuqua directs with a much quieter and steadier eye than in many of his past works. The film is as gritty as his others, but is less about crime and all that and more about these people and their lives. Hawke delivers another hot blooded performance that's believable and convincing to his argument as to why he SHOULD take the drug money. His performance sticks out the most, but Cheadle and Gere's also work on a more subtle level. All these character could warrant their own solo pictures and perhaps someone should write a crime film that dwells more how cops view the upside down nature of the law, but together in one film it works too.

"THE WOLFMAN"

I missed Universal's big remake of their monster classic that came out in February and I kind of still wish I had left it missed. Directed by Joe Johnston ('Jumanji' and 'Jurassic Park III'), 'The Wolfman' is hands down one of the worst films of the year and a piss poor attempt at reviving the great genre of gothic horror. First off Benicio Del Toro shouldn't have played the lead Lawrence. Del Toro is a terrific actor, but this is his worst performance that ranges from being boring to being just plain ridiculous. Then we have Anthony Hopkins as his rather insane father who works hard to chew up the scenery like a lion. In fact the only cast members that did work for the film were Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, but it feels like they end up having little to nothing to really do in the film.

It's even more disappointing when Lawrence turns into the wolfman and we're treated to some ok-ish CGI transformations, some cheap looking kills and then a horrible looking wolfman suit that's either lit wrong or was just made poorly. I find both odd considering this was done by legendary makeup artist Rick Baker. I won't even go into the big finale of the movie which seems like something out of a Stephen Sommers film, but shot with less flair.

Johnston has also been like a pick me up director with little style. He can do things well enough and sometimes above average (like 'October Sky'), but then there's stuff like this and it makes you wonder how he gets work. I think here he was aiming for Sam Raimi style oddly enough, but lacks the creativity, humor and madness that Raimi has to pull it off.

Shutter Island review

The sole regret I had after watching "Shutter Island" last night was that more thrillers couldn't have a little of this kind of artistry or this kind of eeriness. There are stomach tightening moments of tension almost throughout the entire 137 minutes of the film and the perfect finale that's emotional and gives you that wonderful fork in the road train of thought, to think about it in different ways. Martin Scorsese has also brought us a film with some of his finest imagery. There are scenes of sheer poetry and horror and all played out in a 60's noir film style. After all the hype and release date shuffling, it was damn well worth the wait.

You've all seen the billions of ads for the film so it's no mystery as to why Teddy (DiCaprio) and Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are headed to Shutter Island. It's also no mystery that everything there seems to either be hiding something or are just being purposely illusive while being interviewed. Ben Kingsley plays the head doctor, Dr. Cawley. First off I want to mention that this is a great role for him after seeing such a great actor in shit comedies like... "The Love Guru" or mediocre action fair like "Lucky Number Slevin", finally we see that old Kingsley that could make you believe anything he says. Cawley isn't as illusive as you might think, in fact he's pretty forthcoming on some levels... but there's always something just out of reach for Teddy and Chuck while talking to him. Then there's the head of the board Dr. Naeharing played by Max Von Sydow. He's a German doctor which begins cementing Teddy's feelings of what's really going on at this mental home.

Like all great film noir, our protagonist is flawed. In the case of Teddy he is constantly haunted by images of his time in World War II. He sees flashes of the frozen dead bodies by train cars and of a Nazi who attempted suicide, but failed and Teddy watched him slowly die in his office. He sees Dolores, his deceased wife. He tries to hold on to her memory as hard as he can, but she always leaves him. He feels some unsung sympathy for this missing patient even though he doesn't know her and her crimes were quite horrible. But in reality there is another reason Teddy has come to that island. This... along with a shit ton of other things I can't tell you. In fact no one should tell you because you need to see it. You need to take this eerie as hell, masterfully made journey.

I will say however that "Shutter Island" may not be for everyone. This isn't for that crowd who goes to see shit like "Prom Night" or "One Missed Call"... yes I know they're very different movies from this, but they both attempt a heavy stroke of mystery to make their films work and they also turn quite a profit to be so shitty. "Shutter Island" is for those who like actually dark movies. Not Tim Burton crap, but movies about killers or monsters, real monsters. This is for people who like "Zodiac" and "Se7en"; for those who can still watch and love Hitchcock pictures and read Kafka. For everyone that digs into Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby", hell probably even his new film "The Ghost Writer".

What Martin Scorsese has done is made a masterful piece of mystery cinema. Seriously the kind of stuff we might get once a year, twice if we're lucky and often goes unnoticed by audiences. Finally though I feel like through the massive promotions and star power behind it, we'll have a mystery flick that'll shine up the box office. DiCaprio gives probably my second favorite performance of his, second only to his Frank Weller of "Revolutionary Road", which was damn find work and his emotional pitch was perfect. In a lot of ways I see Weller in Teddy Daniels, but with that 50's noir scowl making him more movie real, than real life. Ted Levine is one of the dozens of supporting people that I must highlight. In his small role as the warden, he provides a humorous, but creepily insightful dialogue with Teddy about his violent perspective of the world. Michelle Williams provides the best work in the supporting cast as Teddy's wife. Her performance is subtle and coupled with Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson's dream sequences creation makes her moments on screen kill time after time. It just works, even at it's most oddly placed sections.

At the end of the day, when it's all said and done I'm interested to hear what people think. Some will be thrown by the finale; others will love it (like myself), but the key is to make you think for a change. So far this year we've seen some great genre pictures and "Shutter Island" is another great one. In fact I'd wager to say that it's the best film of the spring thus far and had it come out in 2009, would've made it in the ten Best Picture category. Movies like this are why we even bother to go at times. Sure it's not a bunch of giant effects and all that, but it's those stories and that wonderful artistry behind them that make us remember moment after moment. Needless to say I'll be seeing "Shutter Island" again this weekend.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans review

I love contemporary noir films. They hold such bold constructs and characters, have that kind of stark imagery that's foreboding and often show you much seedier places than the average crime picture. All these things are very true in Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" and more. The more being Nicolas Cage creating as kick ass a character as he did. This is the kind of thing he did when he was younger and the dollar signs of big budget adventure spectacles weren't dancing in his head. Hell this is the kind of stuff that got him his reputation and his Oscar. The last time I've been this impressed with him was probably in 2005 with "Lord of War" and "The Weatherman", but this is the type of character where his talents really shine. You see his character Terrence is a junkie. A bad junkie. A junkie cop.

After saving a jailed inmate during hurricane Katrina, he suffered an injury that would give him severe back pain for the rest of his life. He's prescribed painkillers, but after a year or so... well that just ain't enough. He moves on to cocaine.... then heroin and crack cocaine. He has it stolen by friends in the evidence room or he steals it from local youth and drug dealers. But he's not a bad cop. Well... not in the same sense has like Denzel Washington in "Training Day" or something. He does care about what's doing down in the city and he is very good at what he does. Despite all his problems (which he has tons and tons of), he still finds time to deal with issues involving the murder of an entire family in one of the poorer sections of the city. Everyone knows who's behind the murder, a local gangster named 'Big Fate' played by rapper Xzibit; who finally is in a good film AND actually shows that after all his shitty work he CAN in fact actor pretty well.

But perhaps that's credited to the strong writing here and the great character moments throughout the film. Eva Mendas plays Terrence's high class hooker girlfriend. Cage and Mendas' chemistry in "Ghost Rider" might not have worked, but here they conversations and interactions are very believable. They both care for one another as one junkie to another. Mendas plays it noir style, perhaps even more than the other actors. In those films the love interest didn't have much to do in the film and here honestly she doesn't have a ton to do either, but involvement in Terrence's life is important. Because the time spent together that they have displays a slightly more human side and loving side to both parties and by the end you see how that helps everyone. And I shant leave out Val Kilmer as one of the fellow officers, who's a bit more toned down then you'd expect this sort of role, but manages to impress in his few scenes.

Something to remember is that this is... in a sense a "remake" of Abel Ferrer's 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Kietel. However it's only in remake in that they have similar titles and both involve drug addicted cops. The characters are very different and the tone of each film is very different. Herzog's film is really a dark comedy, noir pretending to be a simple crime drama. There's a lot of funny things in the film. I mean they even bring back the ole' Nic Cage flip out scene. You remember those right? Back in the 80's and 90's he had to have at least one scene where he completely flips out on someone for some reason. He's good at it. Last time he really had one of those was in "Matchstick Men". But here's is one of his very best ones. I don't really wanna spoil it, but explaining how a cop, high off his ass on coke, tired and stressed to no end, decides to break into a nursing home and cut off the oxygen to an old woman in order to get information from her nurse, then pull a 45. on the two women and begin screaming about how they're ruining the country well... it's funny either way.

The film has been in limited release for a little over a month now and perhaps it'll spread, but I'm guessing it won't be as wide as some of the other films coming along right now. This picture is gritty and cool in the best sort of ways. Every character has their subtleties and they over-the-top show off moments. Herzog takes chances with plot and visuals as often as he likes without making it look like a test movie and Cage reminds us why he got that Oscar. Perfection.

"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" **** out of ****