Jack Reacher

A picture guaranteed to please both men (big gun) and women (wet Tom Cruise).

(2012) Action (Paramount) Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Jai Courtney, Robert Duvall, Alexia Fast, Vladimir Sizov, Joseph Sikora, Michael Raymond-James, Josh Helman, Susan Angelo, Julia Yorks. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

There is an axiom that when a solution to a problem is handed to you on a plate, take a look at the plate first. That is especially true when it comes to solving crimes. Rarely are cases open and  shut so when it appears that way, it is natural for a good investigator to be suspicious.

Pittsburgh is rocked by a heinous crime; a sniper has taken out five people seemingly at random.. The Pittsburgh police put this one at the top of their list, and quickly found enough evidence to put a suspect, one James Barr (Sikora) into custody in what looks to be an open and shut case. While being interviewed by Detective Emerson (Oyelowo) and District Attorney Rodin (Jenkins) Barr says only one thing – “Get Jack Reacher.”

The trouble is, they can’t find the man. He used to be a crack military investigator but after being discharged took himself off the grid. He’s a man who doesn’t get found – he finds you. Fortunately for them, Reacher (Cruise) walked right into their office. To their surprise, he’s no friend of Barr’s; in fact, he wants to put Barr away for good after getting away with a very similar crime in Iraq when he took out four civilian contractors.

The trouble is, he can’t talk to Barr – he’s in a coma after being beaten up during a prison transport. Barr’s lawyer happens to be the district attorney’s daughter Helen (Pike) and she smells something really fishy. She wants Reacher to be her investigator which would give him access to the evidence, something the DA is not inclined to give him. Reacher only wants to catch the next bus out of Pittsburgh but he needs to put paid to this and move on, so he hangs around.

As he looks into it, he begins to get more and more suspicious and the police’s open and shut case begins to look more open all the time. Pretty soon it becomes obvious that Barr is just a patsy and that sinister forces are at work as Reacher gets closer and closer to the truth and the man who set all of this in motion – a man known only as The Zec (Herzog).

Reacher is a character invented by author Lee Child who has turned it into a series of novels that numbers 17 to date (with number 18 scheduled for publication in 2013). The Reacher in the book is a hulk, six feet five inches tall and massive. That is certainly not a physical description of Tom Cruise.

The reason that Cruise was cast and why Child approved of it is that Cruise captures the essence of Reacher. Reacher is certainly a force of nature when it comes to violence but he is also whip-mart, super observant and a true student of human nature. He understands not only what people do but why they do it.

Cruise is in remarkable shape for a 50-year-old man. He handles the physical aspects of the character well and a scene in which he takes out five thugs in a bar fight is believable, which you wouldn’t expect from a one-on-five encounter. In fact, all of the action sequences are pretty well done. McQuarrie doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel and given that he’s a first time director (after an acclaimed writing career that includes The Usual Suspects) is probably a wise decision.

While the climax drags a bit (which is a bit of a drag), the rest of the movie is surprisingly good. Herzog makes a pretty great villain (he orders a minion to chew off his own fingers after messing up) and Pike is a lovely and radiant heroine. I had thought that the movie would be a pretty typical action movie but it does rise above, thanks to a compelling story and a smartly done script. One can’t ask for more than that.

The timing is unfortunate as the first scene depicts a mass shooting (the film was released less than a week after the Newtown tragedy) and so that’s going to color some perceptions. Those who were particularly disturbed by those killings may want to think hard about seeing this – at one point in the film’s opening sequence the crosshairs of the killer’s rifle lands and lingers upon a young child. That’s meant to heighten the heinousness of the crime being committed, although in this case Hollywood doesn’t hold a candle to reality when it comes to human cruelty.

REASONS TO GO: Tautly plotted and well-written. Action sequences are quite satisfactory.

REASONS TO STAY: The movie Jack Reacher is much different than the book Jack Reacher. Climax is dragged out a little bit.

FAMILY VALUES:  There is plenty of violence and some foul language with just a hint of drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Was originally titled One Shot after the novel the movie is based on which is actually the ninth in the series.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/27/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews. Metacritic: 49/100. The reviews hover from mixed to good.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Marine

QUARRY LOVERS: The film’s conclusion takes place in a quarry and the landscape is used to good effect in the action sequence.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: Mystery Men

New Releases for the Week of December 21, 2012

THIS IS 40

(Universal) Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel, Megan Fox, John Lithgow, Albert Brooks, Melissa McCarthy, Charlyne Yi, Graham Parker, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow. Directed by Judd Apatow

In a sort-of sequel to Knocked Up, Judd Apatow revisits the lives of big sister Debbie and her husband Pete as Debbie gets set to hit the big four-oh. They realize that they are in danger of letting life pass them by and try to figure out the important things before they are too old to appreciate them.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for sexual content, crude humor, pervasive language and some drug material)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D

(Paramount) Erica Linz, Dallas Barnett, Lutz Halbhubner, John Clarke. A young woman finds that a strange and exciting circus is actually a portal to amazing worlds. Featuring the acrobats of various Cirque du Soleil shows from across the country, the film was directed by Andrew Adamson of the Narnia series and produced by James Cameron, who is testing out new 3D technology for his upcoming Avatar sequels.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: PG (for dramatic images and some sensuality)

Dabangg 2

(Arbaaz Khan) Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Malaika Arora. A police officer battles a corrupt politician while attempting to romance his wife, shore up his ties with his brother and father who are still mourning the murder of his mother in the first film and occasionally break into song without warning.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: NR

The Guilt Trip

(Paramount) Barbra Streisand, Seth Rogen, Kathy Najimy, Adam Scott. An inventor, about to embark on a road trip to sell the most important product of his life, becomes concerned with his mom’s chronic loneliness and impulsively invites her along. A road trip with Mom…what could go wrong?

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for language and some risque material)

Hyde Park on Hudson

(Focus) Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams, Eleanor Bron. In 1939 the King and Queen of England became the first reigning monarchs of that country to visit the United States. Their mission was to plead for American assistance in the coming war, a war that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn’t eager to join. Visiting at Roosevelt’s upstate New York retreat Hyde Park, the fate of the world hung in the balance and the whole thing was witnessed by Roosevelt’s cousin Daisy.

See the trailer and featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Historical Drama

Rating: R (for brief sexuality)

Jack Reacher

(Paramount) Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall. A former military cop now wandering the country without possessions or roots, content to explore with complete freedom. He will have to put his skills of his former profession back to work when a former Army sniper is accused of a heinous crime that Reacher doesn’t think he committed, plunging him into a maelstrom of secrets that men would kill to keep that way. From the bestselling book series by Lee Child.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: PG-13 (for violence, language and some drug material)

Monsters, Inc. 3D

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn. The mouse mavens pull out yet another Pixar classic to be dusted off and given the 3D conversion treatment. Very nice. Unnecessary.

See the trailer, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: G

Johnny English Reborn

Rowan Atkinson gives himself a little touch-up.

(2011) Spy Spoof (Universal) Rowan Atkinson, Gillian Anderson, Dominic West, Rosamund Pike, Daniel Kaluuya, Tim McInernny, Pik-Sen Lim, Richard Schiff, Burn Gorman, Isla Blair, Mark Ivanir, Stephen Campbell Moore, Roger Barclay, Eric Carte. Directed by Oliver Parker

The world needs its superspies. Suave men ridiculously well-dressed who can toss a grenade with one hand while holding a perfectly made cocktail in the other while spouting a witticism as dry as his martini. We need them. Really we do.

That is to say, we need Johnny English (Atkinson) but the urbane spy no longer needs the world. After a disaster in Mozambique which led to a world leader getting assassinated on Johnny’s watch, he has retired to a kung fu monastery where he is undergoing rigorous training to get a Zen-like calm back although what getting kicked in the nuts has to do with Zen I’m not quite sure.

Then he gets word that he is needed at MI-7 (now known as Toshiba British Intelligence in one of the film’s better jokes) and reports to Pegasus (Anderson), the agency’s chief. It appears that another assassination is in the offing and the contact who knows anything about it will speak only to English. Johnny is given a hero-worshipping Agent Tucker (Kaluuya) to assist and is watched like a hawk by psychiatrist, Kate Sumner (Pike) whom he develops a more intimate rapport with.

In the meantime he must contend with supercilious agent Simon Ambrose (West), an octogenarian hit woman with a deadly vacuum cleaner (Lim) and a clever and deadly opponent who always seems to be at least one step (if not more) ahead of English and his colleagues. Plus, it seems, there may be a mole within the agency. Someone evidently forgot to call the exterminator.

I have to admit first off that Rowan Atkinson is a taste I haven’t yet acquired. He has legions of fans for his efforts in “Blackadder,” “Mr. Bean” and in dozens of film appearances over the years but I haven’t ever really found him to be my taste, so take anything negative I say about him with a grain of salt. He is a gifted physical comedian but for whatever reason I’ve always found him to be too lowbrow. He is the equivalent of a fart joke and there are plenty enough of those here.

There are a lot of Bond references here as there must be in any self-respecting spy spoof but at times you get the sense that there isn’t any sort of real imagination here particularly in regards to the story. It seems like something we’ve seen a million times before, not only in Bond but it traditional suspense movies and in other spoofs, like “Get Smart” for example.

This is definitely aimed at youngsters. The humor really is on that level. Parents will get the references; kids will love the toilet humor and pratfalls. It’s really quite inoffensive and has moments that you might chuckle nostalgically at but it got little more out of me. Those who love Atkinson will probably get a lot more out of it than I did. It’s not a bad movie – heaven knows there’s much worse out there – but by the same token it isn’t going to remain in your memory banks for very long.

WHY RENT THIS: Some nifty gadgets and Atkinson, though an acquired taste, never disappoints.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The humor is terribly juvenile and the plot stale and predictable.

FAMILY VALUES:  There’s a little bit of rude humor, some cartoonish violence, a few choice bad words and some sexiness.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Simon Ambrose is said to have attended Eton College. In reality Dominic West, the actor that portrays him, actually did attend Eton.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $160.1M on a $45M production budget; this was a big hit but nearly all of it overseas. Only $8M came from domestic box office which virtually guarantees we’ll see another Johnny English movie but possibly not over here.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: Mystery, Alaska

The Big Year

Making movies is for the birds

(2011) Comedy (20th Century Fox) Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Brian Dennehy, Rashida Jones, Rosamund Pike, Dianne Wiest, John Cleese (voice), Kevin Pollak, Joel McHale, JoBeth Williams, Paul Campbell, Cindy Busby, Anjelica Huston, Jim Parsons, Anthony Anderson, Barry Shabaka Henley, Al Roker, Steven Weber, Corbin Bernsen. Directed by David Frankel

 

All of us want to leave a mark in some form or another; not necessarily as celebrities but in our own small way we want to accomplish something special, something we can be proud of. Something that says “I was here. I did this. I meant something.” It’s not always an easy thing and often we have to overcome obstacles we never could have anticipated.

In the world of bird watching, birders have a kind of Heisman Trophy that they go after – it’s called, informally, a Big Year and it means essentially spotting as many birds as possible in a calendar year. It requires an insane amount of dedication and not a little expense. The all-time champion is Kenny Bostick (Wilson) who holds the mark at 723 separate species of birds.

He has become bored and restless resting on his laurels. He’s made the decision to tackle another big year, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife (Pike) who is much more eager to start a family. Still, she recognizes he needs one last adventure and gives it to him, but not without consequence.

Brad Harris (Black) is a computer programmer who is divorced and feeling less sure of who he is. He knows he loves birding and is pretty good at it but has to save for quite a while to mount up the resources in order to tackle something like a Big Year. His parents (Wiest, Dennehy) are less than enthusiastic but mom manages to mount up some supportiveness while his cardiac patient dad is less tolerant.

Stu Preissler (Martin) is a workaholic CEO on the verge of retiring and he knows what he wants to do with the first year of his retirement – a Big Year. His wife (Williams) is a little less sanguine about it with a grandchild on the way but Stu insists that he can do both. However, his company is a bit jittery about his departure and a new merger that is going to save the day is dangling by a thread and Stu’s touch is needed.

The three run into each other in the field and none wants to tip their hand that they are going after a Big Year but soon it becomes obvious that they all are after the same thing. While Kenny will do anything and everything to safeguard his record – and allow himself to shatter it – Stu and Brad quickly realize that the only defense against Kenny is to team up. But who will be the winner at the end of the year?

I hadn’t expected much from the film, having understood that it was a critical and box office failure but I was pleasantly surprised. The three leads are all individually engaging and all of them restrain their normal onscreen personas so that none of them is overwhelming (Black particularly who can be overbearing in some of his roles). Here they all are charismatic but sweet-natured – even Wilson’s character, who can be a bastard, isn’t all bad.

Black gets to have a nice field romance with a fellow birder (Jones) which helps add a romantic element to the movie; all of the leads are at different places in their relationships with Stu’s being more centered, Kenny’s being on the edge of disaster and Brad’s just beginning. It illustrates the role of our partners in our lives quite nicely too.

