LA Confidential (Reviewed by Ben)

There’s a scene, late in Curtis Hanson’s L.A Confidential, where within the story, a brief synopsis of the plot is given. I think even the Sherlock Holmes of moviegoers will be grateful for this moment. That’s because this crime drama is very complicated, and unlike many films, that just makes a great film better.

L.A Confidential is the story of three drastically different cops in L.A’s new police department, taking place in the 1950’s. Each has a personal interest in a new case, which drives the film’s narrative. When we first meet them Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is more proud of his job as an adviser on cop shows than he his as an actual cop, Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a corrupt jerk who has a soft spot for women and a specific hatred for those who lay hands on them. He also despises goody two-shoes Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), who got Bud’s partner, Stensland, kicked off the force for beating up a group of Hispanics for a bit of Christmas fun.

Exley wants nothing more than to be promoted and be as well respected as his father. He is, at first glance, your average, incorruptible cop, but as his sense of honor gets challenged, he gets even more interesting. The crime that starts it all is the murder of Stensland and several others in a bar, and the case gets the title “The Night Owl Murders.” Bud wants to avenge his partner, and Exley just sees it as an opportunity for some more recognition. Vincenne’s doesn’t care about the Night Owl killings, and continues to fool around with celebrities, that is until an actor he knows is murdered.

It turns out the murders were part of a larger web of crime. They are also tied to a man who gives prostitutes plastic surgery so they look like famous actresses. This ties together as both Exley and White begin a romance with one of his creations (an award-winning Kim Bassinger). The final scenes are full of action, backstabbing and interestingly enough, the three men befriending each other. It has a bittersweet ending that I won’t spoil.

This is a movie that really delivers. The writing is quick and sharp with some great highlights. It has an incredibly complex story that is both entertaining and suspenseful. It is littered with twists and turns and unfortunate truths.

And then there’s the acting, which is something else. Spacey gives one of his best as the most likable character in the film. Pearce and Russell Crowe are equally good. But the most impressive thing is watching Bassinger’s Rita Hayworth lookalike twist Crowe’s morals. It’s also surprising how well acted the bit (or at least smaller) parts, such as the woman identifying a murder victim as her daughter and a rough district attorney who Bud almost kills.  Based on a book under the same name by James Elroy, Hansen and these great actors have made more than a movie. They’ve made a world.

There are things I love less, as there are with almost any movie. My main one was how the “bad guys” we’re just not developed enough. It was also hard to tell what their plan was, as this part was a little complex. You just don’t get involved enough in what they’re doing. But this query was nowhere near enough to stop me from loving the film as much as I did.

In two weeks since I watched it, this crime drama has grown to be one of my all-time favorites. It is also one of the most impressive one’s I’ve seen. It is an action-packed drama full of interesting character, clever moments and bright costumes, that any movie fan should enjoy-if not love.

Dad responds: I’ve been waiting for the boys to get old enough to start enjoying important movies with tougher stories and more adult themes.  Unlike so much R-rated rot that delivers little more than shock, gore or raunch, this modern noir masterpiece is built off not one, not two, but three fully-formed (and imperfect) heroes who each end the film in a far different place than where they began it.   

The setting (LA in the 50s when policing was informed by both military and Hollywood cultures) is a character in itself.  And while I agree with Ben that the story was complicated and the evil scheme a bit hard to unpack, such thoughtful complexity was welcome in a genre (the gritty cop drama) known more for characters exercising finger triggers vs. their (and the audience’s) grey matter.

The Walk (Reviewed by Dad)

In 1974, French aerialist Philippe Petit walked across the Manhattan skyline on a tightrope (actually a steel cable) strung between the soon-to-be completed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.  His caper to run a wire between the towers and his epic crossings (eight times!) were the subject of the 2008 documentary Man on a Wire.

The Walk, a more recent fictionalized version of the same story, is director Robert Zemeckis’ attempt to recreate the event as well as send a valentine to New York in general and the World Trade Center in particular.

