Review: The Way Way Back

It’s been an interesting year at the theater and not necessarily in a good way.  To say that the slate has been pretty lean would be an understatement.  There have been some big blockbusters that I’ve really enjoyed (Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness) and a few pleasant surprises (The Conjuring, Warm Bodies), but I had yet to find something that I thought would receive awards season recognition.  That is, until I saw The Way Way Back, a small in budget and scale, but large in scope coming-of-age story that masterfully tells a coming-of-age story set against a jumbled mass of complex relationships.

The plot of the movie focuses on Duncan (Liam James), an awkward teen who is forced to take a summer trip with his single mother (Toni Collette) and her douche bag boyfriend (Steve Carell).  Thrust into a beach community that more closely resembles a camp for 40-somethings engaging in social debauchery, Duncan befriends Owen (Sam Rockwell) - a local who works at a nearby water park, and with his help ventures outside his comfort zone to learn more about himself and about those in his life.

Any discussion of this film must begin and end with Sam Rockwell.  He is that good in this movie.  In a lot of ways, his performance is set up by the dour oppressive atmosphere established by James’ timid and awkward Duncan and Steve Carell’s spot on portrayal of a man who can best be described as miserable and selfish.  The strength of those two performances allows Rockwell to absolutely deliver as the sarcastic but affable manager of the Water Wizz.  Every moment that he is onscreen feels like a breath of fresh air and the snappy delivery with which he speaks his comedic lines picks up the pace of the film immediately.  The contrast between his character and Carell’s is one of the key elements that makes this movie really pop.

Still, the success of this movie ultimately rests on the shoulders of one of the youngest cast members - Liam James.  I have no idea what kind of actor James is, as I’ve never seen him in anything else, but he marvelously captures the intense timidity and suffocating awkwardness of Duncan.  His character is a most sympathetic figure that puts himself in cringe-inducing moments and it’s this quality that draws you in emotionally and makes the payoff feel so cathartic. 

Toni Collette plays off of this character well as Duncan’s mother Pam.  Collette plays a good-natured but damaged single mother – a role that she is quite familiar with and quite adept at playing.  She’s both maddening and endearing, adding a significant layer to this coming-of-age narrative.  The other woman in Duncan’s life, AnnaSophia Robb (as love interest Susana) also shows well in this film, because her character acts as a great contrast to James’ as one who is dynamic, outgoing, and expressive.

As for the rest of the cast, the work is truly top solid from top to bottom.  The crew at the Water Wizz led by Maya Rudolph and Nat Faxon represent the heart of the film and their scenes represent some of the most joyous in the film.  The group of adults that revolve around Carell’s Trent – including Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, and Allison Janney – while not as impressive as Rudolph and Faxon, do a nice job of portraying manic, morally decayed, forty-somethings lost in a sea of their respective mid-life crises.  And in doing so, they close the loop on the recurring theme of contrasts that permeates this film.

With the way this film is treated and the quality of the finished product, it comes as no surprise that writer and director are one in the same.  Nat Faxon and Jim Rash collectively wear both hats and it’s immediately evident that the creative team is invested in this intensely personal narrative that addresses universal themes.  Any film that gets you to care about its characters tends to be a good one.  While any film that gets you to not only care but also to relate to the characters almost always is a great one.  The Way Way Back is definitely closer to the latter bucket.

In a sea of movies loaded with big explosions, wild gunplay, and fisticuffs, The Way Way Back is that rare summer movie that feels intimate, authentic, and personal.  The nature of the film suggests that it does not need to be seen on the big screen, but it is a very good movie that deserves to be seen in a big-feel setting.  Good for a date night or just hanging with friend, I would highly recommend this movie to one and all; even those whose taste skew towards pure action.  There is a little something for everyone in this movie and will leave you feeling like you got your money’s worth.  Without a doubt, The Way Way Back is one of my favorite movies of the year.

Standout Performance:  Sam Rockwell - by a landslide.

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Review: Pain & Gain

Whoa.  That’s my first reaction to Pain & Gain.  Not because it is so amazing or because it is horribly bad, but because the movie from start to finish is all over the place.  This probably doesn’t sound like a shocking reveal since Michael Bay was the man behind the camera.  No person cinematically represents the antithesis of “less is more” to a greater extent than he of Armageddon, Bad Boys, and Transformers fame, but his latest film has a decidedly different feel then its frenetically paced predecessors.  Slower and more drawn out, the pacing allows you to take in everything that is unfolding onscreen.   But is this necessarily a good thing?

The plot of the movie is based on the real life activities of Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg); a low rent con man that spends the bulk of his time cultivating his muscle more than his mind.  Driven by self-help drivel, he enlists the help of two of his fellow gym mates Adrian Doorbal and Paul Doyle (Anthony Mackie and Dwayne Johnson) to kidnap and rob local douche bag Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub).  This kicks off a series of miscalculations that leads to a crime spree.

The premise seems interesting enough, but is prone to stretches where it’s just not that interesting.  For a director who is known and panned for over-the-top action sequences unfolding at breakneck speed, the pacing of the film is startlingly slow and bogged down at times in exposition.  Another problem with Bay easing on the rapid cuts and taking his foot off the gas pedal is that it allows the viewer a chance to see all the warts on his production.  And there are more than a few. 

Wart 1: The plot is too convoluted.  Three guys did a bad thing.  That’s the story, but the way Bay wants to tell it, the viewer must sit through the backstory of every peripheral character and let them take turns as a third person narrator.  This is a delicate balance to maintain and Bay lacks the directorial touch to pull it off.  As a result of this, the film’s tone and congruity are completely demolished beneath the weight of mismatched machinations. 

Wart 2: The movie is just too long.  I couldn’t help thinking that if Bay pulled this movie off at his usual pace, the movie would have been more palatable.  A typical Hollywood production has three distinct acts and while we live in a world that now detests formulaic procedure, this is one formula that works.  And when something goes awry, the average moviegoer can sense it.  Pain & Gain not only has three plodding acts, it feels like there is a fourth and fifth act added on for bad measure.  Every time the narrative builds to a crescendo, it veers off into another direction and prolongs the inevitable.

Wart 3: The character mix.  It’s tough for a film to be enjoyed without one decent character that the viewing audience can identify with or root for.  Somewhere in each film, there usually needs to be that one person the audience would like to see land on their feet when all the rubble settles.  It’s why there are cops and robbers stories instead of just robbers and robbers.  Unfortunately, this is a movie about a bunch of really bad people doing really bad things to each other.  The closest we get to a sympathetic figure is Johnson’s Paul Doyle, but Bay swings him across the spectrum of good and bad like the pendulum on the clock thus compromising his likability.

As for the work of the cast, I found most everyone to be perfectly adequate.  Wahlberg does what he does and never takes an acting risk.  He doesn’t ruin the movie, but he also doesn’t make it better. Anthony Mackie proves himself to be a capable sidekick for Wahlberg’s foibles, but none would mistake this for his best work.  Rebel Wilson, Tony Shalhoub, Rob Corddry, and Ed Harris are absolutely satisfactory and unremarkable in their supporting roles and never make a significant impact to the quality of the finished product.  Given that the cast is littered with people who know how to deliver a scene, one has to wonder if it was the nature of the plot and direction that accounts for the plethora of muted performance.

The two who shine best in Pain & Gain are Dwayne Johnson and Bar Paly.  Johnson takes some risks and offers genuine comedic moments with the brand of charisma that has made him a star in the action genre.  Few in the business today can combine action and humor better than the former WWE star.  As for Bar Paly, while it is easy to dismiss her as mere eye candy, she does a nice of parodying herself and poking fun at a character that is perhaps the most ridiculous amongst of a gallery of undesirables.

It would seem then that my takeaways from this film are that Dwayne Johnson and Bar Paly are good, Michael Bay is bad, and everyone else is in between.  But does that mean you should run out to the cinema to see Pain & Gain?  The simple answer is no.  It’s too long and not enough fun to pay the premium.  There are too many interesting movies on the horizon to waste your time with this one.  Instead, put this title on your Netflix and give it a spin in the comfort of your own home.  It may or may not entertain you, but at least you will have spent a lot less money and will get to enjoy it in the comfort of your own home.

Standout Performance: Dwayne Johnson.  He’ll never be confused with a Dustin Hoffman or a Daniel Day-Lewis, but he always keeps it interesting. 

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Review: Warm Bodies

A zombie rom-com is not something that easily rolls off the tongue in a figurative sense.  The two genres seem to go together about as well as “lamb and tuna fish” (obscure Big Daddy reference).  So when I first heard about Warm Bodies, I was a bit skeptical.  Since it was based on the novel by Isaac Marion, I figured there could be a market for it with the young adult/tween crowd, but was not sure how it would play for the rest of society.  Having watched the movie I can you tell that it is very much a mixed bag of a film.

The movie places us in a post apocalyptic world where three different humans reside – the living, zombies, and bonies (the equivalent of zombies on steroids).  The plot details the existence of our protagonist R – a zombie played by Nicholas Hoult, who is struggling with his existence as a corpse.  When he meets the lovely Julie (Teresa Palmer), he finds that she brings out a new side of him.  Can he overcome the obstacles that would separate a zombie and a living person from having a relationship?  Well, you have to watch the movie to find out the answer to that question.

What is refreshing about this movie is that it comes at the zombie genre from a different angle.  Seeing things through the lens of the zombie definitely makes things feel fresh and provides an opportunity to spoof zombie flicks in a way that Shaun of the Dead and other such films cannot.  The protagonist provides a witty and lucid inner monologue, which sets up a nice contrast to his physical action.  In this role, Nicholas Hoult does a very credible job and displays a better than expected comedic sense.

Another check mark in the good column is the overall work of the cast.  Rob Corddry as R’s zombie best friend M, is funny in limited screen time.  While he will never get top billing, you can be sure that once a movie, Corddry will provide at least one memorable laugh-out-loud moment. Teresa Palmer as the love interest won’t be nominated for any awards for her work in this film, but she is good at looking endearingly at our love struck zombie protagonist.  As simple as this may sound, those romantic glances are a huge necessity to pull off the kind of romantic cheese writer/director Jonathan Levine is trying to peddle.

Despite this good stuff, flawed logic and plot holes drag this film down.  It’s almost silly to say because we are talking about a film featuring a romance between a zombie and a living woman, but the film’s plot breaks the rules of its own reality a number of times, which is a major letdown because it seems that just a bit of due diligence would have cleaned this script up a lot.  I came away from the viewing feeling that Levine wrote down to his audience rather than produce a clean narrative with larger aspirations.

So when a film is a mixed bag of good and bad like this one, the best you can hope for is that the positive outweigh the negatives.  In Warm Bodies, the interesting premise and fresh take on two genres is essentially negated by foolish errors and patches of mediocre writing, but the work of the cast in this film ultimately tips the scales towards the positive.  Hoult, Palmer, and Corddry along with John Malkovich and Dave Franco provide just enough laughs and “awww” moments to keep the audience engaged.  Unless you are really desperate for a romantic Valentine’s Day movie, I don’t think it is necessary to see this one in the theaters.  It’s a classic rental that won’t make a big impact on your life, but also won’t have you cursing at the Red Box vending machine.  However, should you find yourself in a bind to find a cinematic adventure to cap off a perfectly romantic Valentine’s Day, might I suggest A Good Day to Die Hard.  Nothing says love like Bruce Willis blowing up a bunch of stuff.

Standout Performance: Rob Corddry.  At one juncture, he made the whole cinema erupt with laughter.  Kudos to him.

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Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

There are two things one can surmise from watching the career of Steve Carell.  The first is that the Hollywood believes he has two gears as an actor– either the not-so-bright, overly nonsensical funny man or the disenchanted, disengaged sad sack loner.  The second things you can surmise is that Carell agrees with this assessment.  Now it’s a bit of the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum in regards to how you weigh these two statements, but regardless, if you look at his body of work you can put almost all of his roles into one of these two buckets.  In Seeking a Friend for the End for the World, Carell’s performance continues this trend.

The plot of the movie is set against the backdrop of the arrival of an asteroid that promises to bring about the end of the world as we know it (hence the title).  Carell plays Dodge, a down on his luck insurance salesman, who is dealing with a recent break up and the mediocrity of his life while civilization begins to crumble around him.  He meets Keira Knightley’s Penny and the two embark on a journey to reunite Carell with the love of his life and to get Penny back to her family in England. 

Writer/director Lorene Scafaria puts together a film that is a little too ambitious for its own good.  On the one hand the film tries to act as a commentary about social norms via the end of the world backdrop.  On the other hand, it is also a personal journey about making amends and coming to terms with the life one has led.  But really, at its core it’s a romance film wrapped up in a road trip narrative.  If this sounds like two too many layers for one movie to pull off, then you have company in this opinion. 

Carell and Knightley perform well as Dodge and Penny as neither are asked to pull anything off on screen that they haven’t already done in the past and their chemistry provides some genuinely lovely moments.  The personal baggage of their characters, their sense of loss, and their personal journeys are what works best about the movie.  Everything outside of that feels juvenile, second rate, and ultimately muddles the tone of the film.  Good actors like Rob Corddry, Connie Britton, Patton Oswalt, and William Petersen are relegated to roles that were probably meant to be satirical by design, but come off as awkward and forced.  It is a waste of good acting talent.

I would not say that this is a great movie, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s a bad one either.  Underneath the attempts at satire and not-so-clever witticism is a really nice story.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the narrative would have been better served had the “end of the world” gimmick been scrapped in favor of a more conventional catalyst to spark the events of the film.  Still the question remains, is the film worthy of a recommendation despite its flaws?  Yes, but just barely.  On a slow weeknight with no alternatives, this could be a serviceable rental (except for those who are total movie adrenaline junkies).  But be warned, this film is by no means a candidate for “the feel good movie of the year” award, but you probably already figured this out from the title of the movie.  

Next up for Knightley is the greatly hyped Anna Karenina opposite Jude Law and for Carell a whole slew of movies (5) before the much anticipated Anchorman: The Legend Continues.

Standout Performance: Keira Knightley gets the nod for her portrayal of Penny – a quirky yet utterly endearing woman.  She shines onscreen opposite Carell’s drab-by-design performance.

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