4 Reasons to Watch "American Hustle" and 3 Reason to Not.

4 REASONS TO WATCH:

4. BECAUSE JENNIFER LAWRENCE IS OFF THE RAILS…

But in a good way.  Sure, there are a few moments where you start to feel the twinge of your eyes rolling their way back into your head, but the character is over-the-top and Jennifer Lawrence unapologetically goes for it.

3. AMY ADAMS’ NEAR WARDROBE MALFUNCTION…

in every single scene.  The question most asked after seeing this film: “Did you see Amy Adams’ shirts?” and the response most often provided: “Yessssssss!”

2. THE BAD HAIR

If ever you need to feel good about being follically challenged, take a gander at the wig work in this film.  It’ll immediately pump your tires while reminding you that nothing good ever came out of the 70’s.

1. IT’S LIKE WATCHING THE NBA ALL STAR GAME

The movie is a collection of great talent (for the most part) performing at peak levels.  Sure the script is not that good and thus the production feels like a showcase of talent rather than one cohesive narrative, but like the NBA All Star game, there is just enough raw talent to overcome this and provide adequate entertainment value.

AND 3 REASONS TO NOT TO WATCH:

3. BECAUSE BRADLEY COOPER IS OVERRATED.

After one good turn in "Silver Linings Playbook," society as a whole has decided that Bradley Cooper is actually a great actor.  I've yet to see this point validated.

2. THE SCRIPT IS GENERIC AND INCONSISTENT.

This movie is the definition of a script written for the sake of making a movie.  Is it loosely based on real events?  Sure, but the key word is loosely.  What is fiction turns out to be pretty unimaginative and the consistency of the characters falter under the weight of this flawed plot.  And the minute you walk out of the movie, you'll immediately decide there's no need to ever see it again.

1. BECAUSE THE VIEWER IS LEFT WITH NO SKIN IN THE GAME.
Almost every good movie has a likable person to root for regardless of whether they are to come out on top or not.  Most everyone in American Hustle is drenched with the stink of deceit and corruption, making it hard for the viewer to become invested in any one character.

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Review: Silver Linings Playbook

As I walked into the cinema, I had a laundry list of reasons not to like Silver Linings Playbook beyond the fact that I was only watching it because of “girlfriend rules.”  I didn’t particularly like the cast, the premise, and the genre; I was tired and hungry; it was raining out and there was lots of traffic; big government continues to blow up our national deficit; the Celtics are barely over .500; and my refrigerator was broken.  So long story short, there was no way I was going to walk out of this theater liking this movie.  But then a funny thing happened; two hours and a package of M&M’s later, I actually did.

The movie tells the story of Bradley Cooper’s Pat Solitano, a former teacher who is released from a mental institution and finds himself dealing with bi-polarity and anger issues, an estranged ex-wife, and the challenge of moving back in with his parents.  When he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow dealing with her own emotional issues, the two strike up a friendship they hope to be mutually beneficial.

Right off the bat, I want to say that the cinematography is merely adequate, but directory/writer David O. Russell fares much better in the latter capacity.  The plot is compelling and maintains an interesting balance between dark subject matter and very organic light humor, which is no easy accomplishment.  But to me, the reason this movie plays so well is the strong work of the cast with whom I was not so enamored with at the outset.  So here is how each fared:

Bradley Cooper: Hollywood really tried to convince us for a while that he was the next big thing, but to be honest, I hadn’t really enjoyed his work in anything besides The Hangover.  This movie represents the first time he successfully plays something other than a breezy sarcastic misogynist.  Sure, his performance unravels at times, but fortunately he is surrounded by strong supporting players to keep things on track.

Jennifer Lawrence:  I liked her in X-Men: First Class; thought she was okay in The Hunger Games; and avoided House at the End of the Street altogether.  Her portrayal of Tiffany – a troubled woman who is both strong and vulnerable - in this film marks the first time she delivers a spot on character performance.  She is the heart of the film and at a few key junctures rescues the film from veering off track.

Robert DeNiro: Welcome back, Bobby D.  For years I have lamented watching his films because the man behind some of the most iconic cinematic performances in history had morphed into a caricature of himself.  In this movie, we get a lot less of the typical DeNiro mannerisms and more dedication to the details associated with the character of Pat Solitano, Sr – a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan and low-rent bookie. 

As for the rest of the cast, Jacki Weaver as DeNiro’s wife/Cooper’s mom is the consummate supporting actress in this film as she does a great job of capturing the essence of her blue-collar maternal character.  Anupam Kher and Chris Tucker are great in a comedic relief capacity, lightening up what is clearly dark subject matter.  And John Ortiz and Julia Stiles are compelling as a middling married couple acting as a contract to the idealistic view of marriage and romance that Cooper’s Pat clings to as he tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. 

I have read in some circles that this movie will get Oscar consideration and I don’t doubt this as this is the type of movie Academy voters love to reward, but I am not willing to go that far in my praise.  It’s not ground breaking, mind blowing, or life altering.  In fact, you probably won’t think too much about it fifteen minutes after you leave the cinema, but it is a well-acted film that is highly entertaining.  Does it warrant a visit to the theater?  Probably not, but I would put it high up on your Netflix queue or whatever list of “movies-to-watch” that you may keep.  And for all you Jennifer Lawrence fans, next up for the Silver Linings MVP is The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2013.

Standout Performance: Chris Tucker gets the nod for one reason and one reason only – for finally playing a character other than James Carter in a Rush Hour movie.  It only took 14 years.

