Mechanic: Resurrection

Jason Statham raises stubble to an art form.

(2016) Action (Summit) Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Sam Hazeldine, Michelle Yeoh, John Cenatiempo, Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr., Anteo Quintavalle, Rhatha Phongam, Bonnie Zellerbach, Francis Tonkala Tamouya, Tais Rodrigues Dias, Allan Poppleton, Soji Ikai, Vithaya Pansringam, Lynnette Emond. Directed by Dennis Gansel

 

Jason Statham is my favorite action hero at the moment. He’s smart, he’s tough and he’s talented. He has his own unique voice and has the chops to hang with the legendary action stars of the 80s and 90s; Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, van Damme…Statham if nothing else can proudly put his name in that pantheon, even if most of the films he makes in the genre are more of the B variety.

So he’s back, now in his 50s, in a sequel to his 2011 hit. Arthur Bishop (Statham) is a world class assassin who specializes in making his hits look like accidents but after faking his own death has been living under the radar in Brazil. However, in this day and age nobody can slip notice for long and he is found by Crain (Hazeldine), an old “friend” of his who needs his special talents. In order to obtain them, Crain needs to have some leverage on his old buddy and what better way than to set him up to fall in love with the altruistic and somewhat naïve Gina (Alba) who happens to fall into his radar.

He takes refuge at the Thai resort run by his friend Mei (Yeoh) but Crain finds him there and kidnaps Gina. Now Bishop must perform three nearly impossible assassinations of three very dangerous, evil gentlemen in a short amount of time or Gina is going to get dead, which Bishop is anxious to prevent. He knows that Crain will likely kill them both anyway so he needs to have a plan. Here’s your word of wisdom for the day; never force a world class assassin to work for you unless you intend to die yourself.

The film this is a sequel to was itself a remake of a 1972 Charles Bronson flick which was darker in tone than this. There is more of a 90s action vibe, a cross between the Mission: Impossible series and the action films of Schwarzenegger. One of my issues of the 2011 film was that Bishop was almost too good; there was never a sense that he was in any jeopardy. They’ve rectified that here, but there are other issues unfortunately.

The main one is that it doesn’t really add anything to the franchise. Bishop was, as Statham put it, a “thinking man’s killer” who has the ability to plan three or four steps ahead and improvising on the fly when he needs to. It’s mostly the latter here and we lose some of the more thoughtful aspects of Bishop which is what made him unique. Worse though, this is pretty much action film making 101; it is interchangeable with all sorts of recent action films (many of which were made for the Lionsgate/Summit banner) and we can pretty much predict what happens next – and it does.

Statham is the main reason to see this. He has settled into being one of the premiere action heroes of the 21^st century and while he could use a shave pretty much throughout the movie, he continues to be one of the most impressive hand-to-hand fighters in action films ever. He’s capable of being over-the-top in the Crank films or more subtle as he is here. The man can actually act, as he showed in his Guy Ritchie films as well as The Bank Job, still to date his best performance.

The movie is at its best when the dialogue stops i.e. the action and stunt sequences. The trailer hinted at a stunt in which Statham climbs up the side of a glass building and sets a charge in the glass bottom of a pool hanging over the side, waving goodbye to the victim as the glass shatters and he plummets to his doom below. It is as good a sequence as you’ll find in any action movie this year and fortunately, the trailer omits some of the best parts of the sequence. There are others that are also in the elite class as far as stunt and fight sequences in 2016 are concerned.

But the movie’s main sin is that it simply isn’t interesting. The stunt sequences are great but the romance between Gina and Bishop is not and Yeoh, one of the greatest action heroines ever is held to a largely lifeless cameo. If you’re going to go to the trouble of casting someone the caliber of Michelle Yeoh, the least you can do is give her something to do. It’s a shame that she never got Hollywood’s interest in her prime; she’s not only an extraordinary action star but an extraordinary actress as well, as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proved and its sequel reiterated earlier this year.

Jones fares better as a jocular arms dealer but he really is the only one who looks like he’s having a good time here. Unfortunately, the audience for the most part will side with the rest of the cast and not have much of a good time either. This is a blah entry into what could have been an interesting action franchise.

REASONS TO GO: There are some really nifty action sequences and stunts. Statham has become a dependable lead actor.
REASONS TO STAY: Overall, the film is predictable and dull. They took an interesting character and converted him into just another action figure.
FAMILY VALUES:  All sorts of violence and foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  This is the American film debut of Gansel, who has directed a number of films in his native Germany.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/25/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 23% positive reviews. Metacritic: 38/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: John Wick
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Kubo and the Two Strings

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The Miracle Match (The Game of Their Lives)

Zachery Bryan and Wes Bentley are chagrinned to discover that nobody wants to see a movie about soccer.

(2005) True Life Sports (IFC) Gerard Butler, Wes Bentley, Patrick Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Jay Rodan, Costas Mandylor, Louis Mandylor, Zachery Bryan, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Gavin Rossdale, Terry Kinney, Craig Hawksley, Nelson Vargas, Richard Jenik. Directed by David Anspaugh

The most popular sport in the world is what we call soccer and every other civilized nation on the globe calls football. For some reason, it just doesn’t resonate with the American psyche and for the most part, the popularity of soccer in this country has resided in the immigrant communities, particularly European and Latin American immigrants who grew up with the game in their blood.

In 1950, soccer barely registered at all to the American public but in St. Louis – particularly in the Italian enclave known as “The Hill” – it was more than a passion, it was a pastime. There were many who felt that the best soccer in the nation was being played there, especially to St. Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter Dent McSkimming (Kinney) who covered the soccer beat for the paper. When the U.S. wangled their way into the World Cup (back then, it didn’t have the long and involved qualifying tournament), most Americans reacted with a “what’s that?” – if they reacted at all. However, McSkimming and some of the St. Louis soccer players were excited when Walter Geisling (Hawksley), one of the great promoters of soccer in this country during that era, came to town to announce try-outs for America’s first World Cup team. 

Because it had been pulled together at the last minute, the team would have little time to develop. Laconic coach Bill Jeffrey (Rhys-Davies) has two completely separate schools of play to choose from; the extremely disciplined style of the East Coast, led by Walter Bahr (Bentley) and the freewheeling style of the St. Louis Italian clubs, whose best player is goalie Frank Borghi (Butler). Somehow, the players had to figure out a way to blend their styles into something new, something stronger if they had a chance of competing. Winning a game? Not possible. They would be going up against national teams that had lived together and played together for months, with the best players in the world playing on them. When they went to Brazil, the team was hoping merely not to embarrass themselves.

As luck would have it, they were scheduled to play against the English team, the clear favorites to win the cup and a team led by the greatest player of the time, Stanley Mortensen (Rossdale). They would have to play the game of their lives to pull off the greatest upset in World Cup history, but somehow, you know what the outcome will be.

This movie was released initially as The Game of Their Lives  but when Disney released this on home video, they changed the title to The Miracle Match, possibly to distance themselves from the disastrous theatrical box office numbers. American soccer continues to be in its adolescent stages, but the American sports movie certainly has a bit more maturity to it. Ultimate underdog movies like this have been done before, in Miracle and Hoosiers (which Anspaugh also directed). One of the problems I have with a sports movie like this is that you have to get invested in the players and their off-field dramas in order to gain that rooting interest. Sadly, that never happens here. These are a bunch of cardboard cutout character types that are so blandly played that you can barely tell one from the other. Butler and Bentley gamely try their best, but they are ultimately submarined by a sub-par script. For example, the man who coaches the team, Bill Jeffrey, comes off as someone who essentially just shows up at the games. He has no insight into the game that we’re privvy to, and never seems to make any decisions regarding the team – the players do that. 

Just as bad, the soccer sequences are uniformly bad. It’s obvious the actors can’t play the game very well, and the Bend It Like Beckham sequences – which are performed by adolescent girls – come off far more realistically. While Anspaugh captures the era nicely, in the end, this is an emotionless movie that does not do well by a group of men who deserve better for one of the crowning achievements in all of sports history.

WHY RENT THIS: Captures a little known moment in U.S. Soccer history. Bentley and Butler do fine jobs in their roles.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Lack of character depth and the feeling of “Haven’t we seen this before” pervades the entire film. Soccer sequences are atrocious.

FAMILY VALUES: Some mild language and thematic issues.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: In the scene of Gino and Janet’s wedding reception, the guests are played by members of the St. Louis contingent of the team, their children and grandchildren.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $388,998 on a $20m production budget; the film was a major flop.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Unknown

Eat Pray Love

Julia Roberts looks soulfully at the Eternal City.

(Columbia) Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, Viola Davis, Richard Jenkins, Billy Crudup, James Franco, Tuva Novotny, Luca Argentero, Giuseppe Gandini, Rushita Singh, Hadi Subiyanto, Christine Hakim, Anakia Lapae, Arlene Tur.  Directed by Ryan Murphy

Most of us, at one time or another, undergo a rigorous self-examination of the soul, one usually brought on by some kind of crisis. We are forced to face our own deficiencies, define who we are and compare ourselves to who we need to be. Most of us must do us all by our own lonesome; some of us use the benefit of a therapist. Others take a different route.

Liz Gilbert (Roberts) is a successful freelance writer who’s married, lives in a great apartment in Manhattan and is surrounded by a coterie of friends and admirers. Of course, this means she’s absolutely miserable. Her husband Stephen (Crudup) is a bit of a self-involved dweeble, perpetually trying new careers in an effort to find something that’ll stick. He has announced that he is going back to school to get his masters, just as Liz is looking forward to spending some time in Aruba. When he asserts “I don’t wanna go to Aruba,” she replies tearfully “I don’t want to be married.”

