Sisters

Sisters partying like it’s 1989.

(2015) Comedy (Universal) Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Ike Bairnholz, James Brolin, Dianne Wiest, John Cena, John Leguizamo, Bobby Moynihan, Greta Lee, Madison Davenport, Rachel Dratch, Santino Fontana, Britt Lower, Samantha Bee, Matt Oberg, Kate McKinnon, Jon Glaser, Chris Parnell, Paula Pell, Emily Tarver. Directed by Jason Moore

I’m a big fan of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. For one thing, they’re really, really funny and when paired up, even funnier. As a matter of fact, they might just be the best all-female comedy team of all time. Think about it; how many all-female comedy teams are you aware of? There definitely should be more of them.

So this is their second movie together after the successful Baby Mama and it has kind of a John Hughes-like scenario. Two sisters – Kate Ellis (Fey), a 40ish foul-up who is brash and sexy, and Maura (Poehler), a divorced nurse with a charitable compulsion that sometimes leads to awkwardness – are summoned home to Orlando (although only one scene was filmed here) to their ancestral family home which their parents (Brolin, Wiest) are putting on the market so that they can move into a retirement community and divest themselves of most of their possessions. The girls are meant to clean out their rooms so that the sale can be finalized the following Monday.

Much nostalgia ensues as the girls decide to throw one last blow-out party like the ones they threw in high school…when Maura would be the responsible one and Kate would party hard. With the realization that Maura never got laid in her own bedroom and the window of opportunity closing, Kate decides to snare James (Bairnholz), a hunky neighbor, to seal the deal.

Kate offers to be the designated party Mom and stay sober, which is a new role for her. She does have a teenage daughter (Davenport) but their relationship is rocky. In fact, the daughter has left the nest, exasperated by her mom’s irresponsibility and party party party attitude and she refuses to tell Kate where she is. Determined to prove herself responsible, Kate throws herself full tilt into her new role.

And that’s really it for plot. If you’ve seen one high school blowout party movie, you’ve seen them all and this is essentially a middle aged riff on that. It has that 80s John Hughes movie kind of vibe which isn’t a bad thing at all, but lacks the really laugh-out-loud consistency that Hughes was able to create for his movies. There’s more of a Farrelly Brothers consistency in which everything is thrown at the comedy wall and whatever sticks does, the more outrageous the better. There are more bra jokes in this movie than I think have been in any movie in cinematic history, and some drug humor (although nothing like a Seth Rogen film) for people who don’t do drugs. There is most definitely a been-there done-that feel to things, and while that can make for cinematic comfort food, it really isn’t what you want out of talents the likes of Poehler and Fey.

The good thing is that Fey and Poehler are one of the greatest comic teams in history – not just female, but any. Their chemistry is undeniable and the two play off of each other better than anyone working in the movies today. It’s at the center of the movie (as well it should be) and makes their roles as sisters thoroughly believable. Da Queen, who has a sister, agreed that it was a realistic portrayal of the dynamic between sisters.

There is a cornucopia of supporting roles, from SNL veterans (Fey, Poehler, Dratch, Moynihan, Rudolph) to WWE wrestlers (Cena) to Daily Show stars (Bee) and sitcom regulars (Bairnholz, Brolin). Most of the roles are essentially one-dimensional who are there to add a specific element (angry rival, studly drug dealer, drugged-out class clown, Asian pedicurist) to the proceedings, but like the leads are given very little to do that is really genuinely funny. Bairnholz shows some promise as a comic leading man though, and Rudolph manages to express every annoyed expression that it is possible for a human face to make.

Don’t get me wrong; this is entertaining enough that I can recommend it, largely due to Fey and Poehler, but this isn’t as good as it could and should have been. A pedestrian plot and lack of actual laughs turn this from what should have been a showcase for two of the most talented comedians working today into a just average comedy with too many characters and not enough character.

REASONS TO GO: The chemistry between Fey and Poehler continues. Some fine supporting performances.
REASONS TO STAY: Not enough laugh-out-loud jokes. The plot is too been-there done-that.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of crude sexual content, a fair amount of profanity and drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Brolin and Wiest also play parents in last year’s indie film Life in Pieces.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/5/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 59% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Step Brothers
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Won’t Back Down

Advertisement

The 33

Chippendale’s goes underground.

(2015) True Life Drama (Warner Brothers/Alcon) Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Mario Casas, Jacob Vargas, Juan Pablo Raba, Oscar Nuňez, Tenoch Huerta, Marco Treviňo, Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Cote de Pablo, Elizabeth De Razzo, Naomi Scott, Gustavo Agarita, Bob Gunton, Gabriel Byrne, Paulina Garcia. Directed by Patricia Riggen

One of the problems with bringing a real life event to the big screen, such as the sinking of the Titanic or the destruction of the Hindenburg is that everyone knows what’s about to transpire pretty much. For the mine collapse of the San Jose copper mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert on August 5, 2010 that trapped 33 miners miles below the surface for 69 days, most people are aware of how that turned out.

For most of the miners of the San Jose copper mine, August 5, 2010 was just another working day. After a retirement party for Mario Gomez (Agarita) who has just a few days to retire, Mario Sepulveda (Banderas), engineer Luis “Don Lucho” Urzua (Phillips), Elvis impersonator Edison Pena (Vargas), Dario Segovia (Raba), a homeless alcoholic and the devout Jose Henriquez (Treviňo) are among those who go down to earn their living, even though there are signs that something catastrophic was about to occur (and in real life, several miners had died and the mine owners repeatedly fined for poor safety conditions in the century-old mine).

Then a rock twice the size of the Empire State Building shifts and falls, burying the miners miles below the surface. When the 33 miners in the bowels of the earth reach their refuge, they discover that the medical supply cabinet is empty, the emergency food rations nearly so, and the telephone to the surface unconnected. The ladders in the ventilation shaft are also discovered to have never been completed. At first the miners take out their frustrations on foreman Urzua but Sepulveda’s level head prevails. They go about rationing the little food and water they have access to.

On the surface, the families of the miners, led by Maria Segovia (Binoche), the estranged sister of Dario, demand to be informed as to what is being done. The mining company, without the wherewithal to mount an expensive rescue operation, has decided to assume the men are dead and are making only token attempts to see if the miners are alive. The arrival of Chile’s Minister of Mines Laurence Golborne (Santoro) changes that; as he quickly discovers the lack of interest on the mining company’s part of getting their employees home alive, he takes charge of the rescue operation, with the blessing of Chilean President Piňera (Gunton) and with the assistance of mining engineer Andre Sougarret (Byrne).

In the meantime, things are looking dire in the mines as the first boreholes sent to the shelter miss their targets. However, once the miners are discovered alive and well, the gaze of the world turns to this compelling story in a small Chilean town.

Part of the problem with The 33 lies in its own title; there are 33 miners trapped underground and the movie can’t really spend a whole lot of time developing any of their characters. Throw in the families, political and media figures, the rescue teams including the one led by American Jeff Hart (Brolin) and it’s nearly impossible for director Riggen to give us a figure for the audience to latch onto, with the exception of the larger-than-life “Super Mario” who became a media darling in Chile during the actual event.

So a solid cast led by Banderas and Binoche, one of the most gifted actresses in the world, is left with frustratingly little to do other than occasionally mouthing a cliche meant to project their character’s role in the movie as comic relief, antagonist, love interest and so forth. Riggen has been criticized for this somewhat but to be fair I don’t think any director could have wrangled all of these characters and made them three dimensional unless she had a mini-series to do it with. Going back to Super Mario, during the movie there’s an incident when the miners turn on him because of his perceived favored status. One wonders if the actors in the film felt the same about Banderas who is really the only one of them who gets to make any sort of impression.

The rugged Chilean desert nicely contrasts with the mine scenes which were filmed in working mines in Columbia. They do capture nicely the flavor of being deep underground, although the sense of just how deep they were gets a little lost – in reality it would take the miners about an hour to reach the level they were trapped on from the surface, and of course an hour to return.

The movie glosses over some of the more disturbing aspects of the story, such as the mining company’s negligence or the absolutely disgraceful dismissal of their lawsuit three years after the disaster, or of the Chilean government’s opportunistic use of the miners to prop up their own sagging popularity. However, to be fair, the movie makes it clear that this was a defining moment in the history of Chile and that cannot be overlooked.

All in all, it’s an uplifting story that is a tribute to human endurance, the unmistakable power of hope, and the undeniable lure of bare masculine chests. I don’t know that the movie captured the true nature of what the miners endured – the second half of the movie there is almost zero tension because by that time supplies were making regular appearances down a tube from the surface, they had video communication with the surface and they made it seem less of a life-threatening situation than an endurance race. In the actual situation, there were serious doubts that the miners would survive – the unstable geological situation and the unknown performance of the rescue capsule were certainly question marks. Unfortunately, Riggen doesn’t really capture that adequately and maybe no director could have. After all, it’s no secret (and therefore not a spoiler) that all of the miners were rescued. That’s certainly the outcome we all wanted, but as dramatic cinema goes it doesn’t really stack up well.

REASONS TO GO: Inspiring. Plenty of beefcake.
REASONS TO STAY: Lacks character development. Little tension since we know how it ended.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some minor profanity and a disaster sequence that might be a bit scary for young ones.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The final film to be scored by the late James Horner, who died in a plane crash two months before the movie’s release.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/29/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 42% positive reviews. Metacritic: 55/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: October Sky
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Spotlight

New Releases for the Week of November 13, 2015

THE 33

(Warner Brothers) Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Bob Gunton, Gabriel Byrne. Directed by Patricia Riggen

In 2010, the eyes of the world were on Chile when 33 miners were trapped in a copper mine by a catastrophic explosion and collapse of the mine. For 69 days, an international team of mine experts frantically tried to rescue the men who survived underground. With barely enough food and water, with air running out and oppressive heat wearing them down, the race against time to bring the miners home became a desperate one. While we all know how the story ended, we don’t know the real story. This is apparently it.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for a disaster sequence and some language)

Love the Coopers

(CBS) Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei. The Cooper family has made an annual tradition of gathering at Christmas. Four generations of Coopers have grown up with this tradition. This year however, their celebration will be thrown askew by unexpected visitors, unlikely events and a renewal of family bonds that withstand the test of just about any calamity.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Holiday Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, language and some sexuality)

My All-American

(Clarius) Aaron Eckhart, Finn Wittrock, Sarah Bolger, Robin Tunney. Freddie Steinmark has been an underdog all his life. Considered too small to play football, he perseveres and becomes a champion in high school. His fight and determination attracts the attention of legendary University of Texas coach Darryl Royal who awards Freddie a scholarship. His determination and leadership turn around a losing team, but it was only after a devastating injury leads to a shocking discovery that the heart of a champion truly surfaces.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Sports Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, language and brief partial nudity)

Love, Wedding, Marriage

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

(2011) Romantic Comedy (IFC) Mandy Moore, Kellan Lutz, James Brolin, Jane Seymour, Jessica Szohr, Michael Weston, Marta Zmuda Trzebiatowska, Richard Reid, Christopher Lloyd, Alexis Denisof, Alyson Hannigan, Colleen Camp, Andrew Keegan, Joe Chrest. Directed by Dermot Mulroney

There is a Biblical quotation that before you take the mote out of someone else’s eye, first remove the beam out of your own. In other words, before you start fixing someone else’s problem, be sure your own house is in order. Wise words that aren’t always followed.

Ava (Moore) is newly married to Charlie (Lutz), a vintner and a successful one. She herself is a marriage counselor newly minted with a PhD from Berkeley. She is busy planning her parents’ 30th wedding anniversary celebration and she is content with the way her life is going.

That is, until her parents Betty (Seymour) and Bradley (Brolin) storm into her office. Apparently Betty has discovered that her husband cheated on her 25 years ago (the statute of limitations for cheating being indefinite) while they were separated and she wants him gone. Ava offers to avail them of her services but they decline; she has all of six weeks of marital experience and they need an expert.

Ava refers them to a colleague but decides that her help is going to be needed nonetheless behind the scenes. She becomes more and more obsessive with preventing that divorce, going to great lengths. She is also ignoring her own marriage and marital bed, frustrating her husband on every count. She invites her father to live with them without consulting Charlie (a big no-no) and allows Bradley to act out around the house (an even bigger no-no).

Ava goes to all sorts of lengths to manipulate her parents back together again but soon it becomes clear her efforts are not only failing, they are driving her parents further apart. Not only that, but her own marriage is in jeopardy as Charlie begins to wonder why she married him in the first place.

Actor Dermot Mulroney, the veteran of quite a few rom-coms, goes behind the cameras for this one and his inexperience shows. The direction is a bit flat and static; the camera rarely moves much and it makes the movie feel more like a stage play or a sitcom. I wish he’d gotten a little more mentoring before attempting to direct; to be honest, I admire him as an actor but I haven’t seen any sort of inventiveness in him as a director thus far. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any in him, though.

The writing here…well, let’s just say that I’m surprised in a negative way. The logic behind the movie just doesn’t work. Here we have an ostensibly bright and learned woman (they don’t just give out PhDs in cereal boxes at Berkeley, despite what Stanford grads would have you think) who is trained as a marriage counselor violating nearly every tenet of her own profession – not only in dealing with her parents but in her own marriage as well.

Now, I get that smart people sometimes do dumb things and that people can be hypocritical – and that emotional involvement can sometimes lead to us doing things we wouldn’t ordinarily do. That doesn’t mean that smart people act like buffoons, or that our parents’ divorce turns us into lunatics. There are things that Ava does that are actually painful to watch.

Brolin and Seymour, seasoned pros as they are, actually give it a good go. Sometimes Seymour is a bit shrill with her character (who is undergoing some sort of mid-life crisis that is causing her to give in to hysteria) and Brolin’s character shows signs of some sort of way-out dementia that has caused him to become ultra-Jewish (which is apparently something new, as Ava asserts that she isn’t Jewish) and something of a putz. He is apparently easily manipulated, which makes him less interesting of a character.

The sad thing here is that there are the prospects of a good movie deep in the DNA of this film which, unfortunately, aren’t allowed to develop. If the writers had given a little more thought to this movie instead of trying to produce a big screen sitcom rom-com this might have turned out a lot better. While I like the idea of a marriage counselor trying to save her parents’ marriage at the expense of her own, I would have liked a little bit less pratfalls and broad humor and a little more subtlety.

WHY RENT THIS: Brolin and Seymour have some nice chemistry together. 

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Ava’s obsessive behavior strains credibility

FAMILY VALUES: There is some sexual material and a few bad words.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The voice of Ava’s therapist whom Ava only speaks to on the phone is supplied by Julia Roberts.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: Not available.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: The Hurricane

Last Chance Harvey

Hoffman and Thompson bask in the admiration of the rest of the cast.

(Overture) Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Kathy Baker, James Brolin, Richard Schiff, Eileen Atkins, Liane Balaban. Directed by Joel Hopkins

Happiness is a rare and precious commodity in this life, and we get so few opportunities to reach out and grab it. We have to treat each of these opportunities as if they are our last chance to be truly happy.

Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is a failed jazz pianist who has made a living – okay, quite a bit more than that – writing jingles for Madison Avenue. He has flown to London to attend the wedding of his daughter Susan (Balaban). While arriving at Heathrow, he has a brief encounter with Kate (Thompson), who works as one of those airport survey takers, the kind of job that one must have a very thick skin to perform. Harvey is somewhat rude to her, as many are.

Harvey has reason to be in a pissy mood. He is entering the lion’s den, as it were. He and his daughter have been drifting apart for many years, especially after Harvey’s marriage to Jean (Baker), Susan’s mother, collapsed. Jean is married to Brian (Brolin) now, and at the rehearsal dinner Harvey is informed by his daughter that she wants Brian to give her away at the ceremony the next day rather than Harvey.

For a father, that would constitute something akin to water boarding. It is the rejection of a man’s paternal abilities, a means of telling a dad that his services were never appreciated. Whether or not Harvey had earned that kind of rejection, it still hurts in ways that cannot truly be fathomed by someone who has never been father to a daughter.

To make matters worse, Harvey gets a phone call from his boss (Schiff) at the agency he works for to inform him that his services are no longer required there either. Drowning in a sea of emotional torment, Harvey decides to get out of London with what little pride he has remaining, stick his tail between his legs and head home to lick his wounds.

Unfortunately, he is denied even that and he winds up at an airport bar waiting for a flight to take him back to New York. There, he sees Kate reading while on a break from her thankless job. Remembering her from his arrival, feeling guilty at his rudeness (and perhaps feeling a need to improve his karma somewhat), he tried to strike up a conversation with her and apologize. She is distant and uninterested, but he gradually wears her down with his charm. As they get to talking, they begin to realize that they are more like than unalike, and that one of those opportunities we spoke about earlier is suddenly right there in front of them.

Writer/director Hopkins had the framework for what could have been one of the better romantic movies of recent years. Certainly he has a couple that an audience can get behind; there is definite chemistry between Hoffman and Thompson and the couple they portray have been wounded by life, people who have been abandoned by the angels of their better nature. Instead, they have suffered from wrong choice after wrong choice, leading them to an encounter in an airport bar that might well be their last chance at happiness.

Hopkins could have just easily sat his camera in a two-shot in front of these two magnificent actors and just let it film the two of them talking. Instead, he opts for romantic interludes of montages of the two of them walking on the banks of the Thames, chatting animatedly with a truly awful, treacly score drowning out what they’re actually saying. It’s frustrating as all get out because we would much rather hear what they have to say.

There’s also an unnecessary subplot involving Kate’s paranoid mom (Atkins) and a neighbor she suspects of being a serial killer. While Atkins is a charming enough actress, whenever her character calls Kate it blows the movie right off of the tracks. And, let’s not even talk about the movie’s third act in which all the charm of the first two is lost in a cliché and hoary finish that makes us wish this movie had been made by more capable filmmakers, which isn’t to say that Hopkins isn’t one – he just isn’t one here.

The saving grace of this movie, and the reason to seek it out, are those scenes in which Hopkins simply lets us watch Kate and Harvey interact. There is literal magic in those scenes, and those moments are worth cherishing. This is a case of the actors transcending the material they are given to work with and making a decent movie out of one that might easily have been just awful.

WHY RENT THIS: Hoffman and Thompson are two of the best actors of our generation; any opportunity to see them is worth taking.  They make a likable couple that you can’t help but root for; whenever they are onscreen together chatting, there’s plenty of magic.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: An unnecessary subplot involving Kate’s paranoid mother derails the movie at every turn. The movie falls apart in the third act, relying on cliché and happenstance to resolve the action.

FAMILY VALUES: A little bit of blue language but nothing more than that.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Hoffman and Thompson first performed together in Stranger than Fiction. While they only had a couple of scenes together, they both enjoyed the experience so much that they looked for a project that they could tackle together as leads.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Up in the Air

The Hunting Party

Gere and Howard should have rented from Hertz instead.

(Weinstein) Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, James Brolin, Diane Kruger, Joy Bryant, Ljubomir Kerekes, Kristina Krepela. Directed by Richard Shepard.

There is a certain cache about being a war correspondent. The image of them is being adrenaline junkie thrill-seeking hard-drinking cynics have been perpetuated by the movies and to a large extent, by the media itself. However, what you don’t see on the other side of the camera is only half the story, and not the better half.

Simon Hunt (Gere) is a network reporter who in his life has moved from one war zone to the next, accompanied by his faithful cameraman Duck (Howard). When they reach Bosnia, the atrocities they have been inured to in other conflicts seem to hit home a little bit more, particularly for Simon. After a massacre in a small town perpetrated by a Serbian general nicknamed The Fox (Kerekes), Hunt has a full-on on-air meltdown, leading to his being fired and disgraced.

The intervening years are not kind to Hunt. He goes from one correspondence job to another, each at progressively smaller, less important agencies until he disappears off the radar completely. He exists mainly as a cautionary tale told in journalism schools. For Duck, however, his fortunes improve dramatically. He is promoted and works in a cushy network environment, the top of the food chain for network news cameramen. The deprivations of war are long behind him, almost as if they happened to a different man. He’s even got a sexy girlfriend (Bryant) waiting for him in Greece for a decadent, hedonistic vacation.

First, however he must return to Bosnia to celebrate the fifth year since the end of the civil war there. Network anchor Franklin Harris (Brolin) is doing a report from there to mark the occasion, and Duck is as always behind the camera. Along for the ride is rookie reporter Benjamin Strauss (Eisenberg) who is mainly there because his father is an executive vice-president at the network.

The last person Duck is literally expecting to see is Simon, but there he is. Furthermore, he has a major scoop, a game changer – one that will admit him back into the limelight. However, it is a difficult and dangerous story. The Fox remains at large, one of the war criminals not yet apprehended by the United Nations. Simon claims to know the location of the Fox and thinks he can get an interview. Duck is a bit uncertain but the prospect of the kind of story that would be a career highlight is too much to pass up. Strauss, eager to prove himself, tags along much to the disgust of Simon.

The danger lies in that the Fox is a national hero to the Serbs, and is well protected by maniacal bodyguards and fanatical villagers. The trio must get past U.N. bureaucrats, height-challenged black marketers, homicidal waiters and their own mutual mistrust – and once they find their target, what is Simon really after?

Loosely – verrrrrrrrrrrrry loosely – based on actual events (the reporters involved in the true life story are briefly viewed in a barroom scene), there is a feeling that this is a bit too Hollywood, a bit too cliché to be true. While the real reporters were print journalists (and included Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and Scott Anderson who penned the Esquire article that inspired the screenwriters), this is meant to be…well, I’m not sure. Partially it’s an indictment of the reluctance of the authorities in the Bosnian region to bring war criminals to justice, but also it seems to be a potshot at the media as well.

The problem here is that the media seems to be more a caricature of our existing preconceptions of who reports the news rather than actual characters. Having worked in the print journalism field and having known more than a few reporters in my time, I can safely say that not every reporter is a hard-drinking cynical Type-A personality as we’ve seen in movies like The Year of Living Dangerously. While the explanation for Simon’s meltdown does humanize him somewhat, you can be quite sure that no news reporter is going to put their cameraman into the line of fire as a joke.

That said, there are some nice performances here. Howard has become in a very short time one of the more reliable actors in Hollywood. Going back to Crash I can’t think of a single lackluster performance the man has given (although to be honest I haven’t seen The Fighter yet). Gere does his best with a severely flawed character, and Eisenberg does his best Michael Cera impression, as always.

Definitely, don’t look on this as an accurate representation of news reporting. About two-thirds of the way through the movie, the film takes a left turn when we find out what Simon’s real mission is and quite frankly, it doesn’t jive with the rest of the film. I think it would have worked a hell of a lot better if they had been seeking an interview with The Fox all along. However, they misfire with a truly awful ending that in an attempt to be satisfying ends up being the complete opposite.

There are some good things about the movie. It is beautifully shot and the subject matter would have been interesting if handled correctly. I can marginally recommend it based on that and the performances. However, be warned that this is a seriously flawed movie – and take it with a grain of salt, or better still a whole shaker of the stuff.

WHY RENT THIS: Howard performs nicely and the European locations are authentic and beautiful. The premise is at least interesting.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A truly awful ending torpedoes the interesting premise, as does their cliché characterization of the entire television journalism field.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some fairly disturbing shots of war atrocities and a goodly amount of foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The movie was mostly filmed in Croatia.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: 9