New Releases! Knives Out (2019); Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Knives Out (2019)

Director: Rian Johnson

A ton of fun, for anyone who ever has loved a good murder mystery or loves seeing a somewhat worn-out genre reinvigorated through crackling energy and narrative inventiveness.

Summarizing the tale would defeat a certain amount of its purpose, so I'll use broad strokes. Knives Out tells the story of a wealthy author of murder mystery novels who dies, perhaps under sinister circumstances, and the fallout among his highly dysfunctional progeny. Nearly all of the standard elements of a classic murder mystery are there: greedy, bizarre suspects, a brilliant detective working the case, and multiple twists and turns in the plot as more details are revealed about the death and those involved. If you want your marks hit, director Rian Johnson bullseyes every one of them.

But if Knives Out were just another cookie-cutter, contemporary take on Murder on the Orient Express, it wouldn't especially standout. And standout this movie does, for several reasons. One is that the cast is as brilliant as one could ask for. Whether it's the well-seasoned veterans like Christopher Plummer and Jamie Lee Curtis, relative newcomers like Chris Evans and Lakeith Stanfield, or the bevy of other accomplished actors, there's not one performance that is less than pitch-perfect. They all bring the fun, dark humor into full form with aplomb, and it's a blast to watch them work. And I must point out just what a great job was turned in by Alma de Armas, with whom I was completely unfamiliar before this movie. Daniel Craig is also among the most memorable of the many indelible characters, but de Armas showed exceptional range here.

Of course, no murder mystery is worth its salt if it doesn't have a compelling narrative, plot, or both. Well, true to his risk-taking form, Rian Johnson plays with the genre in several creative ways. Again, I won't spoil them for those who haven't seen it yet, but the story folds out in an unexpected order and resolves in a way which I found uniquely satisfying.

Given just how many sequels, reboots, and adaptation from other media we are offered in the world of film these days, it is wonderfully refreshing to get a completely original story. Yes, it is in a nearly century-old genre, but it is telling its own tale in the novel way that its teller sees fit.

I highly recommend this one.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Director: J.J. Abrams

It was fine. No more, no less. But for an infinite-budget tent-pole movie in one of the largest franchises ever, "fine" can feel like a letdown.

The massive Star Wars franchise is in a strange place these days. In one sense, it's stronger than ever, now that it has the full might of Disney behind it and has broken into previously-untapped, massive and burgeoning markets like China. The toys, shows, and films are as ubiquitous as ever, and the release of a primary film in the main storyline is still as grand an event as one can find in movies.

At the same time, this recent trilogy has taken an odd trajectory. First we had The Force Awakens, in which J.J. Abrams took a ton of elements from the original Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, tweaked a couple of things and gave long-starved devotees a return to form strong enough to give them multiple orgasms. Still, it was treading a lot of the same ground. Curiously, Disney tapped a very different director, Rian Johnson (see review above), for the next chapter, The Last Jedi. Johnson took a lot of admirable risks with his Star Wars film, something that the franchise has never really done at all. As one might expect, this met with incredibly divisive reaction between critics, who lauded the film's attempts to break free from the franchise's conventions, and the hardcore fanbase, who felt like their entire childhood had been obliterated like Alderaan. The swing between these two movies was massive, as one might expect when you give two very different writer and directors full control of movies which are supposed to be two chapters of the same overall tale.

So along comes The Rise of Skywalker. The film had had a somewhat muddled history, in the originally-slated director, Colin Trevorrow, left the project. Rian Johnson was meant to write a treatment for the movie, but never did. And then Carrie Fisher, whose General Leia Organa was supposed to be a central character in the final movie, passed away before production could begin. So Disney calls in J.J. Abrams to save the day.

I guess he did, sort of. At least, in the sense that the movie got its act together enough to not be bad.

What I've learned over the years of seeing several of Abrams' movies (I've never watched any of his TV shows) is that the man is, as John Powers once described him, "brilliantly unoriginal." The guy knows how to tell a story well and make a movie with technical prowess, no question. But he's all too happy to color within the lines drawn by artists and creators who came before him. Sure, he'll throw in a "fun" little curveball to let you know that he's not a total hack, like switching Kirk's and Spock's positions from Wrath of Kahn when he did his reboot Into Darkness several years ago. But he's never going to take any major risks, seemingly terrified of asking too much of his audience. And this is pretty much what he seemed to fall back on when he was asked to "rescue" The Rise of Skywalker.

