"Vice" is written and directed by Adam McKay, who three years ago did the same thing in "The Big Short", has at least two actors from "The Big Short", has a subject as real as in "The Big Short", it's worked in pretty much the same manner as "The Big Short", and has a happy ending as positive as in "The Big Short", so there's not much left to say.
Rating: ..
Well, not yet :) But I couldn't help it. You'll get it when you'll see the movie ;) The truth is that I don't have much left to say, and what's above is valid. It's a sort of biopic of Dick Cheney, former VP in the Bush administration, brought to screen without his support or consent. So, mostly based on common knowledge, packing enough satire - within the limits you could have that in the context of the latest Irak war. Somehow unexpectedly, the movie, in its depth, is not completely one-sided. Although the story might seem clear, there's a fine dose of objectivity that should be appreciated, suggesting that in the end life is not black & white, but very, very, very gray... - more or less between the lines there's an idea suggesting that from someone's perspective, his own actions might seem fair, which puts a question mark over a guilt on coming not of bad intentions but out of sheer incompetence. Which is not the same. But let's take a break on philosophy...
Moving back to "The Big Short" :)... As it was there, here the editing is also exceptional, and practically that's what makes the whole movie. Obviously it won't work without the way the script is structured. Probably it's the best approache for a subject of this type - you're somewhere between a drama and a comedy, "dramatically" alternating between both. On the other hand, the result seemed a bit better in "The Big Short" - but maybe it's the subject, which has more "movie potential" there :) I'd really like to see an adaptation brought to screen by the same team for "Flash Boys" (same book author as "The Big Short" - the story behind high-frequency trading ~10-15 years ago)... but I doubt there are chances for that to happen soon, although I heard some rumors. Maybe the subject is yet too hot :P...
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a pretty heavy movie. And I think not only figuratively speaking, or at least in more than one way. In any case, quite different from the impression left by the trailer ...
The production follows a novel with quite some success apparently, describing the path of a young Pakistani from ascending to a high analyst position in an investment company in New York to the return in his home country where he ends up giving apparently nationalistic speeches while teaching in a state university. The story is shown in flashbacks during an interview taken from the main character. Interview that ends up just as reason for questioning on the kidnapping of an American professor, the reporter being a direct collaborator of CIA. Of course, at some point we get the 9.11 attacks in this story and the following enhancements of racial discrimination. As a pretty neutral viewer on the exposed themes, I don't have much to say, and anyway it's a bit complicated to emit opinions ... What's to be appreciated is that the movie, if you take it as a whole (and not just any piece of the ending, middle or beginning) manages to keep a balance and not to put all the blame on one side.
I didn't like the directing starting with the first frames. You have a complete mess in which there are some people singing, while the kidnapping scene which triggers all the following action is presented. If you want to pay attention to some details it's damn hard. The bad part is that there are other portions in the movie in which the directing is flawed = unnecessary fragmented action, dragging scenes, etc . The cast on the other hand is ok, the lead actor being actually very convincing in the role of a guy living the American dream woken afterwards by nationalist ideals but still .. "reluctant" as the title says.
The rest, as I said, heavy even in the way it flows = do not expect an action movie, it's much closer to a biopic. Actually it's a drama with enough life issues mixed together ( a bit too many I would say ). I some sense reminded me of "Spy Game" and of "The Quiet American". But to connect the movie with one of these in a way .. I don't know, maybe with a combination between the two ...
This week I have as subject again a made for TV movie, picked while looking over the long Emmy nominations due to an apparently interesting story. Maybe I should've taken a look also at the actual nominations it has (= nothing major), or at least at the number, because "Page Eight" is clearly not a masterpiece.
