Serenity (2019)

Captains cantankerous.

(2019) Thriller (Aviron) Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Diane Lane, Jeremy Strong, Charlotte Butler, Rafael Sayegh, Michael Richard, Robert Hobbs, Kenneth Fok, Garion Dowds, John Whiteley, Edeen Bhugeloo, Redd Pepper (voice), Guillaume Silavant, Vinaya Sungkur. Directed by Steven Knight

Serenity is not a great movie. Serenity isn’t even a good movie. I’m not talking about the 2005 Joss Whedon sci-fi epic, which is a terrific movie; this is a 2019 sexy noir-lite set on a Caribbean island incongruously called Plymouth with an even more incongruous zydeco film score. I kid you not.

On said island lives the incongruously named Baker Dill (McConaughey) who is a fisherman who when not chartering his boat for wealthy tourists (and even when he is) is on the hunt for a giant tuna called, most incongruously of all, Justice. Ahab, meet Dill.

He has a fairly laid-back island existence (he IS Matthew McConaughey after all) enjoying a torrid affair with a local cat lady (Lane), but all that goes out the window when his ex-wife Karen (Hathaway) shows up with an indecent proposal; to take her abusive new husband (Clarke) out to see, murder him, and let the sharks take care of the body. What’s an island boy to do?

The movie has a terrific cast full of Oscar winners and nominees as well as Hounsou as Baker’s first mate and Strong as an oddly persistent fishing equipment salesman. This is one of those films that you simply can’t take seriously. Don’t try to inject logic into it, just kind of go with it. There is a twist in the film but I can’t tell you about it without ruining the film, which is a shame because it’s really the best thing about the movie, unless you have a thing for McConaughey’s bare ass, which gets shown off to fair effect several times throughout the flick.

In the end, I couldn’t really get past the ridiculous dialogue, or the movie’s waste of a good cast, although to their credit they do commit to their roles. I suppose you could see this if you own Prime and you’ve binged everything else; it’s not horrible but it’s just not very good.

REASONS TO SEE: The twist is a decent one.
REASONS TO AVOID: The score doesn’t really match the tone of the film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity, some bloody images and a fair amount of sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was filmed in Mauritius where a scandal was created when that country’s Prime Minister was accused of misappropriating funds to support the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/7/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 20% positive reviews, Metacritic: 37/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Identity
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Return to Hardwick

The Deep (1977)

Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw and Jacqueline Bisset in drier clothes.

(1977) Adventure (Columbia) Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Dick Anthony Williams, Robert Shaw, Earl Maynard, Bob Minor, Louis Gossett Jr., Eli Wallach, Robert Tessier, Lee McClain, Teddy Tucker, Peter Benchley, Colin Shaw, Peter Wallach. Directed by Peter Yates

The sea guards its secrets jealously. The ships and men that go down into its deadly embrace can carry with them treasures untold; retrieving those treasures can be as deadly above the water as below.

David Sanders (Nolte) and Gail Berke (Bisset) are vacationing in Bermuda, taking up a hobby that the both of them share – scuba diving. They come upon a wreck and pull up a gold coin as well as an ampule of an amber liquid. The latter seems to be anachronistic when combined with the former.

The couple take the finds to Romer Treece (Nolte), a reclusive treasure hunter who lives in a luxuriously appointed converted lighthouse. He deduces that the ampule is from the Goliath, a ship carrying medical supplies and munitions to Europe during the Second World War but because of the presence of the ammo has been marked off-limits to divers because of the danger involved. He also figures out that the wreck of the Goliath sits upon the wreck of a much older ship which may be carrying priceless treasure.

The fellow they purchase diving equipment from, Adam Coffin (Wallach) happens to be the only living survivor from the wreck of the Goliath. In addition, the ampule has caught the attention of Henri Cloche (Gossett), the local Haitian crime lord (doesn’t every island have one?) who wants the ampules which turn out to be morphine. He agrees to let Treece and Sanders pull the morphine out of the wreck in exchange for a million dollars. Of course, Cloche has no intention of letting them just walk away from the wreck knowing that he has just come into millions of ampules of medical morphine and employs thugs, intimidation – and even voodoo – to get what he wants.

This was in many ways a follow-up to Jaws which at the time had redefined Hollywood from simply pumping out whatever movies suited them to one oriented to blockbusters. It was also released during the summer of Star Wars which had been packing in massive audiences since late May and still managed to do decent box office business.

That was because it had one special effect that Star Wars couldn’t muster – Jackie Bisset in a wet t-shirt. The movie notoriously featured the nubile young actress throughout the first part of the film in a wet t-shirt which was of course heavily marketed and paved the way for wet t-shirt in bars and spring break events across the country. I can hear my female readers shaking their heads now and saying “Men…!”

The movie, like Jaws, was based on a novel by Peter Benchley, who also penned the screenplay of his own novel here (and makes a cameo appearance as a U-Boat crewman in the film’s opening sequence). Sadly, neither the book nor the movie was as well-written as Jaws was, with plenty of irritating lapses in logic that defied common sense even of people who knew absolutely nothing about scuba diving.

Nolte was one of the top young leading men in Hollywood and does a fine job here as the intrepid David but these days few people even remember he was in the movie. That’s because Bisset, who could have easily phoned in a part which was clearly exploitative in many ways, actually imbues her character with strength and character. If you remember anything from the movie (other than the t-shirts) it is Gail, who is more of a modern heroine rather than the damsel in distress which she seems to have been written to be.

The underwater photography is some of the best that has ever been captured in a Hollywood film. Shooting in actual wrecks in the Caribbean, the actors had to get scuba certified before filming began and the producers got not only the best underwater cameramen in the business at the time but added consultants who knew a lot about the actual technical obstacles to working a wreck like this one. Unlike many underwater scenes from films of that era and earlier, The Deep doesn’t look murky or muddled; the clarity is amazing even by modern standards.

As adventure flicks go, this one is pretty fun and although extremely dated in some ways (the mostly black thugs are a tip of the hat to the blaxploitation flicks that were popular at the time) it remains a fun ride even for modern audiences. Benchley as a writer was always able to spin a good yarn and while he is mostly remembered for Jaws the book this is based on is his second-best known work, although for many his novel The Girl of the Sea of Cortez is his best-written work. The Deep benefited from attractive stars and titillation but remains a movie that should be better remembered for bringing the audience right under the waves and into the action.

WHY RENT THIS: An engaging adventure flick that is a product of its era. Some of the best underwater scenes ever filmed. Bisset in a wet t-shirt.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Laughable plot that defies logic. Some of the special effects and racial attitudes are dated.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some violence, some sexuality and some foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The younger version of Treece and Coffin were played by the sons of actors Robert Shaw and Eli Wallach respectively.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: The movie was broadcast on American TV as a two night event miniseries with nearly an hour of additional footage. While the expanded version has never been released on home video, several of the scenes from that additional footage are included in the Blu-Ray edition, as is Robert Shaw’s diving primer.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $47.5M on a $9M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray rental), Amazon (buy/rent), Vudu (buy/rent),  iTunes (buy/rent), Flixster (purchase only), Target Ticket (not available)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: For Your Eyes Only
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Our Film Library continues!

The Rum Diary

Johnny Depp in a pose sure to get many a woman's heart aflutter.

(2011) Drama (FilmDistrict) Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi, Marshall Bell, Amaury Nolasco, Bill Smitrovich, Karen Austin, Julian Holloway, Bruno Irizarry, Enzo Cilenti. Directed by Bruce Robinson

Hunter S. Thompson remains an iconic figure; not only in the counterculture but also within journalism and I guess among those who admire American eccentrics. One of his close friends was actor Johnny Depp, who famously portrayed the author in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and helped get this novel, based on Thompson’s experiences in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the early 60s, published.

Now Depp has gotten the movie made. He plays Thompson surrogate Paul Kemp, a boozehound journalist who has seen the bright lights and big city of New York but has been exiled to the San Juan Star, an English language newspaper that is on its last legs, edited by Lotterman (Jenkins), a harried frazzled man who is watching his empire crumble around him.

Kemp hooks up with Sala (Rispoli), a once-competent photographer who has fallen into a booze-induced haze of rum and cockfights while he waits to collect the severance pay that is sure to come when the Star folds. The two wind up sharing a room with the mercurial Moberg (Ribisi), whose brain has been filleted by drug use and alcohol abuse. He’s been fired from the Star but still hangs out around the newspaper, avoiding Lotterman and waiting for his paycheck.

Kemp is approached by Sanderson (Eckhart), a shady businessman who brokers quasi-legal land deals that enrich the pockets of his American friends but not so much the people of Puerto Rico. Sanderson’s girlfriend Chenault (Heard) takes a shine to Kemp but the combination of rum, debauchery and intrigue prove to be a more alluring combination in many ways.

Robinson made his reputation as a director with Withnail and I, an account of an alcoholic from the point of view of his friend. After the best-left-forgotten Jennifer 8 he has been absent from the director’s chair for 20 years. This isn’t, sadly, an auspicious return to the form of the former; thankfully it isn’t a project sunk to the depths of the latter either.

Much of the movie’s high points – and low ones – come from Depp. Nobody can play drunk like Depp can and although Rispoli and Ribisi do their best (and it’s pretty good) it’s Depp’s show without a doubt. Although he’s pushing 50 and is playing a man who has to be about half that age, he still makes Kemp a believable journalistic Quixote, tilting at the windmills of corruption and arrogance with Rispoli an effective Sancho Panza.

The chemistry between Depp and Heard is a little dicey. Heard is a very good actress but she’s playing a gold-digger who, it seems to me, would be more attracted to the size of a wallet rather than to the kindness of a heart. Why Chenault falls for Kemp is a complete mystery and doesn’t seem to fit with the girl’s character and Heard isn’t able to really offer an explanation either.

The movie is paced like a long languorous Caribbean afternoon, passing in a haze of rum, heat and thunderstorms. It doesn’t have the kind of edginess you’d expect with something that Thompson wrote and it might well be best seen after having quaffed a glass of 400 proof rum. No such thing? Oh, I beg to differ my friends…

REASONS TO GO: Nobody does drunk like Depp.

REASONS TO STAY: Kind of stodgy for a Hunter S. Thompson adaptation.

FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of foul language, enough drinking to drown the Antarctic in rum and a bit of drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Robinson, who also wrote the screenplay, had been sober for six years before taking on this project. He was hit by a severe case of writer’s block and began drinking, a bottle a day, until the script was completed. He continued to drink during production and quit drinking immediately afterwards.

HOME OR THEATER: While the look of a squalid Puerto Rico is sometimes offset by the gorgeous vistas of beach and jungle, the movie works as well at home as it does in the theater.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Dead Girl