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Film Review: Contraband

By
Chris Scott
– January 29, 2012Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are the entirely watchable but ultimately forgettable movies. Mark Wahlberg’s latest thriller, Contraband, sadly falls into the third camp.

Contraband is, at its core, a simple heist movie. Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, a retired smuggler who is pulled back into the game when his brother-in-law runs afoul of a local drug runner after botching a job. Farraday’s plan to set things right is to smuggle large shipment of counterfeit currency out of Panama. He assembles his crew, a motley cast of characters that are given far too little screen time, and lays out his plan. Of course things of this nature never go quite as they are planned.

All of this would work if there was an ounce of tension in any of the scenes involving Farraday and his team but Contraband plays like a paint by numbers heist film. The situations Farraday finds himself in are so overly contrived that it kills any potential tension the film may have had.

Fortunately, the film does deliver some solid tension away from the heist itself. Farraday’s wife, played by Kate Beckinsale, and kids are stalked and terrorized by drug runner Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi). This forces Farraday to call in his best friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) to watch over his family resulting in quite a few plot twists and tense scenes. The performances by Foster and Ribisi are the shining spots in the film, with Ribisi in particular delivering something that is borderline absurd but perfect for his role.

The biggest problem with Contraband is that as a heist film, it cheats the audience the satisfaction of seeing everything executed. Farraday’s plan changes in the last act but the audience is never filled in on the new plan and the final piece of the heist’s execution is completely glossed over. This is a standard trope of the genre but normally the film lets the viewer see the execution after the fact, this never takes place in Contraband, leaving audience to just accept it all which ultimately may leave some viewers unsatisfied.

Contraband is entirely enjoyable as a time waster but it is also not anything more than that. Like many new releases in January, the film is just a forgettable piece of cinema.

3/5

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Film Review: The Devil Inside

By
Chris Scott
– January 25, 2012Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

Considering that found footage films rely on convincing their audiences that what they are watching actually happened, it is surprising to me that more films have not explored the subject matter of exorcism. There have been some, The Last Exorcism most notable among them, but for the most part, found footage films have steered clear of the art of expunging demons from the possessed. That makes The Devil Inside an anomaly of sorts because it deals with the subject matter head on.

The Devil Inside starts out in 1989 with footage from police cameras and news reports at a grisly crime scene where three members of the Catholic Church were seemingly murdered by Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley). Maria is deemed insane and, for some reason, carted off to Rome to be treated by experts. Fast forward to present day, Maria’s daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), finds out from her dying father that the murders her mother committed took place during an exorcism. And so Maria sets out for Rome to explore the case, complete with her documentarian friend Michael (Ionut Grama).

The setup is solid enough but the film quickly squanders it. There are a number of story points that just do not fit with the overall film. Filming segments of an exorcism class run by the Vatican, introducing the audience to a pair of rogue priests that perform exorcisms outside the authority of the Church, and a hospital that allows anyone with video cameras to come and examine their patients. It all seems overly convenient and staged, which goes against the very nature of the found footage style of film making.

Even worse though is the fundamental filmmaking that takes place. Michael is supposed to be a documentary filmmaker chronicling Isabella’s discoveries, yet he somehow manages to have worse camera work than some high school filmmakers. The camera shakes all the time, even in interview segments where it should have been mounted on a tripod.

As bad as the stilted plotting and amateur filmmaking is, The Devil Inside could have overcome them if it had managed to be even slightly scary. It is not. When the scariest part of a supernatural horror film is a dog barking, things have not gone very well.

The entire production screams amateur hour. If someone were to have told me that The Devil Inside was a senior film project, I would not have been surprised. It would not make the film any better but at least its execution would be understandable. There is no excuse for writer/director William Brent Bell and his writing partner Matthew Peterman, the duo responsible for the reprehensible video game horror film Stay Alive in 2006. They have been around long enough that they should know better.

Found footage films are cheap to produce but there are examples of the style working quite well. There is little doubt that the subjects of possession and exorcism fascinate movie going audiences, it is just a shame that Hollywood preys on those audiences with drivel such as The Devil Inside. Ending aside, The Last Exorcism handles the subject matter in such a way that puts this film to shame. If you are looking for a solid film of this ilk, go watch that instead.

1 / 5

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Film Review: “The Thing”

By
Jeff Derrickson
– October 24, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

Nearly everything you need to know about “The Thing” is right there in the title.  The film is technically a prequel that leads directly up to the events in John Carpenter’s 1982 version of “The Thing,” but it feels more like a mediocre, creatively bankrupt remake.  They couldn’t even think of a new title.  And like the creature of the title, it poorly imitates its source material before falling apart into an ugly mess.

In this premake, we get to find out what happened to the other group of scientists who originally discovered the alien in John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”  After a group of Norwegian scientists finds both the alien and its spaceship buried in Antartica, Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) recruits paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) all the way from America to provide her expertise.  The only help she provides before trouble starts is telling them it should take about half a day to cut the alien out of the ice, something they could have figured out by, I don’t know, cutting the alien out of the ice.  And that’s just the first in a long series of plot holes, half baked ideas, and other stuff that doesn’t make much sense.

For instance, at one point the thing gets on a helicopter ride back to civilization but for some reason decides to expose itself while the helicopter is still taking off.  If it’s smart enough to pilot a spaceship, why would it do that?  Come to think of it, since the spaceship is (spoilers!) still functional, why doesn’t it just try to escape Earth as soon as it thaws?  In another scene ripped from John Carpenter’s superior film, they attempt to do a blood test, but the thing burns down the lab.  So in this version they replace the blood test with Kate pointing a flashlight into other scientists’ mouths looking for fillings, because the thing can’t imitate inorganic matter.  Not only is the test flawed enough that the movie points it out, but the newly introduced theory makes me wonder how its imitations wear the victims’ clothes.  Part of the problem is that the thing’s intelligence and abilities are poorly defined in both films.

Then again, John Carpenter’s “The Thing” isn’t revered for brilliant plotting.  The film is about paranoia and amazing gross-out effects, and it’s here where fans will be most disappointed.  The tension created by characters who can’t trust each other because any of them could be the thing is equaled in this premake, but an opportunity to up the ante is missed, especially considering there is a language barrier between them.  The film could have capitalized on half of the scientists speaking Norwegian and the other half speaking English; instead, we’re left with a dimwitted scene where Kate searches for fillings in her peers’ teeth.  And, of course, the biggest sin is committed in the effects department.

Most people I know prefer practical special effects over the CGI of today.  The combined artistry of makeup, puppets, and buckets of blood tends to be more convincing and textured than the most advanced effects computers can currently produce, despite Hollywood’s insistence on the latter.  Nowhere is the reliance on CGI more offensive than in “The Thing,” even though it feels like director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. wanted to honor the classic.  There are practical effects, but they are nowhere near as abundant as the serviceable CGI.  This should come as no surprise considering current trends in film, but it’s more egregious here because John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is remembered for its amazing special effects.  Bottom line, there is no excuse for the effects in this version of “The Thing” to look worse than its inspiration, which is nearly 30 years old.

So what’s the point?  The film is watchable, but so are most films, and that doesn’t mean they’re worth watching.  Since so much of the film is an inferior retread of the 1982 classic masquerading as a prequel, you’re better off watching John Carpenter’s version.  With a creature as flexible as the thing, there was an opportunity to go wild with the franchise, but the film lacks any new ideas and instead sticks too closely to the original while simultaneously discarding what made it great.  Again, what’s the point?

 

2 out of 5 stars

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Film Review: “Drive”

By
Jeff Derrickson
– October 2, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

“Drive” has been marketed as a gritty action flick, and more specifically a car chase film, and because of that it is bound to disappoint people expecting dumb fun akin to a “Fast and the Furious” movie.  The trailers misleadingly emphasize the action elements of what is essentially an art house crime thriller that slowly builds toward shocking violence.

Ryan Gosling stars as the nameless Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a heist wheelman.  Throughout, he remains a mysterious loner who doesn’t say much.  We’re given just enough to suspect that he could be mentally unstable and capable of violence.  After he moves into a new apartment, he begins to form an unhealthy relationship with a neighbor down the hall, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son, Benicio (Kaden Leos).  He latches onto them to give his life meaning and makes their problems his own.  Both the plot and main character feel heavily inspired by “Taxi Driver,” with the exception that Driver has skills that propel him toward his fate, instead of mere loneliness and creeping madness.

Much of the first half of the film focuses on a budding-but-doomed romance between Driver and Irene, and it is this section in particular that will turn off hardcore action fans.  Even fans of love stories might start checking their watches.  Their romance isn’t developed with cute humor or dialogue, but desperate sideways glances and gestures of kindness, and it doesn’t safely and predictably build toward the guy getting the girl.  Instead, when Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is freed from prison, Driver decides to protect the family by helping him do one more job to get him out of the game.

It is at this point that things begin to fall apart in thrilling fashion.  There is a car chase or two (three in total in the film, one at the opening), and people start to drop like flies.  If you’re not on the edge of your seat in the second half of “Drive,” you either don’t have a pulse or fell asleep in the first half, in which case you don’t deserve the stylish, character driven thrills the film offers.  The audience I saw it with was surely prepared for the chases, but they seemed caught off guard by the sudden, shocking, gory violence, which uses practical effects and along with the film as a whole acts as homage to the 80s.  Fans of 80s horror will be pleased to know that “Drive” features the best (only?) exploding head of the year.  The gore came as a surprise to me, too, but I gratefully embraced it.

When the gory action begins, for me it wasn’t payoff for sitting through a boring, deliberately paced romance.  It was an immensely satisfying part of a great whole.  There are long sequences devoted to Driver and Irene merely looking at each, Driver smiling at Benicio, and Driver taking them for a ride, and I was engrossed throughout.  Even when little was happening, my eyes were glued to the screen thanks to the artistry and craftsmanship on display.

Director Nicholas Winding Refn breathes confident style into a sparse script, and he is aided by a stellar cast.  Not only does Gosling nail his role as a dangerous, mysterious loner, but he is supported by an incredible roster of players.  Bryan Cranston plays his boss and manager, and he doesn’t get to show off all of his chops like he does on “Breaking Bad,” but he creates a pathetic character who always seems to get himself in trouble, despite his good heart.  Christina Hendricks from “Mad Men” has a brief but memorable role.  Ron Perlman and, in particular, Albert Brooks stand out as vicious small-time organized crime bosses.  Brooks shows off a dark side I never knew he had, and I felt uncomfortable every time he was on screen.

The soundtrack deserves special mention, because it contributes greatly to the film and its 80s vibe.  Like the film, the songs aren’t from the 80s, but they feel inspired by the decade, and they’re incredibly fun and catchy.  Give “A Real Hero” by College featuring Electric Youth or “Nightcall” by Kavinsky, which plays over the opening credits, a listen and see if they don’t stick in your head and evoke a specific mood.  It’s the second time this fall, after “Contagion,” that I’ve fallen in love with a score or soundtrack due to its provocation of 80s nostalgia.

“Drive’ is a film destined to split audiences, a feat I’m convinced means it’s required viewing.  Fans of film as an art form instead of mere entertainment will probably get more mileage out of it.  There is so much to admire, even if you don’t love it as much as I did.  Reactions wildly varied at my screening.  Someone loudly booed at the screen as the credits rolled.  I heard another viewer complain to a theater employee that it was too slow and not as advertised.  On the way to the parking lot, I heard a middle aged man tell his wife that he loved the film, and it kept him on the edge of his seat throughout.  I’m in his camp.  It’s one of my favorite films of the year, and even if it doesn’t eventually make your top ten list, you have to see it.

5 out of 5 stars

“Drive” will be reviewed on the next episode of Movie Dudes. 

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Film Review: Apollo 18

By
Chris Scott
– September 13, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

The Last Exorcism bucked the traditional formula for found footage films and in doing so stood out from the crowd of by the numbers horror films. Apollo 18 attempts to follow in its footsteps, stepping even further outside the box by heading to space.

Set during a “secret” mission to the moon, Apollo 18 is the “true” story revealing why NASA canceled the Apollo space program and never returned to the moon. However a film can have all the interesting premises and settings it wants but the success of found footage films rests with its execution in making the audience believe what they are watching is real.

Apollo 18’s execution is a mixed bag. The cinematography, sound, set designs and acting are all top notch and aside from the obvious horror bits, the film looks like an authentic piece of NASA captured footage. Unfortunately, like all found footage films it suffers from a few issues that take away from the overall experience.

The most glaring issue is the fact the ending is known to the audience before they even sit down in the theater. Found footage films by their very nature have a tragic ending, otherwise the footage wouldn’t have been found. This fact unfortunately creates a natural countermeasure to the tension the film attempts to build. Many of these types of films rely on jump scares to create the illusion of tension and Apollo 18 does the same but it doesn’t quite work as well.

Fingers could be pointed in a variety of directions in an attempt to pinpoint why Apollo 18’s scares fail to impress but the key reason is because of the setting. Space being foreign to nearly everyone is inherently a scary place but found footage films rely on familiarity to create tension and scares. Cabinets opening on their own, shadows moving where they shouldn’t be, and little girls who can bend into inhuman shapes are scary because the viewer has a baseline for what is normal. Apollo 18 does not have that baseline and it suffers because of it.

The setting also causes another issue for the film, one of plausibility. The core premise of these films is that someone filmed the events and the footage was “found” by someone else who then edited it into a film and released it to theaters. While it may be a stretch that those events would occur, it is at least somewhat plausible. Apollo 18 asks viewers to buy into the fact that not only did the events on film take place, someone not named NASA retrieved the footage from space, spliced it together and released it. And that is a bit of a stretch, even for horror fans.

3 out of 5

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Film Review: Conan the Barbarian

By
Chris Scott
– September 1, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

With the glut of remakes and reboots constantly hitting cinemas I am sure the idea to reboot Conan the Barbarian was seen as a brilliant one. After all how hard could it be to take a hulking behemoth with moderate acting chops and put him in a revenge film with copious amounts of violence? The answer is evidently quite difficult.

Conan the Barbarian seemingly has all the pieces in place to puzzle together something enjoyable to watch. It has a director, Marcus Nispel, with a history of successfully rebooting franchises. It has a lead actor, Jason Momoa, that arguably looks more the part of the titular character than Arnold Schwarzenegger ever did. And it has a large handful of action set pieces filled with blood and gore. What Conan the Barbarian does not have though is anything resembling excitement.

An action film can survive a multitude of inadequacies that would doom any other type of film. Poor acting, plot hole filled narratives, and even moronic dialog can be forgiven if the action is stellar. High quality, well-paced action is the key to everything in the genre. One would think that a veteran horror director would be able to manufacture some degree of tension but Nispel fails to make it seem as if Conan is ever in any danger. Without tension the action scenes are a bore and unfortunately the film bet everything on its action pulling it forward.


Without engaging action as a distraction it is easier to see how many fundamental issues Conan the Barbarian actually suffers from. Jason Momoa may look the part but he lacks the mediocre acting chops that even Arnold had at the birth of his career. Conan is not a deeply complex character but Momoa can no even seem to grasp that aspect as he delivers a performance that is all over the place. Of course not all the blame should be pushed on Momoa as the script is equally as awful. Filled with glaring plot holes and some of the worst dialog in a film this summer, the Conan the Barbarian script makes Green Lantern look like Oscar material.

It would be easy to write off everything in the film as being fetid but it would be grossly unfair to both Stephen Lang and Rose McGowan. The two play the primary villains in the film, Khalar Zym and his daughter, Marique, and both do it exceptionally well. McGowan in particular stands out as she hams it up as Zym’s crazy daughter. Two bright spots though are not enough to save the film from itself and Conan fails to rise above being a below standard action film.

2 out of 5.

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Film Review: Fright Night

By
Chris Scott
– August 21, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

While there are many things a film needs to be successful a remake needs two additional aspects for it to succeed. In addition to everything a regular film needs, a remake needs to be able to bring something new to the audience and it needs to be a tale worth retelling. Out of all the recent remakes, Fright Night scared me the most because I didn’t feel it could bring anything new to the table and I did not think it was a tale worth retelling. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) has a problem, his new neighbor, Jerry (Colin Farrell) is creepy and the evidence points towards him being a vampire. Of course Charlie does not believe at first but after his childhood friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) goes missing he begins to investigate further and things spiral out of control quite quickly.

The first half of Fright Night is effective set-up it, exploring Charlie’s character and painting Jerry as a mysterious figure. Oddly though the film does away with any sense of subtlety as Jerry is outed as a vampire to the audience very early on. Without the possibility of Charlie being wrong about Jerry there is very little tension in their interactions. Fortunately the second half of the film picks up the slack delivering a tight and tense narrative.

While the second half of the film could have ventured into straight on horror territory, Fright Night stays true to its roots and lightens the mood at just the right times with a healthy dose of humor. Much of this humor comes from the vampire hunter Peter Vincent. In the original film, Peter Vincent was played by Roddy McDowall and his portrayal has made the character into something of a cult hero. David Tennant takes on the role in this remake and he makes the character his own. Vincent’s interactions with Charlie are genuinely funny and his turn from coward to hero is believable every step of the way and it is all due to the natural charisma that Tennant possess as an actor.

Fright Night is very well acted across the board and it helps elevate the film above the standard horror fare that is generally released to theaters. Fright Night‘s focus on the characters and not the next death scene makes it stand out from the pack. That is not to say that Fright Night does not carry its own weight in the horror field though. While it is not particularly gory, the film should satiate the desires of most horror fans and most importantly it gets vampires right.

Over the last five years vampires have seen a major resurgence in popularity due to the likes of Twilight and True Blood. While the popularity of those series cannot be disputed, their portrayal of vampires can leave a lot to be desired. Vampires do not sparkle and they do not live out their lives as if they are starring in a late night Cinemax feature. Vampires are mysterious and charming but also brutal creatures with a lust for blood over all else. Fright Night understands this and builds its horror foundation on this. Together with its solid narrative and well executed performances Fright Night delivers one of the best horror experiences of the year.

4 out of 5.

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Film Review: “Super”

By
Jeff Derrickson
– August 21, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

Anything is possible, but it would be a quite a feat for a film to be successfully funny, dramatic, and idiotic.  Sure, you can do dramedy or goofball humor, but even that is quite a challenge in itself.  Combining all three seems like a recipe that invites disaster.  “Super” tries, and it fails.  It’s just stupid.

Written and directed by James Gunn (“Slither”), “Super” tells the story of Frank D’Arbo (Rainn Wilson), a short order cook who decides to become a superhero after his wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a drug dealer (Kevin Bacon).  Whereas most people would get over losing a junkie whore wife and conclude she was a waste of time to begin with, Frank is so lonely, pathetic, and delusional that he believes she has been kidnapped and must be saved.  He also prays regularly and has visions he believes are God speaking to him, so he becomes convinced he must fight evil.  So he makes a red superhero costume, names his alter ego The Crimson Bolt, and goes around looking for crime with a pipe wrench as his weapon.  Unfortunately, Frank is an idiot who can’t differentiate between evil and minor annoyances, so at one point he bashes a guy’s head in for cutting in line at a theater.  Funny stuff, right?     

 

Not only does it ask you to find something funny about a dangerously idiotic religious nut, but it also wants you to find him sympathetic and heroic.  It’s a fundamental flaw at the core of the film.  It wants you to laugh at its main character and then in the next breath feel sorry for him and cheer him on.  Sometimes, it happens in the same exact moment.  Frank gives a speech near the end about crime that the film knows is stupid, but it simultaneously wants you to find it poignant and moving.  And ultimately, Frank D’Arbo isn’t funny or sympathetic, just dangerous and disturbing.  The religious overtones are impossible to miss, and I found them extremely off-putting.  Worse, I sometimes feared the film believes in them.

For a supposed comedy, the violence is shockingly gory and over the top.  Heads get shot off and bashed in, and people get blown up as well as in any action or horror film.  The violence is actually entertaining and well done; sadly, it’s the best part, and it feels like it belongs in a different film. 

Nobody in the talented cast gives a great performance.  Rainn Wilson comes close in a role perfectly suited for him, but he overacts in his dramatic moments, and does the best he can with the lame humor.  Ellen Page is wasted as a comic book store clerk who catches on to Frank and wants to be his sidekick.  Kevin Bacon hams it up, having a good time as a scumbag drug dealer.  Liv Tyler gives a convincing performance because all she is asked to do is look stoned and nod out.  Overall, the performances are serviceable to disappointing, but in their defense, the actors aren’t given much to work with.

 

Parts of “Super” occasionally (rarely) work individually, but they never even approach coming together.  The film is tonally all over the place, and not in a way that feels clever and irreverent, but in a way that feels flailing and tossing everything against the wall to see what sticks.  The film’s biggest sin is it just isn’t funny, and the serious moments don’t work because they appear randomly out of nowhere, without being earned.  I suppose there are worse films out there; “Super” isn’t entirely unwatchable, but that’s hardly an endorsement.  It’s anything but super.

1 ½ out of 5 stars

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Film Review: “Trust”

By
Jeff Derrickson
– August 5, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

If “Hard Candy” is the peak of the online sexual predator thriller subgenre, “Trust” is its dramatic equivalent.  It imagines how sexual assault might affect a minor (and her family) in the real world, with a real teenage girl who isn’t a vigilante.  By doing so, director David Schwimmer has not only delivered one of the best films of the year, but also one of the most challenging.  It’s honest almost to a fault.

 

Annie (Liana Liberato) is a bright girl who feels ostracized from the exclusive cliques of cool kids in school.  Like many teens (and now adults), an unhealthy portion of her social life is conducted online.  She could be waiting to get picked up from school, and instead of interacting with her peers, she fills moments of loneliness by chatting with virtual strangers on her iPhone.  She meets a boy named Charlie who shares her interest in volleyball, and she fills the voids in her day by talking with him during every idle moment, even at the dinner table.  Despite hints of dishonesty from his end, their bond grows stronger, and when they eventually meet he is not who he says he is.  He is a middle-aged sexual predator who has been grooming her for abuse.  She succumbs to his trap, but the fallout is almost worse than the act itself.  It’s almost a cliché at this point that people are dishonest online in films, but sadly, I believe it also happens frequently in real life.

 

The film is honest, daring, and challenging in the manner it approaches its subject matter.  It will make some viewers extremely uncomfortable, and some would say it almost makes light of the situation to the point where it almost sympathizes with the predator, but I believe it empathizes with the victim.  Annie is obviously emotionally and psychologically damaged from the experience, but she deals with it by wondering what the big deal is, and she insists that he loves and understands her, even though he is twice her age and disappears after the encounter.  After the F.B.I. and her parents find out about the incident, she blames it on them.  She still wants to see him again, and she believes he wants to see her but can’t because of the law.

 

Her parents are played by veteran actors Clive Owen and Catherine Keener, and they are affected by their daughter’s rape almost more so than her.  Keener is devastated and wants to support her daughter in any way possible.  Owen is devastated and wants to find the predator and kill him.  Jason Clarke (“The Chicago Code”) plays the F.B.I. agent trying to crack the case.  Much of the latter half of the film is dedicated to Owen’s response to his daughter’s rape and how it affects his personal and professional life, without losing focus of Annie’s plight.  Owen is particularly suited for the role, because he can play an everyman afflicted with fits of rage as well as anybody.  Keener naturally emanates authenticity, as usual.  Liberato more than holds her ground as Annie.  All around, the acting is incredible.  The film verges on melodrama at points, but it’s a melodramatic situation, and the actors deliver without going over the top, as does the film in general.

 

Besides the performances and handling of subject matter, the film’s other greatest strength is how well it understands the Internet.  Text conversations play out on screen while Annie is doing other things, such as eating dinner, complete with shorthand Internet speak.  Schwimmer took great care in presenting how people communicate online, and as result, the film comes off as an accurate snapshot of this generation.  Like “Catfish,” it has more to say about the Internet than “The Social Network,” but unlike many films that understand the Internet, it isn’t about the Internet.  It acts as if every film should understand, and it doesn’t show off.  It’s just a part of the story, which is about characters, not technology.

 

Owen’s career also plays an interesting role in the film, as he works for an advertising agency whose biggest client sexualizes teenagers similarly to Abercrombie and Fitch, and it takes a clever toll on his character.  How can he continue to sell clothes using teenagers and sex when he can’t stop thinking about his daughter being raped?

 

“Trust” isn’t for everybody.  It doesn’t explode into violence but instead ends on a heartbreaking monologue.  It deals with uncomfortable subject matter, and instead of simplifying, it challenges the audience, and it casually, expertly features social commentary on a new social medium.  The performances and subject matter will keep you engaged throughout.  Stick around for the beginning of the credits to find out where the film (and its antagonist) really stands.

 

5 out of 5 stars

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Film Review: “Horrible Bosses”

By
Jeff Derrickson
– July 17, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

 

I’m tempted to call “Horrible Bosses” a dark comedy, but it’s just too silly to be anything but a goofball comedy.  It has a sharp, dark edge, but its main characters are likable idiots, and except for one scene of violence, it tries to make you laugh in nearly every shot.  Even when it reaches the somewhat shocking violence, I think it wants you to laugh at the situation and how the characters arrived there.

 

Directed by Seth Gordon (“The King of Kong”), the film has been called a bit of a mess, but the plot follows a simple premise that serves as catalyst for populist catharsis and a series of gags featuring comedic talents having a blast.  Three friends try to kill their horrible bosses, because they fear quitting and looking for another job during the recession, apparently, more than they fear getting charged with murder.  It’s not believable, but who hasn’t wished a horrible boss would just go away?  Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) works a miserable office job, and his boss is a sadistic jerk played by Kevin Spacey.  Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) has to deal with a cokehead maniac, played by Colin Ferrell, who inherits a chemical plant after his father (Donald Sutherland) dies of a heart attack.  Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) is a dental assistant who has to constantly dodge sexual assaults from his boss, played by Jennifer Aniston, who looks better than ever here.  Needless to say, Arbus gets the least amount of sympathy from his friends, but together they clumsily hatch a plan to kill each other’s bosses, aided by an assumed veteran criminal named Mr. Jones (Jamie Foxx). 

 

While the film mostly feels like an aimless excuse for a series of gags, the plot sort of comes together in a sort of clever way near the end, in the aforementioned violent scene.  The reason to see the film, though, is the comedic chemistry between Day, Bateman, and Sudeikis.  They are all consistently funny in their own individual ways, and their personalities are so mismatched that they make for an awkward, satisfying blend.  Charlie Day (“It’s Always Sunny inPhiladelphia”), in particular, not only goes toe-to-toe with his more experienced co-stars, but he often upstages them.  The supporting cast is just as strong.  It doesn’t hurt that Spacey, Aniston, and Ferrell can all be very funny when they want to, and they get to go wild here.  They all seem to have fun and relish their roles, and that fun is infectious.

 Probably my biggest complaint is out of the three main characters, none of them work a retail job, and that is a missed opportunity.  If you think an office job can be bad, you have no idea.  It’s a sector that could have provided even more laughs, and one with which a majority of the audience could have identified. 

Making a comedy about murder is nearly as tricky as murder itself, but “Horrible Bosses” hits the sweet spot and understands how to approach the material.  If you want to see a great comedy with heart, coherence, and length, see “Bridesmaids,” which is probably still playing in theaters, months after its release.  “Horrible Bosses,” on the other hand, is a breezy 100 minutes in comparison, and it just wants to make you laugh.  It probably has more laughs and cable replay value than “Bridesmaids,” too.  The title cards describing the bosses alone are funnier than the biggest laughs in many comedies, and the subject matter and sloppy nature of the film can’t negate that.  The cast elevates everything and makes the film worth the price of admission.  A great cast can’t save a bad script or director, but it can do magic with the average.

 

4 out of 5

 

“Horrible Bosses” was reviewed on the latest episode of Movie Dudes.

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