Blue Ruin

Fear comes home.

(2013) Thriller (Radius) Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack, Eve Plumb, David W. Thompson, Brent Werzner, Stacy Rock, Sidne Anderson, Bonnie Johnson, Daniel L. Kelly, Ydaiber Orozco, Erica Genereaux Smith. Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

When we commit a heinous act, the ripples from that act often reverberate for years and decades. We may consider the incident at an end, but those affected by it may not.

Dwight (Blair) lives out of his car. He talks to nobody, eats out of garbage cans and basically is completely off the grid. In the quiet beach community in which he’s taken up residence, he bothers nobody and from time to time can be seen under the pier staring out at the sea. His is a wounded soul and people generally stay away from him.

One morning a cop (Anderson) raps on the window of his bullet pock-marked blue Buick and informs him that one Wade Cleland has just been released from prison. That seems to wake him up from his fog. After all, Wade was the one who murdered both his parents some years before. So Dwight does what he thinks he ought to – head back home and take the vengeance that the justice system didn’t give him. He finds Wade and murders him. That should be the end of it but it’s only the beginning.

Now the Cleland clan is out looking for revenge of their own so Dwight needs to protect his sister Sam (Hargreaves) from the rampaging Cleland brothers Teddy (Kolack) and Carl (Werzner) as well as rabid sister Hope (Rock) and matriarch Kris (Plumb). Dwight isn’t ex-Special Forces. He’s no martial arts expert nor is he a marksman with a gun. In fact, when he tries to steal a gun from the front seat of a car, the trigger lock the owner installed is enough to defeat him.

With the help of his friend Ben (Ratray) he will go after the Cleland family but being something of a bumbler, Dwight is going to make a mess of things and certainly he’s not getting out of this in one piece. Then again, revenge isn’t exactly known for being the type of affair that leaves those who seek it intact.

This low-budget affair which was financed almost entirely through Kickstarter has been receiving rave reviews from filmgoers and critics alike and for good reason. You are unlikely to find a film that will be more intense and stressful to watch (in a good way) than this one. From nearly the opening scene to the final denouement the tension never lets up. Part of the reason for that is that Saulnier wisely adds no extraneous parts to this. Every scene is necessary to the plot; there’s not an ounce of fluff to this film. Perhaps that’s due to the budget as it is to the filmmaker but either way, that’s a good thing for the viewer.

Blair does a bang-up job as Dwight. His eyes show the wounds that never healed and throughout the movie his expression is one of near-panic, as if he is the lone passenger on a runaway train which isn’t far from the truth. One of the more original aspects of the film is that Dwight is an ordinary guy who is somewhat of a screw-up to begin with, so his plans for vengeance and protection of his sister are pretty much prone to being messed up more than they are being successful. He isn’t Dwayne Johnson, an expert in hand-to-hand fighting or a crack shot; he’s more likely to miss from point blank range than he is to hit his target. He’s basically in every scene, so the movie relies on him to carry it and Blair does. It’s a career-defining role for him.

Certainly the plot isn’t necessarily a new one – we’ve seen revenge films before, and in environments as rural as this one. It’s the way that Saulnier and company handle the premise that is refreshing and exciting. The suspense that is created is at times excruciating and I loved every minute of it. While veteran moviegoers may have a pretty clear idea how things are going to end up, the ride getting to that point is one worth taking.

REASONS TO GO: Great tension and suspense. While the premise isn’t original, the execution is. Dwight is realistic and not a superhero.

REASONS TO STAY: Occasionally predictable.

FAMILY VALUES:  The violence is strong and bloody and there’s plenty of cursing going on here.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Yes, that’s the actress who once played Jan Brady playing the Cleland matriarch.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/31/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 95% positive reviews. Metacritic: Metacritic: 77/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Lawless

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: X-Men: Days of Future Past

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Wanted

Angelina Jolie always gets her shot.

(2008) Fantasy Action (Universal) James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terrence Stamp, Common, Thomas Kretschmann, Kristen Hager, Marc Warren, David O’Hara, Konstantin Khabensky, Chris Pratt, Lorna Scott.  Directed by Timur Bekmambitov

Some of us fall into a vocation due to circumstances. Others pursue a career with a vengeance. However, there are those who are almost pre-determined into a role because of genetics.

Wesley (McAvoy) is a cube drone whose life is a series of unending humiliations; his boss bullies him, his girlfriend openly cheats on him. His life is going nowhere and what’s worse, he knows it and doesn’t think it’s ever going to change.

But change it does (trust me, nobody wants to see a movie about a doormat for two hours). A beautiful woman who identifies herself as Fox (Jolie) saves him from a gunman and the two indulge in a wild car chase in the city of Chicago. Wesley is brought into the world of the Fraternity, a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of assassins who have been trained to perform impossible kills, curving bullets to defy gravity and engaging in single hand-to-hand combat that would make Jackie Chan jealous. The Fraternity is led by Sloan (Freeman), a taciturn killer himself. He gets his marching orders from the Loom of Fate whose fabric contains skewed threads that act as a kind of binary code. It’s very complicated and weird.

Wesley finds out that his father was once one of their members but was murdered recently and the man who murdered him is after Wesley but before he can go up against someone like that, Wesley is going to have to train and I mean big time. When he gets hurt, he’s put in a special wax bath that heals his wounds.

Soon he’s ready for his first kill and it turns out Wesley has quite a knack. Genetics, you see. Soon Wesley is embroiled in the mystery of his father’s assassination and discovers revenge can lead to all manner of questions, some of which have some dangerous answers.

This is Bekmambitov’s first English language film after the excellent Russian CGI-fests Night Watch and Day Watch. He has a definite visual style and an affinity for action. These are some of the most innovative action sequences since The Matrix which is high praise indeed.

McAvoy was apparently a hard sell to the studio because of his somewhat understated quality but here he proves himself capable of leading an action movie (which he has done since in X-Men: First Class this past summer). He plays both the nebbish and the stone cold killer with equal believability which is vital for the success of the movie.

Jolie is as good a female action star as there’s ever been and you can tell she was born for roles like this. A femme fatale with a cold exterior and colder interior, she’s sexy and deadly. Although she’s too big a star to do it now, she’d make the ultimate Bond girl. She does her stunts with the grace and elegance of a dancer.

Bekmambitov has a wonderful visual style that draws a distinct line between the dreary cubicle-dweller’s life and the life of a career assassin. The colors are muted and drab in the former; vivid and electric in the latter. The pace is mile-a-minute and although there’s kind of a lull when the big twist is revealed, it picks up towards the end.

This is mindless summer fun that defies logic but so what? Those who studied even the most remedial physics will know that this stuff doesn’t ever happen but this isn’t the real world, it’s movies so you physics majors can take your objections and stick them where it’s anatomically impossible to put them.

WHY RENT THIS: Amazing stunts and a wonderful visual sense. Jolie seems to hit her stride in these sorts of action roles.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Stretches believability to the breaking point.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a whole lot of violence – some of it gruesome. There’s also a bit of bad language and a bit of sexuality as well.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was shooting in Chicago at the same time The Dark Knight was. Wanted creator Mark Millar was caught sneaking onto TDK set to check out the Batpod by producer Lauren Shuler Donner and was escorted off the set.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a motion comic and on the Blu-Ray edition, the Universal U-Control feature puts assassin profiles on the screen whenever new assassins pop up.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $341.4M on a $75M production budget; the movie was a hit.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond