Blood and Money

The Great White North (almost).

(2020) Thriller (Screen Media) Tom Berenger, Kristen Hager, Paul Ben-Victor, Bates Wilder, Erica McDermott, Mark Sivertsen, Brian Duffy, Melissa McMeekin, Jimmy LeBlanc, Catherine Portu, Gary Tanguay, Ryan Hornchick, Ace Gibson, David J. Curtis, Lisa Lynch. Directed by John Barr

 

We all have actors who we are fans of even as they fly under the radar of everybody else. For me, that’s Tom Berenger, who has been a terrific if underused actor for decades, resonating in films like The Big Chill, Platoon, Major League and Sniper. He’s also been in his share of B-movies, including this indie thriller.

Jim Reed (Berenger) is an ex-marine, living in a dilapidated custom-camper. Once upon a time he had a family, but that all comes to an end when his daughter dies in a drunk driving incident when he was at the wheel. His wife and son were never able to forgive him for that; Hell, he’s never been able to forgive himself for that.

He lives in the North of Maine and its deer hunting season and he’s particularly anxious to bag himself a buck. You see, Jim is vomiting blood and passing out; he knows he’s sick but he’s loathe to do anything about it. He mainly wants to be left alone, coming in to town to load up on supplies and hang out with Debra (Hager), a waitress who reminds him of his late daughter. She’s in a marriage to an alcoholic husband (LeBlanc) and wants to get out.

The talk of the town is a recent violent casino robbery in which five thieves got away with over a million dollars in cash. There’s a manhunt going on for them, but that’s of no mind to Jim, who basically is all about getting back to hunting.

Back out in the wilderness, he thinks he’s bagged his buck but it turns out to be a woman. Jim is absolutely distraught about the situation but when she dies, he flees the scene. He later finds out she as one of the gang that robbed the casino. So, Jim returns to the scene of the shooting and takes the big duffel bag full of money. Of course, it goes without saying that the surviving members of the gang want their ill-gotten gains back.

Berenger will be 71 at the end of the month and while he moves gingerly like a 71-year-old man, he still has the presence he did when he was younger. Berenger plays the silent type as well as anybody, and he gives Jim Reed a world-weary patina that just screams “Get off of my lawn.” He look utterly at home in the snowy wilderness of the north woods of Maine, and the cold temperatures match the cold demeanor of Reed.

Barr, in addition to directing, also co-wrote and shot the film as director of photography, and as a writer he makes a great cinematographer. The snowy vistas are harsh and beautiful, setting the tone for the thriller nicely. However, the plot is pure bargain bin; we’ve seen this movie before and done better, despite the best efforts of Berenger.

All in all, it adds up to a fairly pedestrian thriller that won’t give you any surprises or shocks, but is worth looking into for the beautiful pictures as well as for the performance of the lead.

REASONS TO SEE: Beautiful scenery.
REASONS TO AVOID: Kind of a typical plot.
FAMILY VALUES: There is both violence and profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Barr’s feature-length debut as a director. He’s been a cinematographer on 20 other projects.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/17/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 41% positive reviews, Metacritic: 37/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Cliffhanger
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Up From the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music

Walking Out

A father-son piggyback ride – with a twist.

(2017) Drama (IFC) Matt Bomer, Josh Higgins, Bill Pullman, Alex Neustaedter, Ken White, Lily Gladstone, Erik P. Resel. Directed by Alex Smith and Andrew J. Smith

 

The mountains are unforgiving. They are beautiful, yes, but formidable. One false step can leave you in a terrible situation. One mistake, one moment of lapsed concentration can make the difference between getting home safely and having your carcass gnawed on by animals.

Cal (Bomer) is an avid outdoorsman living in Montana. He is divorced with a child, 14-year-old David (Higgins) who lives most of the time with his mother in a more urban or at least suburban environment. Cal is about hiking, camping, hunting and respecting nature. David is about smartphones, chatting with his friends and videogames. Cal is 19^th century, David is 21^st century. Cal has some fairly concrete ideas of what it takes to be a man; David’s ideas are more fluid.

On his semi-annual visit to his Dad, David is less than enthusiastic but he’s a good sport and agrees to go hunting with his Pa. He proves to be a less than adept shot to his father’s frustration – and David’s own. Cal has quite a camping trip planned; he’s been tracking a moose in the high country and wants David to bag the animal as his first kill as a hunter. David would likely much rather play a hunting simulation game if he had a choice.