The movie is a British production, taking place during one week from the life of a high-ranking employee of MI5 (= the UK internal security service). The guy receives a file to analyze from the service director, who is also his best friend. The file seems to have a compromising information somewhere at the bottom of page eight (that's where the title comes from). Information which involves Downing Street 10 (= the prime minister) and which is "leaked" in the inner circle of MI5 and a few other high-ranking officials. What follows is essentially a sort of political thriller in which some people want this circle to stay closed, and others (who in the end are reduced to the first character) are more inclined for the opposite. It may seem that I already gave a big spoiler but there is more to be seen (I actually didn't even spoil the beginning of the movie). Unfortunately we have again a director who probably wanted more than he can actually managed to do. And if the directing is after all so & so, I found the screenwriting (by the same guy) awful. Maybe it's only me, I don't know what to say ... But the typical British atmosphere seems to be pushed a bit too much to the extreme and ends up looking fake. So, to be more clear, the first part of the movie is a chain of dry sarcasm and want-to-seem-witty lines (maybe if this style wouldn't be overused they could actually be considered witty). The second part is another chain of dry melancholy and ... again want-to-seem-witty lines (although in a more moderate quantity). To draw the line, I have never heard anybody talking naturally in the way the movie characters do (not at that frequency of using the bunch of figures of speech you can hear combined with the British imperturbable calmness).
The subject, even if it has some potential and looks actually catchy at some point is solved in a rather simplistic manner in the end. I guess the best part in the movie is the cast. Unfortunately, all the weight given in a positive way by the presence of Bill Nighy as lead character, accompanied by Michael Gambon and others, is practically canceled by the dialogues lack of credibility. Well, again, maybe it's just me and the density of "out of normal" dialogue is not that high = case in which you might have a movie that you might like ...
It's probably not a very good idea to compare a TV mini series with a big screen movie, but considering that today I don't have any other better subject, this is exactly what I'm going to do. "State of Play" is a thriller, let's say .. a political one, released by BBC as a pretty successful (at least in UK) mini series in 2003. In 2009 Universal came up with the American version, which again as far as I heard was received quite well by both public and critics. I however, see a big difference between the two, and I'm not referring to the budget ...
I'll start with the part both have in common - the story. The action starts with an apparently accidental death occured in a metro station of a female member in a governmental commission. This is rapidly followed by a killing in which a petty thief is killed on a side street, the only witness being also shot and sent into a coma by the assassin. The flow of events gets back on the first direction where the chief of the mentioned commission gets into tears while announcing the unfortunate event during a public hearing. Fact that immediately suggests to all the present press that something beyond professional boundaries was going on between the political figure and his recently deceased employee. From here, we move in a newspaper headquarters where a group of journalists, led by a friend of the government guy start investigating the issue ... which ends up being more complicated to solve than the Minotaur's Labyrinth. And from here the difference starts ... the labyrinth part is mainly valid for the English version. For the US one, considering the time is also shorter, the action is a bit accelerated = some walls are broken to reach the exit faster. Even the end twis is slightly different handled, but I'll let the movie to say more. I think it's sufficient what I wrote about the story already.
The first version I've seen was the British one. It looked overrated to me = excessively long - 6 one hour episodes, thing that also caused to be a bit predictable in some parts, although I can't say that it got to the point to be boring. After that, I've seen the US version which compressed the action from 6 to 2 hours = exactly what I was mentioning above. However, the big problem is not that it loses complexity (although, to be sincere, this also matters quite a lot). Because I already knew the story I was able to focus on some other aspects. The first is that the script is definitely worst - from cliche lines to adapting the action in a more annoying "politically correct" US targeted style (only one sample for which I don't see any big reason of change, but it did - the bad guys are not anymore coming from the oil business, being from the evil army private contractors side). Another part is the one related to the actors. Leaving out the thing that in the US version some characters are completely cut, despite the apparently first hand cast, the result is definitely below the BBC production. The only role that might compare is the one made by Helen Mirren ( ... & she's british ... ) that gets pretty much on par with the one of Bill Nighy from the original version as the cynical newspaper editor. About the rest, maybe Russell Crowe might seem credible if you wouldn't have seen John Simm (totally unknown to me up to this movie) in the first version (just take as comparison the last part of the movies and it should be enough). Well it is true that the role is "sabotaged" by the script, but still ...
I won't write about technical aspects, because neither one of the movies impresses much (well, maybe a bit the editing, again in the BBC version). I was thinking, in case somebody would be interested in seeing both of them, to recommend doing it in reverse order of how I did it = first the US version so it won't seem that bad and then the BBC one. But, doing so, it will probably bore you due to the length (although you have "new" elements in the longer version the ending is pretty much the same). So, I don't know which order would be better ... The final idea is that if I would have seen only one, I would have probably considered as an medium quality movie (now the difference between them seems to big for me). So, it may be probably recommended to choose only one version ... want something better - UK ; want something faster - US ;)
Rating: 4 out of 5 - BBC, 2003 2 out of 5 - Universal, 2009
I was almost about to skip posting this considering the time restrictions I have, but I decided to do it (it will probably the record delay from my Romanian blog version that I managed to write somewhere between Saturday and Sunday). So .. for the last's week blog entry :), I'm probably also not having the best sync considering that Mel Gibson isn't probably the most appreciated character these days, but it's the only movie that's fresh in my mind at this moment, and it's actually quite good. So ...
Somewhere, on a lake, under the moonlight, three corpses are floating. In a train station in Boston, Thomas Craven, detective in the local PD, welcomes his daughter, an intern of a shady nuclear energy research company (or something like this). She seems to be back home after a pretty long absence but her visit doesn't last too long. She seems to have a cold and she starts feeling more sick, finally deciding to go to a hospital, but ... the way stops at the front porch of her father's house ... That's how the movie starts ( :) and I didn't say more than you can see in the trailer ).
"Edge of Darkness" is a remake after a BBC mini-series from '85 that I didn't get to see but probably deserves credit for the original story, and it's interesting that it has the same director. Anyway, going back to the movie, it's a thriller that for me was something like a mix between "The Pelican Brief" for the political touch, "Michael Clayton" for the evil corporation theme, and add to these a scent from "Man on Fire". Despite all these references it has enough originality in it and pretty solid story to tell. The script is excellent, even considering some parts that are slightly exaggerated and some other that maybe don't make much sense up to a certain point. You can say that you have a complex story not only the action part you're able to see in the trailer (considering the usual stuff on big screens these days). Actually, I think the trailer is not so good in presenting the movie, but maybe it's better because you will get more than a simple revenge story as probably suggested. Besides this, "Edge of Darkness" has something that you can't see in the trailer apart from some letters - the title. It's indeed dark .. and cold, but not in a way to make you wonder if it's safe to leave home considering what kind of people you might meet outside as in "Brooklyn's Finest", "Winter's Bone" or "Training Day". This time the feeling gets to an upper level from the common everyday life = reaches the political area (= you can leave home, inside is as unsafe as it's outside :) ). The harsh part of the movie is helped a lot by the editing. There are two scenes to mention (of course I won't disclose them :) ), that aren't at all as violent as you can see in the usual horror movies, but much much more effective when they take place. But the movie compensates from time to time, doesn't get to any extremes, you have some places where exactly the fact that overall is quite dark and cold helps for a short while to get quite warm as a feeling (I'm tired and I'm probably rambling nonsense :) but I think you really get to feel something for the character, so from the empathy point of view the way the film is quite well done).
I'll wrap up as I started, saying a few words about the cast. It was supposed to have also De Niro in a supporting role as a government "problem solver", but he's not there. Which actually turned to be quite ok, considering Ray Winstone as replacement, and I really doubt that De Niro could have done a better role. About Gibson I won't say more than that I hope he didn't completely bury his career with the current scandals because strictly judging him for the movie business deserves all the appreciation, and you can see that also here. And now the trailer ... which as I said ... doesn't give too much of what you can actually see ;) just check out the movie
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