The cinematography is quite nice, with enough bird shots to do a nature film proud (not all of the footage here was authentic – some was spliced in from other movies in order to bring enough different species of birds on screen). Sure, there are some bits that stretch the believability quotient a bit but none to the breaking point.

The leads aren’t the only reason to see the film. As you can see in the cast list there is a pretty impressive collection of talent, some on for only a scene or two (like Huston as a crusty boat captain) but it isn’t stunt casting so much. We aren’t playing “spot the celebrity” although it makes a nice counterpoint to the bird spotting (and a fun game to play for those watching the second time – see how many birds YOU can spot).

This was a movie that came out with a bit of fanfare, considering the star power in the leads and then exited theaters quickly. For whatever reason it didn’t connect with audiences who probably thought a movie about bird watching would be boring. The point is however that this isn’t strictly about bird watching. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and living. Getting off the couch and into something, anything, that sparks our passion. You can’t really complain about a movie that advocates that.

WHY RENT THIS: Amazing heart. Some interesting bird-watching facts. Nice performances from the leads.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A bit too obsessive.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are more than a few bad words and a little bit of sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: All the bird sightings from the winner of the competition are shown over the closing credits and yes, every one of them is a different species of bird, although they weren’t all spotted by the same person in this case.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: Nothing on the DVD but the Blu-Ray has a gag reel.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $7.5M on a $41M production budget; there is no way to call this other than an unmitigated flop.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Butter

FINAL RATING: 8/10

NEXT: Cloud Atlas

Wrath of the Titans

Sam Worthington likes to use the big forks.

(2012) Swords and Sandals Fantasy (Warner Brothers) Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Danny Huston, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, John Bell, Lily James, Sinead Cusack, Alejandro Naranjo, Freddy Drabble, Kathryn Carpenter. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

 

Most remember Clash of the Titans from 2010 and maybe the original back in 1981. The first film was a Ray Harryhausen camp classic while the newer one was a massive hit, although it took a lot of critical hits. Much of the criticism was aimed at the 3D process which was tacked on at the end of post-production and quite frankly was one of the worst 3D conversions ever.

The new film picks up 10 years after the last one left off, with Perseus (Worthington) burying his wife and trying to raise his son Helius (Bell) simply as the son of a fisherman. That proves difficult when your father is Zeus (Neeson), the king of the gods. Zeus shows up unannounced to Perseus’ new home to tell him that a storm is brewing. The people of Greece have lost faith in the gods and no longer pray to them. Without the prayers to bolster them, the powers of the gods are waning which is not necessarily a good thing. Perseus, however, refuses to leave his son’s side.

Many years earlier the gods had imprisoned the Titans after Kronos, the father of Zeus, Hades (Fiennes) and Poseidon (Huston) tried to kill his kids. There’s tough love, but that’s going a little bit too far don’t you think? Anyway the three men defeat their dad by combining their three weapons – Hades’ pitchfork, Poseidon’s trident and Zeus’ thunderbolt – all forged by Hephaestus (Nighy). The trio banish Kronos and his Titans to a special prison designed by Hephaestus beneath Mt. Tartarus. Now, with the power of the gods ebbing away, the walls are beginning to crumble. Once those walls fall, Kronos will be released from his prison and the universe will be remade in the wrathful titan’s image – and it ain’t a pretty picture.

When Hades and Ares (Ramirez) turn on Zeus and deliver him to Kronos, draining Zeus’ power to hasten the release of Kronos. In return, Hades and Ares will retain their immortality. It becomes obvious that Perseus will have to get involved despite his misgivings. He seeks out Queen Andromeda (Pike) for help, mainly with releasing the son of Poseidon, Agenor the Navigator (Kebbell). Agenor in return will help find Hephaestus who will in turn show them the back way into Tartarus. Time, however, is of the essence.

Like its predecessor, the movie is effects-laden and cursed with a back-end 3D conversion process. Much of the movie takes place underground so the lighting is dim to begin with; the 3D makes it even dimmer, so much so that some of the action is difficult to make up. Because of Kronos’ volcanic nature, there is much smoke and ash everywhere which also makes viewing difficult. Those who have a choice should really consider seeing the movie in standard form.

That said, the movie isn’t as bad as some critics are letting on. I’ll grant you that Worthington is a little flat in places but Fiennes and Neeson are delightful in their godly roles and Pike is a marvelous warrior Queen. The movie is entertaining to the max and delivers on the thrills and while some of the monsters are a little bit out of left field (like the enormous Cyclops and the snottastic Minotaur), they are at least fun to watch.

There’s plenty of swordplay and Agenor supplies some comic relief. All in all, this is mindless fun that doesn’t demand much of the viewer and returns plenty in terms of your entertainment dollar. It’s the kind of movie you can go to and shove your problems away for a couple of hours with a bag of popcorn and an ice cold soda in the darkness. Movies like this are the reason going to the movies is so fun.

REASONS TO GO: Mindless, fun entertainment. Fiennes and Neeson are wonderful.

REASONS TO STAY: Too dark for 3D. Worthington is a little bit bland in the lead.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some fantasy violence not to mention a few disturbing monster images.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Gemma Arterton was supposed to return to the series as Io but was unable due to scheduling conflicts, so her character was killed off-screen. Alexa Davalos was also supposed to return as Andromeda but was “unavailable” so Rosamund Pike was re-cast in the role.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/8/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 23% positive reviews. Metacritic: 37/100. The reviews are mainly negative.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Immortals

M.C. ESCHER LOVERS: The sets in Tartarus have an Escher-esque quality to them.  

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: We Need to Talk About Kevin

New Releases for the Week of March 30, 2012

WRATH OF THE TITANS

(Warner Brothers) Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, Toby Kebbell, Edgar Ramirez. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Retired hero and demigod Perseus has been living a life of quiet satisfaction as a fisherman but a visit from his father Zeus changes all that. Apparently the power of the Gods has been siphoned out by the lack of worship from their human charges and the Titans, the cruel and vicious forbears of the Gods who have been imprisoned in Mt. Tatarus for thousands of years, are growing strong enough to break out of the weakened Gods’ bondage. With Hades and Ares switching side, it will take the combined might of the humans and Gods to save the world from the tyranny of the Titans.

See the trailer, clips, featurettes and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of fantasy violence and action)

Mirror Mirror

(Relativity) Julia Roberts, Nathan Lane, Armie Hammer, Lily Collins.  A wicked Queen who has lived life as the fairest of them all gets a rude shock when she discovers there’s a new contender for the title – princess in exile Snow White. Snow has about had enough of the evil Queen and vows to reclaim her kingdom with the help of seven rebellious dwarves who will also help her win back her Prince – once he finishes sniffing his own hind end, that is.

See the trailer, interviews and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Fantasy Comedy

Rating: PG (for some fantasy action and mild rude humor)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

(CBS) Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas, Amr Waked. A visionary sheikh decides he wants to import the pastime of fly fishing into Yemen. He enlists the help of a skeptical Scottish fisheries expert who doesn’t think it can be done. However when the British Prime Minister’s overzealous press secretary, looking for a feel-good story in the Middle East turns the screws to see that it gets done, the Scot begins to fall for the sheikh’s strange dream as well as for an attractive consultant.

See the trailer and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Dramedy

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence and sexual content, and brief language)

Thin Ice

(ATO) Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup, Lea Thompson. An insurance man trying to turn his life around and win back his estranged wife hits upon a scheme to con an old man out of a rare and valuable musical instrument. Things go sideways when a nosy, volatile locksmith inserts himself into the plan and creates havoc that spirals dangerously out of control.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Crime Comedy/Thriller/Drama

Rating: R (for language, and brief violent and sexual content)

W.E.

(Weinstein) Abby Cornish, Oscar Isaac, James D’Arcy, Andrea Riseborough.  A young woman obsessed with the story of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson is given access to private correspondence from the American divorcee which may put her romantic notions of the couple to the test. Madonna directs this love story set in two different time frames.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romance

Rating: R (for domestic violence, nudity and language)

Made in Dagenham

Sally Hawkins finds out that diamonds aren't always a girl's best friend.

(2010) True Life Story (Sony Classics) Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Rosamund Pike, Jamie Winstone, Andrea Riseborough, Geraldine James, Nicola Duffett, Matt Aubrey, Kenneth Cranham, Daniel Mays, Andrew Lincoln, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Rupert Graves, Richard Schiff. Directed by Nigel Cole

 

It is no secret that women in the workplace are not treated the same way as men are. Some of it is a biological necessity – after all, men don’t have to take off of work to have babies. However, when given equal work to do, women have never been paid equally to men.

In Britain that is as true as it is in the States. At the Ford plant in Dagenham, source of most of the Fords on the road in the UK, most of the women are involved with sewing the upholstery for the cars. They work in an industrial barn with no air conditioning that gets so hot that the women strip down to their bras and girdles in order not to faint while they are working at the sewing machines. This makes for some fairly awkward moments whenever any men walk into their domain.

One such man is Union rep Albert Passingham (Hoskins) who has to impart the bad news that their bid for being classified as “Skilled Labor” has been turned down by Ford’s executive leadership. This means they will continue to be classified as “Unskilled Labor” and thus make significantly less than their male counterparts.

This doesn’t sit well with the ladies or Albert and so they vote to authorize a one-day walkout to show management they mean business. Albert chooses young mother of two Rita O’Grady (Hawkins) – who is married to a line worker, Brian (Aubrey) to accompany himself, Union boss Monty Taylor (Cranham) and shop steward Connie (James) to a face-to-face meeting with management. However once they arrive it becomes clear that Monty not only doesn’t support equal pay for the workers, he is colluding with Ford to make sure it doesn’t happen. Incensed, Rita throws down some fabric and tells the execs that they are welcome to try to sew them into a car seat and leaves to tell her co-workers to walk.

Thus begins the story of a real-life 1968 labor action that would lead to Britain’s 1970 Equal Pay Act which was a landmark victory in the women’s rights struggle in Britain. Made in Dagenham is a dramatization of those actual events – Rita is actually an amalgam of several real women who were involved in the leadership of the strike – and a fine one at that.

The movie doesn’t just focus on the strike itself, although that’s definitely a focal point, but more on how it affected the workers and the community. Rita suffers from a good deal of vitriol because many townspeople are angry at the lost wages incurred during the strike (of course they change their tune once the strike is resolved). Her friends also have their own crosses to bear; Connie is dealing with a husband (Lloyd-Pack) who is suffering from battle fatigue and other psychological problems due to his involvement in the Second World War while Sandra (Winstone) dreams of being a model, which Ford uses against her to help try to turn the strikers back to work.

In the meantime the strike attracts the attention of Secretary of State Barbara Castle (Richardson) who sympathizes with the strikers but is under  enormous pressure from Prime Minister Harold Wilson and from Ford’s legal consul (Schiff) to bring the strike to a speedy conclusion or risk having Ford pull out of Britain entirely, something that would pretty much doom Wilson’s party in the next elections.

Hawkins does fine work as Rita. She’s shown her plucky and cheerful side in Happy-Go-Lucky and here adds a core of steel to that pluck. She begins on the mousy side but ends up a leader and the transformation is very organic. Hawkins gives the character flesh and blood.

Unfortunately not all of the other characters in the movie get the same kind of attention, particularly the male ones. They are mostly either sympathetic or antagonistic to Rita’s cause and rarely are they given much more context than that. The women fare a bit better, but often take a back seat to the flash fashions they are given to wear which are colorful and mod (in stark contrast to what the real strikers wore which was more drab and utilitarian – but then the women who worked at Dagenham at the time were a good sight older than they were portrayed here). The era is captured nicely on the soundtrack as well.

Dagenham works as a history lesson and gives us reason to understand that the fight still has a long way to go – women in the United States make about 77% of what men earn, for example – but films like this remind us that it just takes a willingness to stand up for what you believe in and the courage to stay standing when adversity is thrown at you to effect any sort of change.

WHY RENT THIS: A lively and plucky look at a group of women who helped change the British workplace permanently. Hawkins gives a marvelous performance.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Some of the characters could have used some fleshing out.

FAMILY VALUES:  There is quite a bit of bad language as well as some fairly sexual scenes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Sandie Shaw, who sings the film’s title song, once worked as a punched card operator at the Ford Dagenham plant, although years before the events of this film took place..

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $12.4M on an unreported production budget; the movie was a moneymaker unless I miss my guess.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Mars Needs Moms

New Releases for the Week of October 21, 2011

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

(Summit) Logan Lerman, Milla Jovovich, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Mads Mikkelsen, Gabriella Wilde, Juno Temple, Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

A hot-headed young man joins forces with three rogue Musketeers to take on the evil Cardinal Richelieu, the sensual assassin Milady DeWinter and Lord Buckingham, prime minister of their sworn enemies Great Britain and prevent a cataclysmic war. There have been screen versions of this Alexandre Dumas classic for decades (my favorite being the Alexander and Ilya Salkind version in the 70s) but this is the first to come out in 3D.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D

Genre: Adventure

Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of adventure action violence)

Johnny English Reborn

(Universal) Rowan Atkinson, Gillian Anderson, Dominic West, Rosamund Pike. There is a plot afoot to assassinate a world leader and cause global chaos and only one man can stop it – superspy Johnny English. The trouble is that English is nowhere to be found, and once he finally is located, is woefully out of practice. That’s no matter; what Johnny English does requires no skill or practice whatsoever.

See the trailer and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Spy Spoof

Rating: PG (for mild action violence, rude humor, some language and brief sensuality)

Margin Call

(Roadside Attractions) Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany. On a single day during the height of the 2008 financial meltdown, the key players at a financial firm cope with the implications of a scandal at their own company that might shutter its doors forever. They will need to wrestle with decisions both moral and ethical that will not only weigh their jobs in the balance but also their very souls.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for language)

The Mighty Macs

(Freestyle Releasing) Carla Gugino, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Ellen Burstyn. In 1971, a small Catholic women’s college caught the imagination of the sports world when a hard-edged head coach and a spunky nun helped mold the team into a national championship run that defied the odds. They would become a team for the ages.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Sports Drama

Rating: G

Paranormal Activity 3

(Paramount) Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden, Lauren Bittner, Chloe Csengery. This is the prequel to the enormously popular found footage horror series. It depicts, in the 80s, how the supernatural forces that beset Katie and Kristi came into their lives as young girls.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for some violence, language, brief sexuality and drug use)

The Way

(ARC Entertainment) Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wangingen. An American doctor travels to the Pyrenees to recover the remains of his estranged son, killed in a storm while making a pilgrimage along the Way of St. James. In tribute to his son and also as a means to understand him better, he decides to complete the journey his son wanted to make. This was directed by Estevez and filmed along the actual Camino de Santiago in France and Spain.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Spiritual Drama

Rating: NR

New Releases for the Week of October 14, 2011

THE THING

(Universal) Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Jonathan Lloyd Walker, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Eric Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Paul Bronstein. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen

This is the prequel to the 1981 John Carpenter version of the film (which is in itself based loosely on the John Campbell short story Who Goes There). Here, a Norwegian team in Antarctica makes an amazing discovery in the ice – which turns deadly when they foolishly let it out.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, promos and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror

Rating: R (for strong creature violence and gore, disturbing images, and violence)

The Big Year

(20th Century Fox) Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Rosamund Pike. Three men at various stages of life face crises and all decide, separately, to take a year to fulfill all their dreams. Each of these friendly rivals find themselves crossing paths and cross purposes as they take on the adventure of a lifetime…or several lifetimes.

See the trailer, clips and an interview here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for language and some sensuality)

Footloose

(Paramount) Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Andie MacDowell, Dennis Quaid. After a small Texas town bans dancing following a tragedy involving several of their teens, a newcomer in town takes on his peers in an attempt to establish himself and the town fathers in an attempt to establish dancing and self-expression. Yes, this is a remake and yes it’s got hip-hop dancing and no, I’m not going to review it.

See the trailer, clips, promos, an interview and a music video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Musical

Rating: PG-13 (for some teen drug and alcohol use, sexual content, violence and language)

The Whistleblower

(Goldwyn) Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci, David Strathairn. An American police officer serving with the UN peacekeeping force in post-war Bosnia discovers a terrible secret involving a cover-up at the highest levels. Doggedly determined to bring justice to the oppressed, she places her life – and her mission – in great jeopardy. This is inspired by actual events.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for disturbing violent content including a brutal sexual assault, graphic nudity and language)

An Education

They'll always have Paris...

(2009) Drama (Sony Classics) Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Sally Hawkins, Olivia Williams, Emma Thompson, Cara Seymour, Matthew Beard, Amanda Fairbank-Hynes, Ellie Kendrick.  Directed by Lone Scherfig

There comes a point in all of our lives when we are just on the cusp of blossoming from awkward teenager into adulthood. The world is alive with possibilities then, and our future is positively limitless. There is a magic in that period, one that we never ever re-capture except in memory.

It is London in 1961, not the swinging London of Carnaby Street but a London that is more 50s than 60s. The Beatles were still backing up Tony Sheridan then and the counterculture were brewing more in the American Beat generation than in the shores of the UK. It is a staid, conservative place and stifling for 16-year-old girls with stars in their eyes and dreams in the heart.

This exactly describes Jenny (Mulligan), whose parents Jack (Molina) and Marjorie (Seymour) want to get her into Oxford where she can put some of her intelligence to good use. They even have her join the student orchestra so that she has a better chance of matriculating there, but the thought of having her attend a concert to hear the music she’s learning to play never occurs to them. Jenny is tired of the pimply attempts at seduction by awkward boys and the trifling conversations of her peers. She wants more out of life.

Out of the rain comes David (Sarsgaard), a charming man nearly twice her age. He gives her a lift on a rainy day, taking her and her cello back home. They discuss the music of Edward Elgar and she finds him fascinating. He offers to take her to a concert; she agrees to it.

This might seem creepy, a 30-something man taking out a teenage girl – and it is – but Jenny is no ordinary teenager. She is fully aware that David’s attentions might turn to sex, but she’s adamant on waiting until she’s of legal age (which at the time was 17), and in the meantime she means to plunder every experience she can from the older man and he’s okay with that. They attend a series of art auctions and nightclub performances of jazz and classical music. He introduces her to champagne and cigarettes. He even takes her to Paris, promising her parents that they would be chaperoned by his aunt who lives there – and of course, someone whom she never actually meets. Her parents are as charmed by David as she is, but something like this can only end in tears and so it does.

Director Scherfig, who made the sadly underappreciated Italian for Beginners and the upcoming One Day, does a lot of things right here. She captures the period excellently, from the conservative suburban English attitudes of Twickenham to the sophistication of David and his friends Danny (Cooper) and Helen (Pike). She also cast very wisely, from brief but scintillating cameos by Thompson (as an uptight headmaster with subtle racist attitudes) and Hawkins, to meatier roles by Williams as a sad teacher who knows the waters Jenny is navigating well.

Molina, a veteran character actor who has many memorable performances to his credit, may have outdone himself here. Jack is naïve but his heart is in the right place; he is completely out of his depth and Molina captures that without getting maudlin. Seymour also hits all the right notes as the mother who may very well be living vicariously through her daughter the lifestyle she always wanted but never had. Sarsgaard oozes charm and snake oil as a character that is thoroughly rotten and knows it, but is just repentant enough to be relatable. His actions have no redeeming qualities, but the character does.

However, the movie belongs to Mulligan. She deserved the Oscar nomination she received here and although there was some grumbling that she was playing 16 as a 23-year-old, she truly brings Jenny to life, making her an indelible character that may well go down as one of the most memorable movie personalities in any single film of the decade. She has been compared to Audrey Hepburn by some critics, but I think it’s more accurate to say that Jenny is influenced by Hepburn, although Mulligan does share those gamine features that Hepburn was famous for. It is her transformation that makes the movie worth watching, and she carries it squarely on her shoulders. With the right roles, she could well be a star in the making.

The movie does rely a bit overly much on the charm of its actors and there is a low-key vibe that I think clashes with some of the serious aspects of the film. There is also a sexual frankness, mainly in dialogue, that might startle those who are sensitive about such things.

The movie is based on the memoirs of British journalist Lynn Barber, and it is worth noting that the screenplay was written by Nick Hornby, author of such books as “About a Boy” and “High Fidelity,” both of which were turned into pretty decent movies. I think it was Hornby’s doing that softened David up a bit and made him less of a creep and more of a pitiable creature; while Barber’s account treats her relationship a little bit more matter-of-factly, there’s a sense that the David-Jenny romance is being looked back upon with a bit of a sheen of sentimentality, which makes perfect sense. The education referred to here is not about Jenny’s romance with David – it’s about Jenny’s romance with life.

WHY RENT THIS: An Oscar-nominated performance by Mulligan and an overlooked supporting performance by Molina. Sarsgaard is also charming. Period capture is dead on.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Fairly low-key which handles a serious subject with a very light touch. Might be too sexually frank for some.

FAMILY VALUES: Some pretty adult thematic material as well as plenty of period smoking.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Orlando Bloom was initially cast as Danny but dropped out a week before shooting began; he was replaced by Cooper, who had previously been in talks for the role.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s some footage from the film’s Los Angeles premiere if you’re into that sort of thing.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $26.1M on a $7.5M production budget; the movie was a hit.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: Kung Fu Panda 2