I say fictionalized, but The Walk is more of a fairy tale whose mirthful nature is exemplified by the main character (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) narrating his story from atop the torch of the Statue of Liberty.  As flashbacks show us Petit’s upbringing in France, his discovery and falling in love with wire-walking, his mentorship by uber-grump Papa Rudy (played by Ben Kingsley), and his teaming up with friends to cross the towers of Notre Dame and then the Trade Center, Zemeckis’ Paris and New York bore the same relationship to reality as Hill Valley of Back to the Future did to actual 1950s small towns.

But just as this make-believe moved from wearing out its welcome to getting downright annoying, the film generated some genuine magic in its recreation of the walk itself.  But even here, I couldn’t help noticing how much the steady and careful crossings in The Walk contrasted with footage of the actual event shown in Man on a Wire where Petit taunted the cops waiting for him on both ends of his wire by dancing back and forth before crossing the distance between the towers yet again.

I suspect that this lack of fidelity was the result of limitations in CGI technology (or F/X budgets).  In fact, at certain angles the traversing Petit resembled nothing so much as a video game character that was still in the process of rendering.

All this fakery would have been less of a problem if the non-fiction story upon which the film was based was not so well known or well documented elsewhere.  The filmmaker’s attempt to romanticize buildings that met such a tragic fate in 2001 presented further problems, although not ones for which Zemeckis should be held liable.

For Hollywood, like the rest of the nation, has never really come to grips with the magnitude and meaning of 9/11, which is why we retreat to the story of Petit or films like World Trade Center (which turns the horrific events of 9/11 into a formula story built around the epic heroism of firefighters) to help us avoid confronting the reality of an attack that left thousands dead and the world permanently changed.

Ben’s response: I think that the movie was just edgy. That is to say different and weird for the sake of being different and weird. I’ll admit that the scene on the wire was pretty cool, and one of the only reasons I don’t totally regret watching the movie. It was just stupidly written and childish, and that’s not to mention the long and so melodramatic scene where they set up the wire. I haven’t seen the documentary, but I think that would’ve made this overly dramatic film much more difficult to like.

Bernie (Reviewed by Ben)

If you’ve ever had an odd craving to see what happens when Witness For The Prosecution  meets Napoleon Dynamite (crammed into the format of a mockumentary) - or just want to see something really weird - the Richard Linklater-directed oddity Bernie is definitely for you.

This film has the quirky, very very dry humor that many loved about the redheaded loser of Napoleon woven into a plot that reminded me of the Billy Wilder’s famous courtroom drama (though at first you’ll be convinced you’re watching A Mighty Wind).

The movie begins with an odd, dark and funny collection of people talking about how perfect undertaker Bernie (Jack Black) is. It eventually talks about his unlikely “friendship” with an older, unpopular woman in the town (Shirley MacLaine) as the kindness that people associate with Bernie ends up being his downfall.

The woman, named Marjorie Nugent, ends up using this angel of a funeral director as her servant. As he becomes her property, the locals being interviewed start talking about how he changes before we see this “good man” finally snap and kills Marjorie. Realizing what he’s done, he hides her in a freezer and tries to convince the town that she’s still alive. When they finally find her on ice, it looks bad for him. When they find out she left her whole estate and fortune to him, despite her large family, it looks worse. You’ll notice the Witness similarities again when Bernie’s tried in court where everyone loves Bernie, but no one believes him.

Within the Might Wind style documentary format, it was dull, and kind of creepy how people think about murder as more of an entertainment. But surprisingly, there were some very complex good-guy/bad-guy ideas that are bound to surprise you as Jack Black jokes about death while selling someone a coffin, dances the big number in“The Music Man,” or carefully brushes up a dead body.

Similar to Adam Sandler, people either love Jack Black or think his branch of humor is an insult, and that he lacks real talent that other comedic actors like Steve Carell or Billy Crystal posses. But this movie lacks in toilet humor and stupidity found in Kung Fu Panda and the cringeworthy Gulliver’s Travels, allowing Black to be funny in a way that demonstrates real acting skill. He keeps himself reserved, which makes the movie even funnier, as does his brilliant singing and dancing ability.

What does it say that my grandmother recommended this movie? Probably that this family loves weird concoctions of film. And Bernie has proved that that can pay off.

Dad Replies - I’m with you that the film gave Jack Black (who I can’t stand when he does his loud and obnoxious routine) the chance to blend a subdued performance with screamingly funny song-and-dance routines.  In fact, I would have paid to see the entire production of Music Man that you caught a glimpse of in Bernie.  

Apparently all those personal recollections that punctuate the film came from actual locals who were around when the real life crime the movie was based on occurred.  This helped blur fiction and reality in some interesting ways, although I thought those interviews could have been integrated a bit more sparingly.

So while Bernie is a big of a hodgepodge - part comedy, part courtroom drama, part real and part faux documentary - it was fun to enjoy with the family a film in which everyone involved took a chance. So thumbs up (and thanks for recommending it Mom).

City Slickers (Reviewed by Dad)

Years ago, I took a course on how to write formula movies for Hollywood where City Slickers was used as an example of a formula pic you could set your watch to, which makes the movie a true testament to how great screenwriting transcends mechanics.

For those who missed it when it came out in 1991, City Slickers is a cowboy buddy comedy starring Billy Crystal as Mitch Robbins, a New York radio-ad timeslot salesman with a loving wife, two teenage kids, and the mother of all mid-life crises.

The crisis manifests itself during Crystal’s hilarious meltdown before his young son’s class during a “Bring Your Dad to School Day” that leaves everyone in the room (kids and teacher alike) gaping and depressed.  With his wife threatening to kick him out unless his “gets his smile back,” Robbins hits the trail with two boyhood friends for a working-ranch cowboy vacation that he hopes will put his life back on track.

Those two friends are Phil (played by Daniel Stern) an affable loser stuck in one of filmdom’s most loveless marriages, and Ed (the late Bruno Kirby), a sporting goods salesman who takes time away from his underwear-model main squeeze to exorcise the chip on his shoulder by going on dangerous vacations with his two buddies Phil and Mitch.

The film actually begins with the three buddies joining the Running of the Bulls in Spain where, of course, Mitch is the one who ends up with his bottom gored.  And it’s Ed who comes up with the idea of a two-week working holiday wrangling  on a Western cattle ranch.

The boys get to the ranch in time to meet their companions for the adventure: father and son black dentists (get over it, scolds the son), doppelgangers for ice-cream kings Ben and Jerry, and the (as usual) underutilized Helen Slater.

Slater gives Mitch and friends the chance to act heroically when the film’s nemeses, a pair of no-good cowpokes, gives her a hard time.  But the day is actually saved by the dark and dangerous Curly played by the incomparable Jack Palance.

This being a formula picture, the challenges Mitch and his friends face begin light and end overwhelmingly heavy, eventually leading to a situation requiring Mitch to summon up that inner cowboy he never knew was in him.

Unlike other stars who have successfully mixed comedy and drama, notably Tom Hanks and Robin Williams, Billy Crystal doesn’t let his performances get tripped up by the secret desire to make audiences love him.  His Mitch is a pain in the butt – childish, broody, whiny – albeit a pain in the butt with a remarkable gift for wisecracking.  And it’s his willingness to play to these imperfections that generates genuine drama from formulaic scenarios.

The film also treasures quiet moments, notably short scenes featuring the three friends conversing while in the saddle, scenes which transcend broader comic and action sequences and secretly reveal the true theme of the picture: what it means to be a grown up.

The kids seem to have liked it when we shared City Slickers at a Vermont B&B.  Or so I think.  Ben?

Ben Replies: I enjoyed City Slickers, it was fun to watch, although no one expects a comedy to be groundbreaking, and Slickers was not.

As someone who’s not super familiar with older comedies, this cowboy laugh-out-loud reminded me a bit of Anchorman, Zoolander or Ted: hilarious in a fun kind of way, full of people being stupid, and brimming with bright but not very real characters. Every scene is fun and the cast is great. But with every cliche (and an overly long saving-a-calf scene), I’m reminded that, having heard City Slickers  was an Oscar winner, I was secretly hoping that it would be more than just enjoyable.  Although I enjoyed the film a lot, groundbreaking it was not.

A Few Good Men (Reviewed by Ben)

There are more than a few good actors in A Few Good Men . And yet the all-star cast is only one of the film’s redeeming qualities. There is a complex storyline and, although it deals with tough subjects, this Rob Reiner courtroom picture is just fun to watch.

The storyline kicks off when naval officer and lawyer Daniel Kafee (Tom Cruise) is given the frustrating case of two Marine cadets charged with the murder of their fellow soldier, William Santiago, who had requested a transfer off their base on Guantanamo Bay.

Unfortunately for the lazy lawyer, while he and his longtime friend and fellow lawyer Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon) think the case is open-and-shut (plead guilty for involuntary manslaughter) both clients (James Marshall and Wolfgang Bodison) refuse to do so.  For they want to go through with a trial in order to accuse their superior officer Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) of ordering a “Code Red” (an order to assault a fellow cadet issued by a superior).

Kaffee goes through with this destined-to-fail court trial along with faithful friend Sam Weinburg (Kevin Pollak) and the much-more-focused lawyer JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) as the team for the defense, while Jack Ross is the attorney for the prosecution.

In providing this defense, Kaffee takes just about every risk in the book, and throughout the trial he grows from the laid-back Lieutenant who would rather play baseball than win a case, to a serious lawyer who breaks down witness after witness and proves that the two cadets acted on an order from their sergeant, with none of them knowing that toxins on the rag they used to gag Santiago would kill him.  

As Kaffee matures, he becomes more and more passionate about proving that Kendrick and his superior, Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), a very serious marine colonel with a sadistic manner, are to blame for ordered the Code Red on Santiago and then trying to cover their tracks., A main character growing dramatically in pursuit of justice can be a cliché, but A Few Good Men does this cliché impressively, something else that makes the film fun to watch.

Even people who haven’t seen the movie are probably familiar with the final confrontation between Cruise’s Kaffee and Nicholson’s unforgettable Jessup (nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar), most specifically for Nicholson’s line “you can’t handle the truth!” Though the film features many great scenes (including the drunken Kaffee ranting about how the team is destined to lose or the two accused soldiers refusing to plead guilty due to their duty as marines) the five minutes of dialogue where Kaffee tugs the truth out of the straight-toothed, red-faced Colonel is the highlight of the film. The intensity when Jessup breaks under the heavy pressure, and not only loudly confesses to ordering the Code Red, but attempts to jump out of the witness booth and strangle Kaffee, cursing the day he was born, contrasts so heavily with his seemingly authoritative persona that the scene borders on comedy.

While I love the story, cast and screenplay, I must say that the movie didn’t take any risks, for better or for worse. They used a cast full of stars, an unoriginal premise and plot points that you could find in many other movies. While this playing-it-safe method paid off, making A Few Good Men enjoyable to watch, a less-clichéd story can be found in just about any other courtroom drama.

As for the acting, someone must have called up every single big-name actor in Hollywood and said ‘hey, come be in this movie.’ From Cruise’s likable attorney, to the cold, condescending Kendrick (Sutherland) to Kaffee’s fellow lawyer (Moore), Reiner made it more than clear that he wanted nothing less than the best actors in his film.  But it’s Nicholson, one of the most acclaimed actors of all time, who dominates the screen whenever he’s on it.

With a gun-in-mouth suicide, a violent opening sequence, and pretty heavy swearing, this film earned an R rating.  However, I think that for any teen who loves movies should see this film (whenever their parents see fit).

Dad Replies: A toned-down version of the film (sans cuss words) plays on cable every few hours, so no one of any age should have to miss what I agree is a taught and enjoyable courtroom drama with a military twist (one that ignited the JAG jag and other imitators).  I agree with Ben that the all-star cast delivered the goods, although most of the other big names (Bacon, Sutherland, Moore) kind of faded into the background whenever Cruise and/or Nicholson were on the screen.  Like My Cousin Vinny, this film is less a “who-done-it” than a “can-he-prove-it” court battle, which gives the final confrontation between Cruise and Nicholson its dramatic punch, even for those who have seen the scene repeated and imitated endless times.