This is a spoiler-free review, so I won't go over any plot points. But I found the movie decent enough. The first 15 or 20 minutes are annoyingly frenetic, with herky-jerky pacing and new story elements hurled in your face all too quickly. But once you settle in, it becomes a decent enough fantasy-adventure ride. If one is willing to relax a bit, then they'll find a several decent examples of the following: gags, action sequences, set pieces, and Easter eggs for devoted Star Wars fans. And the acting is solid all around, except for a weird return engagement by Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrisean.

I think what I ultimately come away from Rise of Skywalker with is the larger question of why on Earth Disney didn't show more foresight when diving into this trilogy. It just feels like something which could have been far fresher and more cohesive that it was.

If nothing else, it just solidified my opinion that Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie we've gotten since Empire Strikes Back nearly 40 years ago. And it's not even really close. 

New Release! Logan Lucky (2017)

Some vague spoilers ahead. Fair warning.

The Logan siblings - they comprise half of the sextet that
attempts a heist of rather massive proportions.

Director: Steven Soderbergh

A fun heist movie, with a unique flavor and an attempt at something just a tad more complex than Soderbergh's "Ocean's" films, even if it doesn't quite succeed at everything it attempts.

The tale is mostly that of Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), a proud West Virginian who gets laid off from his construction job on account of his having a chronic knee problem. Jimmy needs money to help support his daughter, so he convinces his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), sister Mellie (Riley Keough) and a few others of dubious character to pull off a robbery at the nearby NASCAR racetrack during a competition.

As a heist movie, Logan Lucky hits the necessary marks. The setup is nothing new, and it doesn't hold up terribly well under scrutiny, but it serves well enough as an excuse to see if a band of  misfits can actually pull off a challenging robbery. More important is that the movie, much like the "Ocean's" movies, offers clever and entertaining forms of problem solving. There's a cunning jailbreak (both out and back in), stealth, disguises, and meticulous planning all along the way. This is what any good movie of this type needs, and Logan Lucky delivers.

Much like Soderberg's "Ocean's" series, this one also has a very breezy, fun tone. This is especially evident with the characters. While there is a cursory human interest story at work between Jimmy and his cute little daughter, the proceedings never come close to getting grim or overly intense. Jimmy, his siblings, and their partners are all comic characters of one degree or another, with the most purely humorous being the demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and his uber redneck brothers. I must admit that, were I from West Virginia or the deep south, I might take exception to how people from those regions are depicted, seeing as how nearly every main character seems to be intellectually challenged in one way or another. As it was, though, there are plenty of good laughs to be had.

On the topic of mental capabilities, however, is one bone I have to pick with the movie. At nearly every step of the picture, we are shown how everyone involved in the heist, from the two goofy, younger Bang brothers up to the "mastermind" Jimmy Logan, seems to be rather slow or inept in certain ways. And yet, the entire crew does actually manage to plan and execute a rather sophisticated robbery to near-perfection. This would have been easier to accept had we been given some slight suggestion as to Jimmy's mental acuity, but this never really happens. I very much appreciate seeing a heist movie that uses a different character type, setting everything in the South, but I still need to believe that the characters actually have the skills required.

And the Bang family makes up the other half. While Daniel
Craig's West Virginian drawl slips every so often, he makes up
for it with a fun turn as the quirky demolitionist, Joe Bang.

Another odd little blemish came from an extremely unexpected source - Oscar winner Hilary Swank. Swank plays F.B.I. Agent Sarah Grayson, who shows up in the last parts of the movie to try and piece together the facts of the robbery. For some strange reason, Swank's performance stood out as completely unnatural and overdone, coming off as a poor imitation of Sandra Bullock's comedically stern Agent Ashburn in The Heat. This stands out all the more when everyone else in the picture, very much including pretty boy Channing Tatum, does an excellent job. Swank is a great actress, but for whatever reason, she missed the mark on this one. It happens to the best of them, I suppose.

So this was an entertaining flick, being exactly what I had expected. It's not going to change the genre or anything quite so historic, but it is a well-made, entertaining tale that can offer some truly PG-13 fun for a couple of hours. 

Gangster Flick 3-Pack: Let Him Have It (1991); Layer Cake (2004); State of Grace (1990)

Let Him Have It (1991)

Director: Peter Medak

A harrowing drama about one of the most personal tragedies in criminal and judicial history.

Let Him Have It is a documdrama about the life of Derek Bentley, a mentally inferior young man who, in London of 1953, falls in with the wrong people and pays the ultimate price. Derek is a young, impressionable 19-year-old who is lured into a small gang of wanna-be criminals made up of boys still in secondary school. The leader is Chris Craig, an especially loud-mouthed lad who works hard to look and sound like the crooks glamorized in Hollywood gangster movies. He and three of his cohorts walk around town dressed in dark trenchcoats and black fedoras, trying as hard as possible to imitate Chris's authentically criminal older brother. Derek, an otherwise gentle soul, is taken in by the strong attitude and image of Chris's gang, and he begins to sneak away from his parents' home to hang out with them.