But David is the kind of kid who goes along to get along and depending on how charitable your view is, either sees how important it is to his Dad and gives in or simply wants to avoid a confrontation. Either way, the two head into the mountains where Cal hopes that this trip will bring the two closer together.

Things start to go wrong nearly immediately. They go after the moose only to discover that some rank amateur has already shot it and left it to rot which is a crime in Cal’s book. Looking for some other game to at least salvage the trip, things go wrong for the two men; horribly wrong in fact, leaving them stranded in the wilderness, one of them terribly wounded and no hope for rescue. They’ll have to walk out of the mountains on their own if they are to survive.

One of the words that best describes this movie is “simple.” In other words, the Smith brothers aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel here; they set up their shots without a lot of complication, the plot is straightforward and we are almost forced to concentrate on character interaction. This works for me particularly when the characters are interesting and the performers bring those characters to life.

The movie rests heavily on the shoulders of Bomer and Wiggins and to their credit they both do a solid job but we are given a pretty straightforward dramatic conflict; Dad = he-man outdoors type who likes to shoot things; Son = pampered Millennial with a chip on his shoulder. As winning formulas go, this is probably somewhere in the middle of the pack. Still, I grant you that this kind of relationship as we see here between Cal and David feels very much authentic, the kind of extreme gulf that exists between city folk and country folk. In a way the rift between Cal and David mirrors that between urban and rural in America.

The Montana scenery as lensed by Todd McMullen is as spectacular as advertised; there’s majesty, beauty and stark emptiness here. There’s a lot of snow, particularly when the movie switches from the prairies to the mountains but it’s a pristine snow of the kind you don’t find where people are. Even in all the whiteness there’s a kind of beauty that makes the audience shiver in sympathy and also feel VERY happy to be in a warmer climate at that moment.

The one Name in the cast is Pullman who plays Cal’s father in flashbacks when Cal describes his first moose hunt to his son. Pullman has hardly any lines at all and his appearances, all in a home movie-like sheen, are not enough to really make a difference here. The pacing of the film is pretty deliberate and after awhile watching the excruciating pain that one of the cast members is in gets hard to watch; as the two men make their way down the mountain, I began to wish the film would end quickly. Maybe ADD is catching.

Other than a few scenes this is a very talky affair with little action so people who might ordinarily be into this kind of survival film will likely be a lot more than a little bit put off by the film. Those into exploring relationship dynamics might see the adventure movie side to this and give it a wide berth. There is some promise here, not just the lead actors but also behind the camera as well. The Brothers Smith have a good eye, an ability to take a basic plot and make it their own. I suspect that I won’t remember much about the movie in the days to come but I’m much more positive that I’ll be remembering the directors in years to come as they craft movies that take story ideas, bring them to their essence and make a great movie around it.

REASONS TO GO: The scenery is beautiful. The father/son dynamic is unusually realistic.
REASONS TO STAY: Bill Pullman is wasted in his flashback-heavy role. At times the movie is hard to watch and at other times I couldn’t wait for it to end.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some bloody images of a mauling, adult thematic elements and some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Christian Bale considered the role of Cal but ultimately decided to pass because he didn’t want to be separated from his family on a remote location shoot so soon after the birth of his son.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/6/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Grey
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Woodpeckers

Winter in the Blood

Chaske Spencer gazes out over the infinite prairie.

(2013) Drama (Ranchwater) Chaske Spencer, David Morse, Gary Farmer, Julia Jones, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Lily Gladstone, Richard Ray Whitman, David Cale, Casey Camp-Horinek, Alex Escaravega, Joseph Grady, Saginaw Grant, Yancey Hawley, Kendra Mylnechuk, Michael Spears, William Otis Wheeler-Nicholson, Ken White. Directed by Alex and Andrew Smith

When it comes to the Native population, America has a lot to answer for. In attempting to obliterate their culture and drive them into squalid reservations, we have demoralized and demonized an entire people, yet they have endured. It hasn’t always been easy.

In the Fort Belknap reservation in northern Montana in the late ’60s/early ’70s, Virgil First Raise (Spencer) awakens from a drunken stupor to find out that his wife Agnes (Jones) has left him and taken his prized rifle, one of the last remaining gifts from his late father (Whitman) who died when Virgil was a boy, passed out in a ditch in the freezing cold.

That and the death of his older brother Mose (Hawley) have haunted Virgil throughout his life. As he goes to town to retrieve not his wife so much but his beloved rifle, he encounters the Airplane Man (Morse), a manic Canadian con artist who may or may not be real. He is being chased by a couple of men in suits who don’t seem particularly interested in arresting him so much as trapping him.

Virgil seeks to stem the pain through alcohol and random sexual encounters. His mother (Camp-Horinek) is getting hitched to Lame Bull (Farmer) which Virgil isn’t too thrilled by. He doesn’t think too highly of Lame Bull although his potential stepfather seems to be a decent sort. Still, Virgil has his own demons to wrestle with and at present, they are handily beating him. Can he overcome his past and come to grips with his present?

Based on the novel by native writer James Welch, this is a sobering and unflinching look at the results of our native American policies and how they have turned a proud people into a group without hope. The northern Montana landscape (where the novel is set and where this was filmed) is sometimes bleak but has a beauty all its own.

Spencer, best known as Sam Uley the leader of the werewolf gang in the Twilight franchise, is crazy good here. Virgil is basically a decent sort who wants to get his life together but just can’t get past the pains and traumas of his past. His mother and an elderly friend to his father named Yellow Calf (Grant) that he visits from time to time both understand him more than he understands himself, and there are those who would give him surcease but at this point in his life he just wants numbness. It’s a heart-rending and incendiary performance.

The rest of the cast also does well including a nearly unrecognizable David Morse but this is Spencer’s show. Because much of the movie takes place in a kind of surreal manner (Welch is well-known for having mystical elements in his stories), there is a sense of unreality to the proceedings. While that isn’t a bad thing of itself, the lines are often blurred and the movie comes off in places like a lost episode of Twin Peaks which also isn’t a bad thing of itself. However, some filmgoers might find that unsettling. Personally I wish the movie were a little more seamless in that regard.

I found myself completely immersed in the film, with a splendid soundtrack framing the action nicely and a timeless quality (I was surprised to find out the movie was set nearly 40 years ago after I had already seen it – look carefully and you’ll notice the truth of it) that made me feel that things have not changed so much for the Native American so much as plateaued. This isn’t always an easy movie to watch but it is a movie well worth the effort to go see it.

REASONS TO GO: Riveting performance by Spencer. Outstanding cinematography. Nice soundtrack.

REASONS TO STAY: Disjointed in places. Hunter S. Thompson-surreal atmosphere might be off-putting for some.

FAMILY VALUES: Some foul language, some sexuality, a little violence and some depiction of drunken behavior.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The soundtrack was provided by the Austin-based country blues-rock band the Heartless Bastards.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/26/14: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: A River Runs Through It

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: Chef

Nature’s Grave (Long Weekend)

Jim Caviezel, this time with a legitimate reason to take off his shirt.

 

 (Arclight) Jim Caviezel, Claudia Karvan. Directed by Jamie Blanks

 

The old saying goes “Don’t fool with Mother Nature” with the implied “because she’s a real bitch who will carve out your innards if you do” as well. More to the point that like any mother, Mother Nature will fight back if you disrespect her long enough.

 

Peter (Caviezel) and Carla (Karvan) is a couple who have been married too long. The love has long since disappeared and their relationship has disintegrated into a series of battles that nobody really wins. They decide – well, at least Peter did – that to make a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage they should take a vacation.

 

That would normally be a good idea, but even that turns out badly. You see, whereas Carla’s idea of a vacation is five-star hotels, massages and lush resorts, Peter prefers a tent, a secluded bit of beach and a gun. A gun which he fires in the general direction of his wife as a joke when they first arrive at the beach…at least, they think it’s the beach. The truth is that Peter got hopelessly lost on his way there and they really have no idea where they are.

 

At first it seems idyllic. Not far from the beach, a secluded forest with plenty of wildlife for shooting and only a few neighbors far away. However, things are rapidly deteriorating between Carla and Peter. It’s not a case of one being a jerk and the other a martyr…they’re both pretty much jerks. Peter is an alpha male whose testosterone drives him to do stupid, moronic things. Carla is a world-class nag and an all-Aussie bitch.

 

There are some other troubling things. One of Peter’s mates and his girlfriend was supposed to be meeting them, but they never showed. There are strange sounds in the night. Animals, plants and insects are acting unusually aggressive. A chicken rots in a cooler without explanation.

 

In the meantime, Peter and Carla act recklessly and thoughtlessly, Carla running over a kangaroo in the night, Peter shooting anything that moves (and several things that don’t). One wonders when the tipping point will be reached.

