The Forgiveness of Blood

Co-writer/director Joshua Marston returns eight years after his impressive debut feature "Maria Full of Grace" with an equally dramatic story of young people living in difficult circumstances. Once again ignoring his American upbringing, Marston grapples this time with the mores of an Albanian village where blood feuds present a draconian way of settling scores. The six-century-old practice is called upon after a lethal off-screen act of perceived self-defense exiles teenage Nik (Tristan Halilaj) to the confines of his family home.

Marston's bold use of nonprofessional actors is the film's secret weapon. Lanky Nik is a high school student with a crush on the pretty girl in school. Tristan Halilaj's sensitive nature reveals a wellspring of roiling emotions and aspirations. Nik wants to build up his scrawny physique. He has a dream of opening an internet café in a tiny available storefront. Nik’s teenaged sister Rudina (Sindi Lacej) gives him unwelcome advice as to how to dress.

A dispute arises when Nik’s father Mark (Refet Abazi) drives his horse-pulled bread delivery cart across land formerly owned by his grandfather. The land’s current owner Sokol (Veton Osmani) forbids Mark from using the road anymore, and physically threatens Mark with a weapon in the presence of Rudina. Hours later Sokol lies dead after being stabbed to death by Mark’s brother (Luan Jaha) with Mark’s help. Nik’s uncle is arrested and put in jail while his father goes on the lamb.

The law of the land states that the family of the deceased can extract retribution by killing a male member of the guilty clan. While Rudina abandons school to take over her father’s bread delivery job, Nik is left to ponder a solution while stuck in the confines of the family home.

“The Forgiveness of Blood” is a sublime tragedy in its artless depiction of a society attempting to maintain social order with outdated methods. The film leaves itself open for extrapolation about how the Western world remains stuck in outdated modes of dealing with a world that has advanced beyond its World War II era ideologies. Deeply affecting, “The Forgiveness of Blood” is notable for how much is outshines foreign chamber think-pieces such as “A Separation.”

Not Rated. 109 mins. (A) (Five Stars - out of five/no halves)

Tomorrow When the War Began

Aussie Teen Franchise
Vampires and Werewolves Turn Passé When There’s a War On

By Cole Smithey 

A resistance-combatant-primer disguised as a teen-exploitation flick, “Tomorrow When the War Began” delights in guilty pleasures. Syrupy folk music—harmonica included—from Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek drains the drama out of more than a few scenes. The cliché-riddled movie is based on the first book of John Marsden’s popular series of young adult novels. Sequels will follow. Australia is the unlikely target for an invasion by unnamed Asian military forces. Good thing then that a troupe of eight hearty almost-legal schoolmates are on a weekend sabbatical to a remote region incongruously known as “Hell” when the assault strikes their family homes in the fictional town of Wirrawee. The township’s fairground transforms into a POW camp. With their loved ones missing or dead, the group is forced to turn to guerilla tactics to weaken their merciless occupiers from behind enemy lines.

In keeping with the demands of a franchise-starting segment, the movie spends much of its time establishing its romantically inclined characters. Undeniable hottie Caitlin Stasey plays the group’s self-appointed leader Ellie Linton. Elle’s tractor-driving farm skills prove a boon during the film’s centerpiece chase sequence involving a garbage truck attempting to outrun a couple of machine-gun mounted dune buggies. Cinematographer Ben Nott (“Daybreakers”) maximizes the film’s obviously limited budget.

Ellie makes her clandestine amorous intentions known to Lee (Chris Pang) when she invites him on the group camping trip. Lee’s Asian heritage presents a narrative stop-punch to any criticism the storyline might attract regarding Australia’s foreign oppressors. Deniz Akdeniz does obligatory beefcake duty as Homer, a bone-headed jock with the hots for poor-little-rich-girl Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin). Fiona’s denial of her own camera-pleasing beauty again second-guesses audience reaction before questions can be raised. Least convincing is Ashleigh Cummings’s plot-placeholder Robyn, a Christian bible-thumper from a religious family. Robyn protests vehemently against killing any of the occupying soldiers. You know what they say about those who “protest to much.”

Co-writer Stuart Beattle steps out of the shadow of screenwriting credits that include “30 Days of Night” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” to direct the Australian-centric storyline. The real buzz lies in the subtext of an us-versus-them scenario of an occupied country where a group of otherwise sensible teens are reduced to radical freedom fighters overnight. Such blatant anti-imperialist propaganda would never have passed muster in the heydays of the House on Un-American Activities Committee (1938-1975), even if it were coming in the form of a teen action flick from Australia. How times have changed.

“Tomorrow When the War Began,” with its brain-teasing title, doesn’t waste time condemning acts of military aggression against a sovereign nation. As history consistently proves, unrelenting reproach is compulsory for every native man, woman, and child. Neither is there any discussion about the various political motivations behind the sudden military enterprise. That’s not the point. The authors provide no genre-standard-devices of radio or television broadcasts blurting out frothy editorial information. As well, these kids aren’t occupied with tweeting, making cell-phone calls, or updating their blogs. The fight is all around them; they’re not looking for help beyond their immediate comrades. Guess whose side you’d rather be on.

Rated R. 120 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Michael

Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer’s chilling debut bears the earmarks of the time spent with directors Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, with whom he worked as a casting director. Every bit as dry, cold, and calculated as your typical Michael Haneke film, “Michael” is darkly disturbing examination of a pedophile and his 10-year-old captive. Schleinzer gets co-directing assistance from casting partner Katrin Resetartis. Michael Fuith plays the film’s thirtysomething human monster who happens to go by the same first name. This is one actor who clearly has no Hollywood aspirations.

Inspired by a 1998 abduction case in Vienna, the story covers a five-month period, during which Michael contends with his basement captive Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) as a amalgam of sex-slave, son figure, and pet. Michael controls the electricity to Wolfgang’s windowless room, leaving the child in complete darkness for much of the time. Although Michael brings the boy upstairs to dine in a “normal” home setting, he digs a grave in a wooded area when the boy comes down with a bad cold. He makes plans for bringing in a second boy.

A fly-on-the-wall study of the behavior of a pedophile, “Michael” is a horror movie made up small moments. Michael keeps a coded record of his sexual encounters with the boy. At work he keeps to himself, but effectively angles for a promotion. He goes on a ski trip with friends, and successfully flirts with a waitress in the lodge restaurant. The child victim acts out his anger. Although there is only one very carefully staged bit of nudity in the film, it is a shocker. American audiences unfamiliar with the stalking brutality of modern Austrian cinema take note; “Michael” is one very upsetting cinematic cup of mulch and tree-bark tea. This is not a date movie, or a film to take the family to see. Handle with care.

Not Rated. 96 mins. (A-) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Bullhead

Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is not your run-of-the-mill Flemish mafia thug. He has serious emotional and physical issues stemming from an attack by the son of one of his father’s criminal partners. Jacky belongs to a family of Belgium cattle farmers who use growth hormones to increase profits. Debut writer/director Michael R. Roskam based his gut-wrenching crime drama on the true story of a Belgian veterinarian who was murdered in the mid-‘90s.

The murder of a local investigator causes Jacky to advise his boss not to rush into inking a deal with De Kuyper (Sam Louwyck), an illicit meat market kingpin from a neighboring region. Not that any of his gangster cohorts take the steroid-pumped Jacky seriously enough to follow his instructions. Jacky is of course correct in guessing that a police investigation is in full swing, and the he and his compatriots could be swept up in its net.

Roskam’s gift for cinematic storytelling comes through in every affecting frame. The filmmaker’s scrupulous use of flashbacks brings the audience into a visceral empathy with Jacky, whose daily injections of testosterone explain much of his erratic behavior and his private turmoil. With his blunted facial features, Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts (“Loft”) is ideally cast for the role. Schoenaerts’s gutsy performance is remarkable. At heart, Jacky is a sensitive and intelligent guy trapped in a body that doesn’t belong to him anymore. A subplot involving his best friend from childhood seals the film’s character-study aspect with an added dimension of deeply seeded context. “Bullhead” is an unconventional mafia story told through the eyes of a damaged-goods protagonist you can’t help but feel for.

Rated R. 124 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Putin’s Kiss

Documentarian Lise Birk Pedersen affords an informative and intriguing look into Russian society via the fresh face of Vladimir Putin’s propaganda youth brigade NASHI (“OURS”). Headstrong teen beauty Masha Drokova (born in 1989—the year of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall) made a national splash when she kissed Putin on the cheek during a photo-op at a televised rally. The stunt won her a fast-track position to spokesperson for NASHI, which had been created in 2005 by Vasily Yakemenko. Masha’s articulate speech and camera-ready charm make her an ideal candidate. The position garnered Masha her own apartment and a car—she even hosted her own television show. Egalitarian in her choice of colleagues Masha befriended a group of anti-Putin/anti-NASHI journalists—including Oleg Kashin whose brutal beating by three thugs near his apartment bookends the movie. A surveillance camera captured the attack.

“Putin’s Kiss” is a character study of an ambitious girl struggling to make a place for herself in a country where opportunities are few and far between. The film functions both as a thought-provoking character study and a window into uncomfortable similarities between Russia and America in the way media-propagated hate-speak functions.

Not Rated. 112 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

This Means War

Spy vs. Spy vs. Romance
Tom Hardy and Chris Pine Cross Swords for Luv
By Cole Smithey

Daft competitive seduction is at the heart of this scattershot romantic comedy that veers woefully into uncultivated screwball territory. The movie tries too hard to titillate perceived notions of what both sexes of audience members might expect from a love story where two males with a military arsenal compete for the affection of a woman who is more shrew than honeypot. Said audiences are more likely to be amorously anesthetized by director McG’s jarring quick-cut spasms of explosions than coerced into feeling any emotional sensation.

A skyscraper penthouse—complete with helicopter landing pad—supplies the film’s opening shoot-em-up action sequence. Best friend CIA agents FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) bungle their assignment to capture a Russian kingpin who makes a remarkable escape from the incredibly high rooftop. The tone here is all gloss with no tooth.

Cinema’s latest do-it-all-action-star Tom Hardy (“Warrior”) slums it. Situated opposite relative newcomer Chris Pine (“Star Trek”), Hardy consumes all the oxygen in the room whenever the two CIA partners share a scene. Their characters are single playboys whose lavish bachelor lifestyles are the product of a fetishistic male fantasy dreamt up by a committee of aging frat boy screenwriters. Simon Kinberg (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”) and Timothy Dowling struggle with a story by newbie writer Marcus Gautesen.

Tuck is separated from his wife. He has a seven-year-old son whom he takes to martial arts class. With three vintage motorcycles and room to free spar with his trainer in his posh living room, Tuck doesn’t seem to mind the single life. FDR lives in a lux pad with a lap-pool glass ceiling in his hallway from which he can watch the underside of untold females swimming the breaststroke. If working as an underhanded CIA agent paid this well there would be a permanent chain of males stretching twice around D.C.’s National Mall trying to get hired.

An idea for online dating opens up Tuck to a plethora of romantic options that immediately narrow down to Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren Scott. She’s a stereotype of blonde Los Angeles womanhood who runs her own business and likes to prance around her apartment singing to out of date rap songs—witness a cringe-inducing sing-along to Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do it.” Lauren’s—and the film’s—only redeeming quality is her irreverently saucy best friend Trish (exuberantly played by Chelsea Handler). If only the screenwriters had given the lusty Trish entree into the romantic fray, the movie might have had a chance. Even swapping Handler to play the lead, with Witherspoon as the supportive best friend, would have given the movie some umph where it needed it most. One thing’s certain; Chelsea Handler is primed for a leading comedic role in a film with a better script.

There’s no telling how much better the movie would have been if all of Handlers original scenes had been left in. The filmmakers cut some her bawdier dialogue to convince the MPAA to downgrade the film from an R to a PG-13 rating. Downgrade: check.

Love-at-first-sight occurs between Tuck and Lauren on their initial date. That doesn’t prevent Lauren’s wandering eye from catching FDR’s attention when the two bump into one another in a video rental store mere steps from where she just ended her brief meet cute with Tuck. Choosing to play her options, Lauren dates both men. The CIA partners apprehend the emotionally charged situation. They agree to refrain from sexual conduct while allowing Lauren to choose the best man for her. Let the best, or most motivated, man win.

A series of increasingly sloppy dates finds Tuck and FDR using their CIA surveillance resources to follow each other’s romantic efforts with Lauren. They also spy on Lauren to discern how best to mollify her personal tastes, which include a love of Gustav Klimt and a soft spot for doggies. The men act appropriately as sycophantic puppies whose idea of leading a romance means pandering to Lauren’s fairly shallow interests. This is fifth grade romance at its most heavily armed.
Considering the film’s association to the superior, but still dismal, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “This Means War” is doomed from the start. It’s another example of everything wrong with Hollywood. January and February are always the worst months of the year for new releases. This dog just confirms the maxim.

Rated PG-13. 120 mins. (D+) (One Star - out of five/no halves)

Undefeated

The underbelly of America’s racial and economic divide is eloquently explored as an inevitable symptom of our system in this unpretentious documentary about a generous Memphis high school football coach and the impoverished young men he attempts to elevate to a better life. Coach Bill Courtney is one of a kind. A successful white businessman with a picture-perfect family living in a mansion on the good side of town, Bill Courtney has a gift for coaching football.

He tells his players, "You think football builds character. It does not; football reveals character."

Coach Courtney knows how to motivate his Manassas-based team of African-American players whose at-risk environment threatens to drag all of them down in a vicious undertow. Famous for never having won a playoff game in the school’s 110-year history, Manassas High School is the last team anyone in a 150-mile radius expects to hear anything positive about. Nonetheless, six years of coaching the same group of boys has put Coach Courtney’s squad on the precipice of being able to break that losing streak if only they can focus on the fleeting opportunity before them. It’s tempting to wax poetic about the energetic 2009 season we witness the Manassas Tigers play through, but the meat of the story comes down to three players. Montrail “Money” Brown is an undersized offensive lineman with heart and serious goals for college. Chavis Daniels is an ex-con from a youth penitentiary whose skill on the football field is overshadowed by his uncontrollable temper. O.C. Brown is a gifted right tackle with the demeanor of a teddy bear and a remedial level of academic comprehension. How each young man matures under Bill Courtney’s judicious supervision is as inspirational as it is edifying. “Undefeated” is a brilliant documentary that every teacher in America should see.

Rated PG-13. 110 mins. (A) (Five Stars - out of five/no halves)

Thin Ice

For all there is to admire about co-writer/director Jill Sprecher’s suspenseful black comedy (à la Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan") third-act disappointment rains on the parade. Snowy Kenosha, Wisconsin seems like a place tailor-made for secretly disposing of corpses. Such tense criminal activity isn’t on the agenda of cheesy home insurance salesman Mickey Prohaska (Greg Kinnear). But Mickey isn’t above a little larceny when an opportunity presents itself in the guise of a $30,000 violin owned by Alan Arkin’s senile insurance client Gorvy. The poor old sod has no idea about the violin’s value. Still, Gorvy is smart enough to install an electronic security system in his rickety house before he takes off on vacation. Mickey persuades the home’s volatile alarm-system installer Randy (Billy Crudup) to let him into the house to trade out Gorvy’s violin with a much cheaper replacement. Randy reacts poorly when a neighbor pops by to visit Gorvy. Suddenly, Mickey is entangled deep with Randy. Selling the violin to settle his debts doesn’t seem like such a priority anymore.

Greg Kinnear is made for smarmy roles like this one. He has just the right amount of foxy charisma to make you root for him. Alan Arkin is believable as always. He gives Gorvy just the right amount of forgetfulness so that you buy into Mickey’s idea to swindle the doddering old guy out of money he doesn’t know he has. The acting ensemble does everything right for the audience to invest in their idiosyncratic characters. Yet, just when everything seems about to gel, the script shifts into a hyperdrive of artifice to tie up every loose thread in a grand-scale con scheme as contrived as the guy who pretended to send his young son up alone in a balloon. You’ll come out wanting to wag fingers at the filmmakers rather than thanking them.

Rated R. 114 mins. (C) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Secret World of Arrietty

Meshing Japanese animation styles with Mary Morton’s beloved 1952 children’s novel “The Borrowers,” animator-cum-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and co-director Gary Rydstrom create a delightful adaptation. Tokyo’s famed animation production house Studio Ghibli (“Spirited Away”) provides ample resources that the filmmakers utilize in setting their version apart from British and American television and theatrical renderings.
With a delicate script tailored by Studio Ghibli’s most famous director Miyazaki Hayao (“Princess Mononke”), this beautifully animated film revels in deep-focus compositions of detailed dark and bright images.

This is a fairytale is about a tiny family of three “borrowers” living beneath the floorboards of a suburban Tokyo home. Light and perspective are put to dynamic use in emphasizing the scale of 13-year-old Arrietty’s miniature world she shares with her stoic father Pod (voiced by Will Arnett) and worrywart mother (voiced by Amy Poehler).

The historic family home sits in a secluded setting teeming with foliage, birds, and insects. A powerful sequence of violent spectacle involves a crow getting stuck in a window screen. Black feathers fly with a fury that matches the trapped bird’s desperate shrieks. The animators lean more toward realism than not. A cantankerous plump cat roams the grounds with a particular curiosity about the borrowers he instinctually senses are lurking about. Unbeknownst to the small family, a young human boy named Shawn (David Henry) arrives to stay at his grandmother’s house in preparation for an operation. Shawn’s days could be numbered. During Arrietty’s maiden borrowing expedition with her dad—to obtain a cube of sugar and piece of tissue paper—Shawn sees her, as he lies wide-eyed in his bed. The house-climbing escapade allows the animators to demonstrate some vibrant flourishes of action, as when Arrietty boldly fends off a cockroach bigger than she is. The animators’ cinematic approach expands on Morton’s source material with captivating results.

“Once a borrower has been seen, the human's curiosity can't be stopped.” Pod’s ominous warning to Arrietty doesn’t prevent her from entering into a courtly friendship with the mild mannered Shawn. The film’s primary source of suspense comes from housekeeper Hara (wonderfully voiced by Carol Burnett). Meddlesome Hara has heard stories of the borrowers from the family whose passing generations have occupied the home. She conducts an intrusive quest to prove her belief once and for all.

From a thematic viewpoint the story is about the ability of second-class citizens to squeak out a living under the noses of the very wealthy. When the affluent have so much that removing something so small as a sugar cube hardly constitutes stealing, it raises questions about the responsibility of the upper class to support those less fortunate. Arrietty’s condition as an only child leaves her vulnerable to needing interaction with another child, however temporary that encounter might be. When she finally meets a borrower boy—named Spiller—he is an inarticulate primitive. Arrietty’s worthy aspirations to rise above her social class are clearly founded on her ability to connect with the human world that the benevolent Shawn navigates with difficulty due to his own physical limitations.

“The Secret World of Arrietty” is a well-balanced children’s fairytale that gains from its multicultural influences. Cecile Corbel’s contributions of nuanced harp-and-vocal renditions of poems written by the director add layers of musical texture filled with passion. Prepare to be charmed.

Rated G. 94 mins. (A-) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Out of the Past - Classic Film Pick

One of the best-loved '40s-era contributions to the film noir genre, director Jacques Tourneur’s "Out of the Past" (1947) is a definitive model. Notable for its convoluted time-shifting storyline, the film plays with its audience like a cat toying with a dumbfounded mouse. Robert Mitchum understates his private detective character Jeff Bailey with his classic laconic but lazy romanticism, which beams defenselessly from his bedroom eyes. Robert Mitchum’s sedate antihero is so resigned to his fate you can’t help but hang on to his every word. Mitchum is supremely cast opposite Jane Greer—“the woman with the Mona Lisa smile”—playing femme fatale Kathie Moffat. Before the plot twists are over Jeff Bailey must contend with Kathie’s doppelganger Meta Carson (played by the sultry Rhonda Fleming) who is every bit as dangerous--although nowhere near as passionately overwhelming--as Kathie. Jeff also keeps Ann Miller (Virginia Huston), a doting small-town girl, in the wings. Ann promises a future of stability if only Jeff can finish his business with Lake Tahoe-dwelling mobster Whit Sterling (exquisitely played by Kirk Douglas in his second film role). Ann serves as an essential foil for Jeff’s long stretches of exposition during the film’s first half.

Screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring punches up the juicy dialogue with snappy one-liners that seem scripted in stone. “All women are wonders, because they reduce all men to the obvious,” is how one doomed gentleman verbally describes his dead-end passion for a woman of irreducible character on the last night of his life. During a crucial exchange in Acapulco, Jeff goads Whit and his sidekick Joe (Paul Valentine) into leaving his hotel room by telling Whit, “Let’s go down to the bar. We can cool off while we try to impress each other." Talk about smooth.

While living off Whit’s $5000 retainer, Jeff has been searching for Kathie in Acapulco. As expected, Jeff has fallen for the dame accused of stealing forty large from Whit. Kathie knows just how to play Jeff, who for his part proves equally adept at deceiving Whit. Jeff and Kathie share a “honeymoon” period in San Francisco before one of Whit’s hired bulls tracks them down. Kathie turns out to be considerably more lethal than Jeff during a nocturnal confrontation with Whit’s hired dick. Where the murder rap will ultimately hang leaves Tourneur and his ace cinematographer Nicholas Masuraca with plenty of filmic surface to paint lush black-and-white compositions that make color film pale by comparison. Layers of complex nighttime image systems pressurize the confusing narrative into a prismatic visual maze. “Out of the Past” is all about mood, tone, suspense, and emotion. Add to that big dollops of palpable lust, greed, and powerful feminine opportunism, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for noir.

In Darkness

Agnieszka Holland’s unforgettable adaptation of Robert Marshall’s non-fiction book “In the Sewers of Lvov” tells the story of a group of Polish Jews who hid for months underground from the Nazis. That a duo of Polish sewer inspectors, who aid the desperate Jewish refugees, act foremost as extortionists adds of the many thematic shades of grey Holland explores. For all of the filmmaker’s apt efforts at bringing realism to the film’s labyrinthine sewer environment, the film struggles to establish a clear protagonist. Sewer inspector Poldek Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz) gradually learns to sacrifice in order to help the de facto prisoners, rather than profit from their dilemma. Still, the character is no position to convey the story’s complex themes of survival under dire conditions. The Jewish group’s leader Mundek (Benno Furmann) shoulders his burden of responsibilities with emotionally poker-faced resolve that pays off during a suspenseful encounter with a Nazi soldier. Still, Benno Furmann comes across as too pristine an actor for the role. Holland utilizes sexual encounters between the demoralized Jewish victims to express a persistent thread of humanity that endures regardless of external dangers. The encounters serve as flashes of light in a story with very little of it.

Rated R. 165 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Windfall

What you don’t know can hurt you. Laura Israel’s probing examination of America’s emergent windmill industry comes through a microsomal case study in the small upstate New York town of Meredith. Initial interest in providing funds for the economically depressed town through green energy turns to anger and fear. The local populace becomes increasingly divided as ill effects of the skyscraping windmills come to light. The windmills’ low frequency sounds can cause illness. Shadow flickers across roads present dangerous conditions, and impinge on the peacefulness of homes. Sometimes the 400-foot tall windmills are struck by lightening and can fall over. They also cause bats’ lungs to explode. And the list goes on. Most disturbing is the way the LLC-titled windmill companies operate like old-fashioned carpetbaggers who take the money and run. The issue inflames Meredith’s town hall politics while faceless investors who stand to gain enormous profit don’t dare show their faces. “Windfall” turned this viewer off to the idea of windmills as a feasible long-term option for renewable energy. Although it’s not directly compared, solar energy comes out looking like a much better option than windmill farms for lessening the burden placed on the nuclear, coal, and oil-driven energy grid.

Not Rated. 82 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five / no halves)

The Wild Bunch - Classic Film Pick

In 1969 Sam Peckinpah made the greatest example of the western genre in cinema. Not many American audiences at the time could recognize it as such, in part, because Warner Brothers edited down Peckinpah's original 144-minute version to allow for more theatrical screenings in the United States.

Set in 1913, on the eve of World War I, the episodic story follows the robbing, drinking, and whoring exploits of a gang of middle-aged outlaws out to make one last bank heist that will enable them to retire. Peckinpah sets the gritty tone for the violence to follow with an opening credit scene of children gleefully watching a swarm of red ants attacking a couple of defenseless scorpions whose large claws and stinging tails are of no use against such a large number of pernicious insects. A primordial aspect of history repeating itself is at play.

William Holden's Pike Bishop leads his gang of renegades dressed as American soldiers into a Texas border town. Their military uniforms blind the local citizenry to the group's wicked threat. Little do the thieves themselves realize that a posse of bounty hunters line the roofs of buildings facing the town square where the bank in question awaits. Inspired by Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde," Peckinpah orchestrates a speed-shifting ballet of bullets in a bloody gunfight that leaves bystanders lying dead alongside posse members and dudes from Pike’s gang. Never before had a western shown such a potent version of gunshot violence and gore. Informed by the realities of the Viet Nam war -- televised nightly at the time -- Peckinpah sought to bring such realism to his audience with a vengeance.

Upon their escape, the remaining gang discovers insult added to injury in the guise of worthless steel washers that fill the bank bags once believed filled with gold.
Pike and his right-hand man Dutch (Earnest Borgnine) ride off toward Mexico with their cohorts, the outlaw brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson) and their Mexican comrade Angel (Jamie Sanchez). After crossing the Rio Grande the gang find that the Mexican Revolution has devastated the region where Angel was born. A local despot called Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) rules the region with the support of the Mexican Federal Army. Angel is none too pleased when he finds his wife has run off to play girlfriend to Mapache. Angel’s subsequent act of revenge indebts the gang to Mapache. A deal is brokered for the gang to rob a U.S. Army train transporting weapons.

Famous for its breathtaking bridge explosion sequence, “The Wild Bunch” is a western layered with social commentary about war, codes of honor among men, and humanity’s childish nature that bends equally between violence and pleasure. The film’s brilliant cinematography (courtesy of Lucien Ballard) and dynamic editing (by Lou Lombardo) impeccably serves Peckinpah’s uncompromising vision. “The Wild Bunch” is a post-modern western that represents the passing of an era. It is an epic masterpiece that changed cinema forever.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Sliding By
Adventure Franchise Barely Passes Muster
By Cole Smithey

Though hampered by some uninspired efforts in the joke department from newbie cousin screenwriters Brian and Mark Gunn, "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is a passable PG-rated family adventure movie. Added to the film’s flat sense of humor is the misguided replacement of franchise-starter Brendan Fraser (“Journey to the Center of the Earth”--2008). Dwayne Johnson suffers the indignation of performing step-dad duties to Josh Hutcherson’s returning daredevil character Sean Anderson. The actor formerly known as The Rock nearly redeems himself during a stirring ukulele rendition of "What a Wonderful World." The musical interlude unexpectedly brings the scattershot adventure momentarily into focus with some assistance from an indispensible but ultimately squandered Michael Caine.

Childhood literary classics that include Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” and Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” inform the story in a sidelong fashion. In the burbs of Dayton, Ohio Sean receives a coded message from his long-lost grandfather Alexander (Caine). Sean’s stepdad Hank is an ex-Navy man with a knack for code breaking. The missive sends Sean off on a chaperoned adventure to reunite with gramps. A sputtering chartered helicopter, flown by Luis Guzman and his character’s comely daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens), enables a suspense-free hurricane ride that spits our plucky explorers out on the shores of an island that could just be the lost city of Atlantis.

Dwayne Johnson is an actor who tries so hard to be likable that it hurts. Given his obsequious nature, it’s easy to understand why the filmmakers chose him to replace Brendan Fraser, whose famously nerdy need to please comes across as a central aspect to his Canadian heritage. But where Fraser has a frenetic internal rhythm of free-spinning animation about his physicality, Johnson is plodding and methodical to a fault. His muscle-bound comportment overpowers the relative diminutive actors around him. There’s no jiving chemistry between Johnson’s fatherly Hank and Josh Hutcherson’s Sean. Caught between playing up a subplot of budding romance with Kailani, and following Michael Caine’s lead as the kind of person Sean aspires to be, Hutcherson gets hung out to dry in every scene he shares with Hank.

An example of the film’s lukewarm wit occurs when Hank gives Sean a demonstration of something he calls the “pec-pop.” Johnson flexes his pectoral muscles so they tense back and forth in a flip-flopping fashion. This odd display of masculine muscle manipulation is intended to impress members of the opposite sex. Needless to say Sean doesn’t possess such physical attributes to execute the maneuver in the first place. Hank demands that Sean throw berries at his bouncing pecs for the apparently singular reason of supplying the audience with an overworked sample of eye-blinking 3D effects. The ridiculous sequence begs the question, “What were the filmmakers thinking? The whole thing is just to weird to be funny.

Director Brad Peyton (“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore”) struggles to make the most of superficially impressive creatures that populate the mysterious island that grandpa Alexander calls home. Miniature elephants, gargantuan bees, and slithering giant centipedes supply innocuous eye-candy that never reaches beyond its CGI limitations to anything substantial. A giant electric eel boots the possibilities for spectacle during the story’s underwater climax. A few window-breaking 3D effects spice up the amusement in a visually entertaining but narratively trivial movie. It might not be the bee’s knees for adult audiences, but “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” meets the unsophisticated demands of its pre-teen target audience.

Rated PG. 94 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five / no halves)

Splinters

 

Adam Pesce's absorbing cross-cultural documentary about a small indigenous community in the village of Vanimo, Papua New Guinea provides an intimate view into an island culture revolutionized by one thing, a surfboard. During the ‘80s, a visiting Australian pilot left behind the board he used to surf PNG’s perfect waves. In the years that followed local Vanimo boys fell in love with the sport. They made their own surfboards—called “splinters”—crafted from lightweight wood.

In time the young men procured surfboards from visiting surfers, and imitated moves they studied in surfing magazines. They started up a surf club that in turn triggered two rival clubs. For the first time in PNG’s history, Vanimo will play host to the inaugural Papua New Guinea National Surfing Titles where native surfers can compete against pros. The local winner is to be awarded the opportunity to train with surfing athletes in Australia.

The film gravitates around Angelus, the son of the first native to surf Vanimo’s waves. Angelus is a gregarious surfer in his late 20s. He is recognized as “the King” of the resident wave-riders. His moves on the waves are world-class. Angelus’s shy disciple Ezekiel also has what it takes to compete on a professional level if his dubious nightlife activities don’t consume him. Angelus too has personal issues that threaten to derail his chances to compete. He owes alimony to his ex-wife whose brother is the leader of a rival surf club. If arrested for non-payment Angelus will be sent to prison.

Such is the drama in a community where women are second-class citizens to husbands who can beat them after they “buy” them. Much to the dismay of the male surfers, siblings Lesley and Susan have broken with tradition to pursue surfing as a way of life. In this northern corner of Papua New Guinea surfing has created a crucible of ideological conflict, and an aspirational way out of the region’s old world trap.

Not Rated. 95 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Woman In Black

Hammer Horror Time
Daniel Radcliffe Goes Gothic
By Cole Smithey

"The Woman in Black" is a minor key gothic spooky that feels like visiting with a long-lost friend thanks to its renowned Hammer Films pedigree. The nightmarish movie, based on Susan Hill's 1983 ghost story has the honor of being the first England-made Hammer picture in 35 years. While this delightfully creepy haunted house drama doesn't boast the cleavage-bearing temptations or tongue-in-cheek camp of such celebrated Hammer films as the 1969 classic "Taste the Blood of Dracula." Instead, "The Woman in Black" delivers plenty of gasp-inducing chills in a moody setting where its child characters are more likely to perish than to survive. The simultaneous demise of three young sisters at the start of the movie initiates the viewer into the story’s macabre landscape where horrors pop.

Transitioning out of his years attached to the Harry Potter franchise, Daniel Radcliffe is well-if-not-perfectly cast as Arthur Kipps, a widowed solicitor living in Victorian-era England. The loss of his wife during childbirth has left the heavy-hearted Kipps living as the single father of his four-year-old son Joseph (Misha Handley). Under threat of losing his job due to his bereaved demeanor, Kipps is sent to the eastern coastal village of Crythin Gifford to finalize legal paperwork pertaining to one Alice Drablow, a recently deceased widow with a history of tragedy. The widow's predictably tumbledown home is a cursed mansion named Eel Marsh House. The eerie dwelling harbors more than its share of ghosts. The dauntingly remote property is located at the end of a long causeway. When the tide comes in, the sprawling residence transforms into an island cut off from the mainland. Naturally, Kipps must spend a few nights in the haunted palace where ghoulish faces appear and things go bump in the night. A unique collection of wind-up children’s toys brings a clatter of reanimated weirdness in a room where a rocking chair is home to a female ghost with a proclivity for wearing black.

The filmmakers have a field day with brooding visual shocks accompanied by loud jarring noises. Ghastly demonic faces are deployed with disturbing accuracy. There were at least a couple of screams from members of the critic-filled screening I attended. Kave Quinn’s meticulous production design squares subtly with Paul Ghirardani’s precise art direction to bring every composition brimming with tasteful treats of lurking wickedness. Very little blood is spilled, but when it effuses from a sick child’s mouth the thick red liquid makes a palpable impression. An ominous crucifix protrudes from the marsh alongside the road. It just wouldn’t be a proper Hammer film without at least one looming crucifix. The foreboding object enables one of the pictures most suspenseful sequences. Kipps and his only friend in town, Dally (Ciaran Hinds), do some marsh dredging that furnishes the screen with an especially dark revelation.

“The Woman in Black” possesses a purity of purpose. Its goal is to seduce the audience into a supernatural realm of somnambulist existence with the power of suggestion. It’s an idyllic horror film to reboot a highly regarded horror studio known for depriving young audiences of their sleep. Nightmares will follow, perhaps even for the not so young.

Rated PG-13. 94 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Kill List

 

Co-writer/director Ben Wheatley obviously wants to create a hybrid form of crime cinema that's part David Lynch and part Quentin Tarantino. That the filmmaker fails with such a resounding thud with his second film is notable mainly for the undeserving praise "Kill List" has garnered from critics who should know better. To make its point "Kill List" combines unsupported leaps of narrative logic with outrageous moments of violence smuggled in the dog-worn subgenre of the hitman-crime-thriller.

Domestic arguments fly between married duo British thug Jay (Neil Maskell) and his dishy Swedish wife Shel (MyAnna Buring). Ensconced in their domestic suburban home, complete with child, the couple are suffering financial troubles since Gal committed some unknown career-halting misstep some months back. Yes, wifey knows she's married to a hired killer. Shel has a background in the Swedish military. A dinner party for Gal (Michael Smiley), Jay's former partner-in-blood-letting, and Gal's goth-princess girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer), gives Jay an excuse to show the kind of rough party-pooper he can be.

Cut to Jay and Gal taking marching orders from a local kingpin to take out a couple of ostensible baddies. These fall under screen-filling graphic titles such as "THE PRIEST" or "THE LIBRARIAN." The third, and last, name on the list brings the movie to the kind of hokey climax you'd expect from an obscure '60s-era European horror flick.

The plot holes in "Kill List" are so vast you could fit a whole different movie inside them, which leads me to advise that you accomplish the necessary result by substituting "Kill List" with any other available arthouse option.

Not Rated. 95 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

Henry V - Classic Film Pick

In 1989 Kenneth Branagh burst into the public consciousness with a refreshing adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Henry the Fifth." Branagh welcomed audiences with open arms into the thorny realm of the Bard with a consciously populist indoctrination. The widely acclaimed film commenced Branagh's campaign to delive Shakespeare into the mainstream. At this writing he has directed five of Shakespeare's works including "Much Ado About Nothing," "Hamlet," "Love's Labour's Lost," and "As You Like It."

"Henry V" is no trifling affair to inaugurate such a lofty goal. The centerpiece of the story involves an enormous combat scene (the Battle of Agincourt) between King Henry's ragtag army and 10,000 French troops.

Branagh brings to bear his thorough understanding of Shakespeare's notoriously unwieldy verse, which he mastered while studying at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It certainly didn't hurt that at 23, the Belfast-born Branagh became the youngest actor in the history of the Royal Shakespeare Company to play King Henry. It only took the ambitious writer/actor another six years to successfully reinterpret Shakespeare for 20th century moviegoers.

Playing freely with tone, Branagh announces his stylistic intentions during the film's enticing prologue, which takes place on an unpopulated film soundstage cluttered with chairs and light stands to represent the “cockpit” which will hold the “vasty fields of France.” The introductory dialogue is impeccably delivered by the one-man chorus of Derek Jacobi who Branagh has credited as being a primary inspiration for his decision to become an actor. Playing purposefully with the line between the presentational purpose of the chorus and the representational qualities of the story, Jacobi’s chorus returns with intermittent currency throughout the action to break the forth wall, albeit as a supporting actor in the play.

Toward the end of “turning many years into an hourglass,” Branagh the screenwriter condenses “King Henry the Fifth,” while adding in elements from the first and second parts of “King Henry the Fourth.” The effect is seamless. Using flashbacks as cinematic shortcuts, the filmmaker energizes Shakespeare’s massive narrative form to give the audience a sense of Henry’s background as a much-loved salt-of-the-earth character in touch with the concerns of the common man. If Branagh’s cunning portrayal at times seems patronizing, it is an affect earned through the bold example the character sets through his actions.

Audiences come away from the film with Henry’s powerful “Saint Crispen’s Day” speech ringing in their ears. Patrick Doyle’s soaring musical score creates a kind of aural staircase that Branagh climbs on toward a galvanizing plateau of united determination. “Henry V” is a joyous celebration of dynamic rhetoric in the capable voice of a natural-born leader. It is a role Kenneth Branagh was born to play.