Stephen contests the divorce and doesn’t want to let go. Liz does what any sensible woman just getting out of a marriage to a decent enough guy that she was miserable in – she leaps into the bed of David (Franco), an off-Broadway actor who has adopted Eastern philosophies and follows an Indian guru. He is just as superficial as Stephen is, and Liz decides to leave on a year-long journey of to find out who she is since she feels numb inside, as she tells her best friend Delia (Davis). Of course, it doesn’t hurt that despite being cleaned out in the divorce, her publisher paid for the trip with an advance on the book that Liz would eventually write (a fact not mentioned in the movie).

Her first stop is Rome, where she meets Sofi (Tuvotny), a Swedish ex-pat; Giovanni (Argentero), Sofi’s Italian boyfriend and Luca Spaghetti (Gandini), who claims his family invented the namesake pasta. Here, she dives headfirst into Italian cuisine, from Neapolitan pizza to Roman pasta to gelato and everything in between. She eats without feeling guilty, launching herself into La dolce far niente – the sweetness of doing nothing. Check.

From there, she goes to the ashram of the Indian guru that David follows. Here, she meets Richard (Jenkins), a garrulous Texan who, as she puts it, speaks in bumper stickers. He chides her into finding a way to meditate despite the attacks of mosquitoes and an inability to clear her mind. He calls her “Groceries” because of her appetite and the two wind up being pretty good friends, enough so that Richard confesses to her the reason he’s there in one of the movie’s more compelling scenes.

She also befriends a young girl (Singh) who is about to enter an arranged marriage, which troubles the both of them. Eventually she gets with the program, but Liz not so much, the wedding reminding her inevitably of her own. Eventually, she finds some inner peace. Check.

After that, it’s off to Indonesia – Bali to you and me – to meet up with the medicine man Ketut (Subiyanto) whom she met a year earlier and predicted that she would be back to teach him English. She stays in the area, translating old parchments for him in the mornings and exploring Bali in the afternoons. It is here that she meets Phillipe (Bardem), a Brazilian ex-pat who runs an import business. The two begin to fall for each other, but Liz doesn’t need a man anymore – does she?

This is based on the New York Times bestseller, and it’s appeal to women can be measured by its appearance on Oprah (the daytime talk diva devoted two entire shows to the book) and the number of women in the audience at the movie, which was roughly about 80%. There is certainly an empowering element to the book and the movie, which teaches women that they need to find fulfillment from within.

At least, that’s the message I think is intended, but the movie doesn’t really bring that across so much. Most of the wisdom that Liz arrives at comes from others, be it the irascible Texan in India, or the gentle healer in Bali. She seems to bring little to the table internally other than a penchant for whining about how unfulfilled she is.

I don’t know the author personally so I can’t guess at how accurate the portrayal of her is. I’m sure she couldn’t have been disappointed to have Roberts, one of the most beautiful women on Earth, playing her. Roberts is a fair actress in her own right, as Erin Brockovich conclusively showed, but this won’t be measured as one of her finer performances. To be fair, it can’t be easy to portray someone whose chief trait seems to be inner emptiness but you never get a sense of that emptiness being filled in a significant way. Perhaps that’s a subtlety I overlooked.

She is also matched with two of the best actors in the world in Bardem and Jenkins, and neither one disappoint. Jenkins’ rooftop soliloquy in the Indian portion alone may win him Oscar consideration for Best Supporting Actor, if Academy members remember that far back come voting time this winter. Bardem plays a wounded divorcee who desperately loves his children, but is terrified of getting his heart broken again.

Murphy crafts a very slick, good-looking movie that runs a very long time – I was definitely shifting in my seat right around the India sequence – and doesn’t have as much depth as it purports to. As Liz accuses Richard of speaking in bumper stickers, so is the movie a series of motivational posters of cats hanging from ledges and eagles gliding into sunsets. There is nothing truly profound here, other than the simple advice not to worry so much about what you eat, find balance in your life, and then find a hot Brazilian to fool around with. Sage advice all, but especially for those who can afford to take a year off and embark on an all-expenses paid journey of self-discovery. Most of us don’t get that kind of opportunity.

The secret to finding self-realization is to look inward. You’re simply not going to find it in a book or a movie, although those desperate enough will look in those places first. As Richard says repeatedly to Liz (repetition is a theme in the movie), you have to do the work. Nothing comes easy in this life, not even something simple like a plate of spaghetti. Realizing that is the first step towards wisdom.

REASONS TO GO: Bardem and Jenkins are two of the best actors working and are worth seeing in their roles. Gorgeous cinematography makes this worth checking out.

REASONS TO STAY: Spiritual aspects are a bit hazy. Quite frankly, this seems quite self-indulgent and new age-y.  

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some sexuality and occasionally bad language, as well as a bare male derriere; otherwise, it’s suitable for teens and above.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Director Murphy is responsible for creating the hit Fox Network show “Glee.”

HOME OR THEATER: There is some beautiful cinematography here, but not the sweeping majesty that would compel home viewing.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Trucker