 

This is a remake of a 1978 eco-thriller called Long Weekend (which was the title this was released under in Australia where it was made) directed by the late Colin Eggleston. Although I never saw the original, I’m led to understand the remake is fairly faithful to it.

 

Caviezel is an actor I’ve always been fond of although he has been less visible on the big screen as of late. He is versatile enough to play the heavy (as he has in several movies) as well as the divine (as he did in The Passion of the Christ) and here, he plays a bit in between. Peter is a macho asshole (there’s really no other way to say it) but he isn’t rotten through and through; occasionally a bit of softness shows through.

 

I like the way the marriage between Carla and Peter is portrayed here. The two commit acts of petty cruelty in a slow dance of one-upsmanship whilst twisting the knife. As the song says, there’s a thin line between love and hate and that line is blurring here. Their pain has become so ingrained in them that every move is a series of reactions and counter-reactions to the slights, perceived and otherwise, delivered by the other. In that sense this is as fascinating a portrayal of a marriage in its death throes as any I’ve ever seen.

 

However, this is ostensibly a horror movie and while there are a few shocks, quite frankly this is one of those less-is-more type of horror movies that is more of a character study in which the scares come from left field. Veteran gorehounds will probably cringe while watching this, but it is better approached as a psychological thriller despite the supernatural aspect.

 

Because the lead characters are so cruel to one another, it’s very difficult to really root for them even when things are really going to hell in a handcart. After all, this is the bed they made, so lying in it comes with the territory. That said, it should be noted that the Aussies are often underrated when it comes to delivering delicious horror movies; quite a few good shock flicks have come from Down Under over the past thirty years, and some of them are as enviably good as any to come out of Japan, Korea, Spain, England or of course the U.S. This might be more than a little difficult to locate but it’s well worth the effort; while it doesn’t set any genres on fire, the train wreck aspect of watching the relationship deteriorate is equally a horror to the gory scenes of nature’s devastations.

 

WHY RENT THIS: Realistic portrait of a marriage that has completely come apart. It’s the relationship between Peter and Carla that make this movie.

 

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Maybe a little too subtle for the average horror film. Some might think Caviezel spends way too much time without his shirt on. There is a good deal of marital ugliness that might hit a little too close to home.

 

FAMILY VALUES: There are some images that are definitely not for the squeamish, a few big scares, lots of rough language and some drinking and drug use.  

 

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Screenwriter Everett De Roche also penned the 1978 original.  

 

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.  

 

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: Not available.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Day 3 of Six Days of Darkness.

The American

George Clooney takes aim at those exit poll guys.

(Focus) George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan Leysen, Filippo Timi, Anna Foglietta, Irina Bjorklund, Giorgio Gobbi, Samuli Vauramo, Raffaele Serao, Sandro Dori, Antonio Rampino, Lars Hjelm, Silvana Bosi, Guido Palliggiano. Directed by Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn made his start as a still photographer, and he is quite frankly responsible for many wonderful album covers, mostly from European bands. He graduated into making music videos (mostly for Depeche Mode) before doing a full-fledged concert video (also for Depeche Mode) until making his feature film debut in 2008 for Control (which was about Joy Division’s front man Ian Curtis, not Depeche Mode). Corbijn has a very recognizable style; what would he make of a spy thriller?

Well, the fact of the matter is that The American isn’t so much a spy thriller as it is a character study, and it certainly isn’t a Bourne-like action movie as it was marketed over here. That may have contributed to the truly horrendous word-of-mouth it got from people who saw it (it got a D- rating from the service that gauges audience reactions to movies they’ve just seen, an unusually low score). That may have frightened some people away from seeing it. That’s a shame because this is a pretty good movie.

Jack (Clooney) is canoodling in Sweden with a comely brunette before he is ambushed by armed hunters while taking a walk in the snow. It turns out that Jack not only carries a gun but he knows how to use it. The scene is shocking in its violence and we are treated to the sight of a stone cold killer, literally speaking.

Jack escapes Sweden and makes his way to Rome, where his handler Pavel (Leysen) advises him to get out of Rome and to a small town where nobody would think to look for him. Jack takes a Fiat into the mountainous Abruzzi region of Italy but he doesn’t like the vibe of the town that Pavel sends him to – too many nosy people. He instead makes his way for another charming little mountain village where he hopes to lay low and not attract any attention. “And above all,” Pavel warns him, “Don’t make any friends. You used to know that.”