On the most fateful of nights, Derek finds himself on a warehouse rooftop with Chris, both of them playfully looking for a way to break in. The police arrive, however, and when one of them apprehends Derek, Chris pulls a gun. As the police officer demands that Chris turn over the weapon, a frightened Derek calls out "Let him have it, Chris," which Chris misunderstands as a prompt to shoot the officer. A firefight and standoff ensue, ending with Chris injured from a long fall, one officer wounded, and another dead by Chris's hand. The real tragedy begins when Derek and Chris are brought to court, where the penalty for their crimes is execution.

The movie is a strong one, and the tragedy of the situation is palpable. Thanks to very strong acting and pacing, what could have been a depressing slog is actually a sad but compelling account. Very much in the vein of Kieslowski's 1990 film Decalogue Five: Thou Shalt Not Kill and the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking, with their the juxtaposition of illegal murder with legal execution, Let Him Have It forces viewers to think long and hard about capital punishment.

As with any film which depicts a tragedy which happened in reality, the dramatization offers a buffer which a documentary would not. However, for cases which happened longer in past, such as this one, I feel that a well-crafted and respectful docudrama is the closest we can get to truly feeling the loss the the Bentley family did at the end of this affair. Let Him Have It is not a movie which needs to be seen more than once, but once is all but mandatory.

Layer Cake (2004)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

An entertaining British gangster flick, adding depth to the Guy Ritchie brand of films which preceded and obviously influenced it.

Layer Cake tells the story of a highly intelligent, never-named drug dealer (Daniel Craig) who is on the cusp of sealing a final "big deal" in London which will allow him to retire from the sordid, dangerous world of crime. As such stories go, though, things get extremely complicated, extremely quickly.

Up to the point of the tale's beginning, "Mr. X" has been expert at keeping his head down and remaining under the radar of more powerful or more volatile criminals in his industry. However, once the wrinkles start to pop up, X must navigate lethally treacherous waters infested with British gang lords, headstrong power-grabbers, and his own conscience. Following the actions and reactions of X certainly makes for a sometimes fun, sometimes harrowing, and often violent tale.

The style and construction of the movie is quite familiar to any who have watched 1998's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or 2000's Snatch, the two seminal modern British gangster movies by Guy Ritchie. There's a dizzying array of shadowy, vicious characters, and more than a little gallows humor sprinkled throughout. Compared to those earlier movies, though, Layer Cake ratchets down the insanity and overt comedy in favor of taut suspense. This is carried through with great performances all around by the brilliant cast, spearheaded by a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig.

One could criticize the movie for borrowing too heavily from Ritchie's hyperspeed style of storytelling (director Matthew Vaughn was, in fact, a producer of Ritchie's films), but this was easy for me to forgive. While there is nothing of great ingenuity here in terms of subject matter or methodology, Layer Cake feels enough like its own movie not to be overly harsh with any critique. It goes deeper into the protagonist's psyche than any Ritchie film ever dared, which prevents it from being a mere clone.

State of Grace (1990)

Director: Phil Joanou

If timing is everything, then State of Grace had nothing going for it from the jump. This is a shame, as it is a great gangster movie.

I had never even heard of this movie before I came across it on a "best gangster films" list. When I saw the cast list, I was further amazed that it was never on my radar. The movie follows young undercover police officer Terry Noonan (Sean Penn), who has returned to his old neighborhood in the Irish section of New York's Hell's Kitchen. Under the guise of a drifter looking to get back into the criminal lifestyle, he reunites with old friend Mickey Flannery (Gary Oldman), and the two soon begin cracking jokes and skulls, alike. Terry's ultimate plan is to obtain incriminating evidence on Mickey's older brother, Frankie (Ed Harris), who has become the boss of the local Irish mob. However, doing the right thing as a cop becomes far more difficult for Terry as he becomes further entrenched in his old environment.

The characters, plot, acting, and general direction of State of Grace are excellent. The drama between Noonan and the Flannerys is organic and tense, with a palpable emotional depth. The story unfolds and intensifies as well as the very best crime dramas. In addition to the great actors mentioned above, several supporting roles are played expertly by great talents like Robin Wright, John C. Reilly, and John Turturro.

At this point, you many be wondering how a high-quality movie, with such an outstanding cast, is not better-known. I wondered the same thing until I discovered that State of Grace was released on September 14, 1990. For those without a photographic memory for film release dates, this is the exact same day that Goodfellas was released. Yikes. When forced to go head-to-head against one of the absolute greatest gangster movies in the history of cinema, anything less than The Godfather would pale in comparison. Such was the fate of State of Grace. It could not have helped that, by this time, Martin Scorsese was well-established as a brilliant director, so that his return to New York crime tales was bound to drown out even an outstanding effort by a relative newcomer like State of Grace director Phil Joanou. No, Joanou's movie is not as great as Goodfellas, but it is one of the best of its kind.

The commercial and historical fate of State of Grace is rather sad. However, I highly recommend the movie to anyone who loves the gangster genre. 

New Release! Spectre (2015)

Director: Sam Mendes


A barely-adequate modern Bond movie, which falls victim to the preceding film's shadow.

I suppose I've never been a massive James Bond fan. Sure, I thought the character was cool enough when I was a kid in the latter portion of the Roger Moore era. He had a slick accent, nice suits, cool gadgets, and the ladies seemed to love him. I got it, on some basic level. Still, even after going back to watch all earlier Bond films, and all through the Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnon eras, I never became obsessed with the franchise as many have.

That said, I've enjoyed Daniel Craig's run, and my hopes for Spectre were quite high. Casino Royale  was a really strong retelling of Bond's origin story. Quantum of Solace wasn't nearly as good, but it was decent enough. And then, Sam Mendes came along and gave us Skyfall, arguably the best-executed Bond movie of all time, bringing together so many great elements of modern action movies and the elements that have made Bond an indelible film franchise. So when I saw that not only was Mendes teaming up with Daniel Craig for the follow-up, but that the brilliant Christoph Waltz was going to be the villain, I figured that there was no way that Spectre could be anything less than brilliant.

The tank-like henchman, Mr. Hinx. Hinx was one of several
new characters with plenty of potential, nearly all of which
went untapped.

I figured a bit wrong. Spectre isn't necessarily a bad movie; it's just very thin. All of the things that you want to see are in it: the sinister, megalomaniacal villain, the terrifyingly massive and nigh-unstoppable henchman, the sleek cars, a few gadgets, the globe-trotting adventure. Yet, it is all held together with some very flimsy adhesive. The few new characters are only moderately engaging; the plot cobbles together ideas from other, similar films, including many from earlier Bond entries; and the dialogue showed very little imagination or creativity.

I will say that the movie does offer a decent sense of closure, not only for its own story but also for the Daniel Craig Bond era. It will likely please fans of Bond well enough. It will never become the joke that some past Bond films have become over the years. All the same, I would recommend against setting one's hopes too high. 

Before I Die #544: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

This is the 544th movie I've watched out of the 1,162 films on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through.

Director: David Fincher

An excellent adaptation/alternative version of a phenomenally successful novel.

Like millions of readers, I got caught up on the "Millenium" trilogy of books by the deceased Swedish author Stieg Larsson several years ago. I found the first book a very engaging and novel look at deep-rooted, institutional xenophobia and misogyny through the lens of a complex murder mystery.

I saw the original Swedish film adaptation that was released in 2009, and I thought it a solid but slightly flawed take on the story. In 2011, we got a rare treat: a U.S. remake that is actually better than the original European version. The improvements can likely be connected to a much larger budget and the direction of David Fincher, a man who is no stranger to telling very dark and complex tales in films.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it mostly follows two unique characters. Mikael Blomqvist is a crusading but embattled journalist who is hired by an incredibly wealthy businessman to potentially solve a 40-year old murder within his large and largely-dislikable family. Also involved is Lisbeth Salander, a tortured and antisocial genius hacker who becomes Blomqvist's research assistant. There are a ton of curious and sordid details that go into explaining how the two become connected, which make for a dark and fascinating story. Fincher's movie ties the many threads together as skillfully as possible, though an unfamiliar viewer will need all of their attention to keep up.

Yes, Lisbeth can be just as wicked as she
dresses. Fortunately, she tends to direct her
scary smart rage towards misogynists. 

Blomqvist and Salander are great characters in their own rights, and they are brought to life by outstanding performances by Daniel Craig and Roony Mara. Not to slight Noomi Rapace, who admirably portrayed Salander in the original Swedish film version, but I found Mara added just a little more bite to the role. The affable Blomqvist and prickly Salander are different in nearly every way but for two important things: their desire to see justice done and their their unwavering energy to see it through. When the two find their causes overlap, we get some extremely satisfying storytelling.

For those unfamiliar with the details of the story, I have to warn you that it goes to many extremely dark places, with graphic detail regarding murder and rape. If you can stomach such things in your fiction, then this movie is well worth watching. While I found the subsequent two novels not as strong as the first, I do hope that the cast and crew of this 2011 adaptation come together for the rest of the series.

So that's 544 films down. Only 618 to go before I can die...