The Wave (Bølgen) (2015)

New Wave in Norway.

(2015) Disaster Action (Magnolia) Kristoffer Joner, Thomas Bo Larsen, Ane Dahl Torp, Fridtjov Såheim, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Laila Goody, Arthur Berning, Eili Harboe, Edith Haagenrud-Sande, Lado Hadzic, Tom Larsen, Herman Bernhoft, Mette Agnete Horn, Silje Breivik, Håkon Moe, Tyra Holmen. Directed by Roar Uthaug

America has essentially had the monopoly on disaster movies. That doesn’t mean that America has the monopoly on disasters – they happen everywhere, all the time. It has been a long time coming that a good disaster movie comes from somewhere not flying the stars and stripes.

Norway’s fjords are lovely, but they are also a ticking time bomb. They are in a mountainous region, and when the set up is just right – as in the tiny tourist village of Geiranger which sits at the mouth of the fjord bearing it’s name – that time bomb can tick rather loudly. As the movie notes in a kind of prelude, rock slides from Ȃkneset Mountain back in 1905 impacted the river below, causing a gigantic wave 240 feet tall moving between two tall cliffs like a bullet through the barrel of a gun, a gun pointed right at Geiranger. Scientists are wary that similar circumstances will happen again.

For that reason, a monitoring station is set up there, and geologist Kristian (Joner) has been a part of the team that has kept an eye on the mountain. However, the lure of corporate money has gotten him and he is leaving the government-run station for the deep pockets of an oil company. His last day has arrived and he and his family – wife Idun (Torp) who works as a desk clerk at the town’s luxury hotel, disaffected teen Sondre (Oftebro) and cute-as-a-button 7-year-old daughter Julia (Haagenrud-Sande).

While station chief Arvid (Såheim) is none-too-happy to be down such a valuable member of the team, he nonetheless gives Kristian a nice send-off. However, readings that show the ground water disappearing suddenly in two sensors on the mountain send Kristian scrambling to examine the evidence, which is disturbing but not enough to have Arvid evacuate the town, especially at the height of tourist season.

Still, something about it bothers Kristian so when he’s just about to drive aboard the ferry, he whips a quick U-turn and heads back. While his suspicions still aren’t enough to get Arvid pushing the panic button, he has succeeded in stranding his family (Idun had been set to finish out the month at the hotel anyway) in the town. With the mountain rumbling, disaster movie fans know that the worst is about to happen. As is true with most disaster movies, who lives, who dies – and what is left of the town – is all up in the air.

Given the film’s small budget, the special effects are pretty impressive. Something with a budget north of $100 million might have made a more realistic looking wave (and it appeared that the filmmakers used practical effects whenever possible) but not much more realistic. When it comes bearing down on the audience, one wishes that the movie had been shot in 3D. That might have been one of those rare instances where the format would have made sense rather than being a gimmick inserted into the movie for the sole purpose of allowing theaters to upcharge the public for the privilege.

Joner, who recently appeared in The Revenant, has a good deal of screen presence and makes a likable hero, even though his workaholic ways and detail-oriented personality drive his family and colleagues crazy. His fierce devotion to his family doesn’t particularly make him unusual among disaster movie heroes but it is unusual to see this kind of character in a European film. Then again, it is unusual to see this kind of subject in a European film.

I had to feel badly for Oftebro, who plays Sondre. He plays a character who is about as disagreeable as you can get and will even irritate Millennials. Apparently, the writer doesn’t think very highly about teens; Sondre is grouchy, disrespectful, self-centered and prone to doing the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. His actions get people killed and put his family in jeopardy; to be fair he does feel bad about it later but while he’s doing those things, you might be tempted to punch him right in the face.

Overall, I was a little bit disappointed in the movie; sure, the effects are better than I expected and the acting was solid, but there are so many disaster movie cliches and scenes that are literally ripped off from other movies such as The Abyss, Dante’s Peak, Jaws and The Impossible. Still, if you haven’t seen those movies and aren’t particularly familiar with the disaster genre, it will all be new to you.

So what this adds up to is a solidly entertaining European take on what has been up to now a genre dominated by American movies. Surprisingly, it is not essentially different than the American take on the genre. In a way, it is kind of comforting to know that some things are the same everywhere in the world – disaster movies apparently being one of them.

REASONS TO GO: Impressive but low-budget special effects. Joner is an effective and charismatic lead.
REASONS TO STAY: A lot of disaster movie cliches. You will want to punch Sondre in the throat.
FAMILY VALUES: Some graphic images of a tsunami disaster, and a few profanities.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Norway’s official entry for the 2016 Academy Awards Best Foreign Language film award; it didn’t make the final list of five however.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/15/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 80% positive reviews. Metacritic: 68/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Towering Inferno
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Zootopia

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Bringing Out the Dead

Nicolas Cage performs triage on his career.

(1999) Drama (Paramount) Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt, Cliff Curtis, Nestor Serrano, Aida Turturro, Sonja Sohn, Cynthia Roman, Afemo Omilami. Directed by Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese is one of my favorite directors. OK, that’s true for a lot of people – Scorsese is quite frankly one of the most accomplished directors ever. He knows the streets of New York City like nobody else. Whereas Woody Allen is uptown Manhattan, Scorsese is the lower Bronx. He can take murderers and junkies and make them compelling.

Bringing Out the Dead is about a burned-out New York EMS technician named Frank (Cage), who during the course of a hot, humid weekend, hopes to save a life and somehow find redemption from the ghosts that haunt him, particularly one named Rose, a street urchin who died while under his care.

During the first night, he and his larger-than-life partner (Goodman) haul in a coronary patient barely clinging to life. Frank finds himself drawn to the estranged daughter (Arquette) of the dying man, an oddly vulnerable woman with many complex layers. As the weekend progresses, Frank encounters junkies, drunks, gang bangers, victims, drug dealers, predators and criminals of all sorts.

Frank longs to be put out of his misery and tries his very best to get fired, turning to alcohol as the only way to ease his pain. Over the course of the weekend, he rides with a variety of partners, including the Bible-thumping lady-killer Marcus (Rhames) and on the final night, his psychotic ex-partner (Sizemore). He drifts through the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, struggling to avoid drowning himself.

Scorsese’s visual style carries the movie, using light and shadow to delineate Frank’s fall from grace and his attempt to rise above. Nobody uses motion and color like Scorsese, and he uses it well here.

Unfortunately, Paul Schrader’s script (Schrader and Scorsese previously collaborated on Taxi Driver) is scattershot, ill-plotted and occasionally pointless. I suppose the story is meant to reflect the pointlessness of life in the underbelly of a city where death and despair are constant companions. However, exorcising our demons is not just a matter of forgiveness; it requires faith and good timing too. When Frank encounters Rose for the last time, I found myself screaming at the screen “I get it, I get it already!!!!!!”

Cage was at a point in his career when he made this where he was still respected as an actor although he seems to be the butt of many late night talk show host jokes these days. His eyes here are sad, world-weary and expressive; it wasn’t his best performance ever but it might well make his all-time top ten. He gets to work off of a variety of foils for whom Sizemore and Goodman seem to be the most memorable. Arquette is luminous as Cage’s love interest.

Frank looks at the world through desperate eyes, seeking some kind of miracle in the muck. That he finds saintliness amid the squalor is a testament to his faith. That I watched the movie to its conclusion is a testament of my faith in Scorsese. Sadly, my faith was unrewarded, and I have to tell you that if you need a fix of Scorsese, go rent Casino, Goodfellas or The Departed instead.

WHY RENT THIS: Hey, it’s Martin Scorsese – that should be enough. One of Cage’s best all-time performances.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: An unsatisfying and often meandering plot line serves to emphasize the story’s points a little too much.

FAMILY MATTERS: There’s a good deal of violence, enough bad language to make anybody blush and a goodly amout of drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: There are two dispatchers heard in the movie, one male and one female. The male dispatcher’s voice is Scorsese; the female’s is rapper Queen Latifah, who would later go on to fame as an actress in her own right. This is also the last movie to be released on laserdisc.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $16.8M on a $55M production budget; the movie was a commercial flop.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: Creature