So Jack – who is calling himself Edward here – takes the guise of a travel photographer and makes friends with the local priest, Father Benedetto (Bonacelli). So much for listening to good advice, it seems. In any case, Pavel gives him an assignment – to assemble a rifle with particular qualities for a contact named Mathilde (Reuten) who looks like she just stepped off of a Vespa in Fellini’s Rome – and maybe she did.

So Jack – or is it Edward? Or some other name entirely? – enlists the help of the good padre’s cousin Fabio (Timi), who runs a garage in the middle of nowhere which beggars the question; who on earth is going to drive a car that isn’t working right all the way out there? Anyway, Fabio gives Jack the run of the place, so Jack takes some tools and materials in order to make a noise suppresser for the rifle (a silencer wouldn’t work for the kind of range Mathilde is looking for). The weapon is obviously the weapon of an assassin, but Jack asks no questions so Mathilde tells him no lies.

Jack begins to utilize the services of Clara (Placido), a local prostitute. Quite improbably, the two of them begin to fall for each other – you can tell Clara has feelings for him because she stops charging him for sex. Now Jack is tired of running, tired of being chased, tired of dodging taciturn men with guns who mean to do him murder. He wants out, but this is the kind of business that is very hard to leave once you get in.  

There is actually very little action except at the very beginning and the very end, and some moments in between (such as when Jack is playing a cat and mouse game with a Swedish assassin out to make him pay for his antics in Sweden). Corbijn’s training as a still photographer serves him very well; every shot is meticulously set up and looks like it could be easily hanging in a European gallery. Corbijn forces you to look at what he wants you to see. For example, the opening credits run over a continuous shot of Clooney driving through a long tunnel; yellow mile markers flash by the vehicle in the artificial light of the tunnel. At the very end is a bright white light; will Clooney arrive at that destination? In a sense, this is emblematic of what the movie is all about – an escape from darkness into light for a soul that has dwelled in the darkness for far too long.

This is not your father’s George Clooney, or even Danny Ocean’s George Clooney. Jack/Edward is a very hard man; most of the time his face is rigid, his mouth set in a thin hard line of disapproval. There is no twinkle in this character’s eyes, only steel. This is not a role we’re used to seeing from Clooney.

Those who are offended by the nude female body should take into account that this is a very European movie in a lot of ways; the nudity doesn’t bother European audiences, nor does explicit sex. We even get a gratuitous shot of Clooney’s derriere as well, just to balance things out for the ladies.

There is very little dialogue in the movie and what dialogue there is comes out in terse, brusque staccato, like someone ordering a cappuccino at the local coffee house. There is also a good deal of existential philosophizing about the nature of souls, good and evil, particularly in dialogue between Father Benedetto and Jack. Most American audiences won’t have the patience for it, but there are at least some insights to be found if you choose to look for them.

Part of the problem with the movie is one of the strengths I mentioned earlier. Still photographers have a tendency to make their scenes very static, and so Corbijn does. There may be movement in the frame, but the camera itself does not. That contributes to an overall feeling of languor that can be off-putting at times, even though you tell yourself “Hey, this is about a guy cooling his heels in rural Italy; how exciting is it going to get?” The answer? Not much.

Still, this is as finely crafted a film as I’ve seen this year and I can appreciate it as a work of art if not a crisply told story. Clooney may not be the next Eastwood (and Leysen not the next Terrance Stamp, whom he resembles facially – if Stamp and Scott Glenn had a love child together, that is) but he does the brooding bit very well. Much of the movie is tight on Clooney’s face, and the world-weary demeanor is what draws you to him. Some have complained that Clooney doesn’t reveal much of the inner Jack/Edward but a man like that would have learned early on that revealing your emotions is tantamount to death itself, for it can be used against you in that line of work. This is a very different movie than we’re used to seeing, and for that alone I can commend it highly.

REASONS TO GO: The crafting of each shot, the composition of every frame is simply amazing. There’s a good deal of depth in the script.

REASONS TO STAY: This is not an action movie even though it was marketed as such; if you’re looking for a new Bourne, stay away. Clooney does the brooding, silent killer pretty well, but this isn’t one of his more compelling performances.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some explicit sex and nudity, some fairly violent and disturbing images and enough swearing in more than one language to make this very much for mature audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Clooney’s character prefers using a Walther PPK just like a certain British secret agent of our acquaintance.

HOME OR THEATER: I will admit some of the vistas worked very well on the big screen but by and large you can get away with seeing this at home.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

TOMORROW: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell