April 18, 2013
The Place in the Pines
First I’d like to bitch about the
title. Some key scenes take place in a
wooded area somewhere outside of town, but there’s no real reason for them to
be set there. It’s possible the filmmakers were making a statement about the
duality of human nature – the beast versus the nurturer, but but that would be giving
them too much credit. They've pursued a lot of ideas in this movie with mixed
results but none as lofty as that. For that matter the film could have been called
The Place in the Line at Taco Bell or The Place in the Parking Lot of the High
School.
What you have are three stories told in a linear fashion
that intersect at one time or another. Ryan Gosling continues to push the
envelope with his sullen, misunderstood loner routine that -- it’s possible -- he
has perfected in other movies. Here, he’s a sullen, misunderstood
loner stunt cyclist traveling with a carnival. A one
week stand with a local senorita (Eva Mendes) results in a pregnancy she doesn't tell him about. A year later, the carnival revolves through town and
the cyclist learns he has a son. His earlier departure is proof enough for the mother that he’s not interested in providing for the child and she has taken up with another
man. Yeah, I know, but let’s run with it, shall we?
The Place in the Pines
His attempts to do the right thing ultimately propels him
into the sphere of the next major character, a cop played by the eminently
tortured and torturable Bradley Cooper who becomes a hero and then shows us
that heroes often have sadly flawed personalities. We fast forward 15 years and, you may have guessed, we're dealing with two teenage sons, one who looks like Johnny Depp and the other the spitting image of Brad Pitt. And there’s a brief pause to show us that The Man is corrupt and
runs a corrupt game and those who play are corrupted as well. It all works reasonably well and the A-list
actors do more with the story than the short-sighted script can achieve. This
movie has some decent action/crime with chick-flick overtones, which
makes it a pretty good date movie. So my
recommendation is two sullen, misunderstood loner characters out of four.
Today’s Overlooked Film of Significance: Fracture (2007) Engineering genius Anthony
Hopkins spars with up-and-coming, hot-shot assistant prosecutor Ryan Gosling. They’re both equally matched in a very
suspenseful story.
April 11, 2013
Olympus Has Fallen
Set in the White House, this should
have been the next Die Hard movie for Bruce Willis. Instead he went to Russia and we get “action
superstar” Gerard Butler. Butler is a
great actor and can play the hunky hero, kind to dogs and kids, but he’s no Bruce Willis. On that count, perhaps the
staid Butler is a more appropriate choice to creep along the bombed out hallways
and secret wallways with a dignity better suited to the president’s house.
Whereas Willis’s yippie-aye-kay-yays wouldn’t have been prudent, to paraphrase
a former resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Here terrorists have easily, too easily, taken control of
the White House and the super-secret underground bunker where the chief
executive and vice president are supposed to be super-safe. The president (Aaron Eckhart), veep and most of his cabinet are held hostage
and the fate of the free world again falls into the hands of Morgan Freeman. He
plays the speaker of the house. Just so
you don’t have to review your high school government notes, the speaker is
third in line for the job.
Olympus Has Fallen
The terrorists, North Koreans this time – giving Muslim’s a
break, have fixed things so the army can’t attack and are demanding that the
U.S. military withdraw from the Korean peninsula where we've been similarly
stalemated since Truman fired MacArthur. In one shot, even Morgan Freeman is at
a total loss as to what course to take.
He sits impotent in a Pentagon “situation room” surrounded by billions
of dollars’ worth of the most colorful and complex computer gadgets that
military vendors can sell. Thankfully, at least for the suspense the filmmakers
are trying to build, this administration apparently has no secretary of state,
who might have had an idea or two regarding a resolution. They’re guessing you
have forgotten high school civics.
Ultimately, it’s one man with a gun (and a semi-automatic
rifle, a shoulder-fired missile and a few knives) to save the world.
Yippie-aye-kay yay, indeed. There are
serious holes in the logic of all this big enough to drive an urban assault
garbage truck through. This is the sort
movie best saved for those rainy evenings in the hotel on a business trip where
you can’t figure out how to change the channels. My recommendation is one Hans out of
four.
Today’s Overlooked Film of Significance: RocknRolla (2008) Gerard Butler at his best
as a low-life, East London punk who’s getting a little too old for the hood
life.