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Review: New Year's Eve

Let’s fast forward through the diatribe I typically express whenever I come across one of those ensemble cast movies that features half of Hollywood (Valentine’s Day, What to Expect When You Are Expecting).  Let’s just accept the fact that I think they are terrible, lack character development, and feature actors just mailing it in.  Having just seen the movie New Year’s Eve I can tell that I saw nothing in this movie that makes me feel otherwise. 

New Year’s Eve follows the lives of a bunch of people in New York City on New Year’s Eve battling the holidays, the elements, and the trite sentimentality that drives their respective matters of the heart.  Why director Garry Marshall – he of Pretty Woman, Beaches, and The Princess Diaries fame – keeps venturing into this genre is beyond me, but rather than completely dismiss the film as a complete write off, I am going to highlight the glorified vignettes and how they don’t work to varying degrees.

Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele star in the “love in the elevator” portion of the movie and their collective performance plays like two high school drama students acting out a series of romantic clichés.  Not much better than that, is the “mending the fences” storyline as brought to life by Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl, though there is a thin layer of authenticity to this plot line as Heigl is asked to play a bitter and domineering woman and Bon Jovi a selfish self-centered musician.  On the opposite end of the authenticity spectrum is the performance of Josh Duhamel who plays the role of a cad that has come to grips with his own sentimentality and hopes to find a special someone that he once shared a moment with.  As to who that is, well it is a mystery easily solved about ten minutes into the movie.

Not to be upstaged in the unbelievablity department is the competition between two couples to have the first baby born in the new year for a monetary prize.  Is it unbelievable that this might happen in real life?  No - crazier things have been done in the real world for the almighty dollar.  It is in fact the performances of Seth Myers and Jessica Biel that are hard to fathom.  Myers delivers every other line with his hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar expression from SNL: Weekend Update, and Biel has yet to master the ability to convince anyone that she can actually act. 

Then there is the arc shared by Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron.  I was sure I would hate this one the most.  I cannot stress how overly contrived, incredibly cliché, and so overused the paradigm for their story line is, however it is still represents the most entertaining parts of the movie.  Effron is believable as a douchebag (obviously) bike messenger, but it is Michelle Pfeiffer who carries their story.  Of the one million characters in the movie, hers is the most sympathetic and the only one that seems to have any real depth despite the limited screen time.

As for the rest of the cast, Hilary Swank is there and fairly dour as she is charged with shouldering the gravitas of the movie.  Likewise Robert DeNiro, Abigail Breslin and Sarah Jessica Parker negotiate the mother-daughter relationship in ways that are not compelling.  Also appearing in the movie are Halle Berry, Common, Cary Elwes, Alyssa Milano (yes, apparently she still acts), Sofia Vergara, Carla Gugino, and so on and so forth and none of them do anything of significance to impact the movie one way or another.  As glorified extras, their presence actually breaks what little reality exist in the film as you find yourself thinking more about actor recognition rather than investing in the characters they are attempting to portray.

So I could sit here and tell you not to watch it (which is what I would suggest) but for the most part it probably won’t make much of a difference.  This is one of those movies that from the moment people first see the trailer, they instantly decide whether or not they are willing to invest their time and/or money on this project.  But if I can save even one person from this disaster, I will say it again: this is not a good movie.  It’s an exercise in quantity over quality so in lieu of one really good plotline you get five terribly weak ones.  The best recommendation I can make is to not only skip this movie, but to quit the genre altogether.

Standout Performance:  Michael Bloomberg and Ryan Seacrest.  They were asked to pay themselves.  It’s about as easy as acting can get.

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Review: Limitless

In watching the film "Limitless," the first thing I found is that the title in no way reflects the quality of the film, because while the premise of the movie is interesting, the plot itself is little more than a glorified drug caper movie.  Bradley Cooper plays a run-of-the-mill underachieving writer who is suffering with a bout of chronic apathy masquerading as writer's block.  When he is presented the opportunity to take an experimental drug to cure the malaise that ails him, he jumps at the opportunity.  Jack Kerouac would be proud.

While watching this film, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a script born from the reject scraps of “Go,” “Boiler Room,” and “Two for the Money.”  Incompetent drug dealer? Check.  Cheesey Russian loan shark? Check.  Douche bag bankers? Check, check, and check.  The plot jumps from place to place quickly with such little exposition that I was hard pressed to remember why anything onscreen was taking place and worse still, why I should even care.  The plot has more holes in it than LA’s Wilshire Blvd. has potholes.  To remedy fhis, the director Neil Burger takes the lazy route and opts for a Bradley Cooper voice over to tell us how these logic issues will be ironed out in the future.  It makes me wonder if the movie would have been better if it were just one quick voice over telling viewers that eventually in the future things get ironed out.

Ultimately the movie is doomed to fail because if you are making a movie about a guy who becomes exponentially smarter than the average person, then the source material for the character had better be intelligently written.  It’s simply not enough for the protagonist to tell everyone on screen that he sees all the angles; the script has to set up the plot in a way that depicts this.  Unfortunately throughout the movie, it is more of the former than the latter and the movie suffers from credibility issues because of it.

As for the cast, Bradley Cooper is satisfactory in this role.  His natural delivery as an actor is perpetually tainted with a hint of sleaze and douchebaggery, which when coupled with a lack of plot development makes any kind of redemption for his character a tough sell.  As for Robert DeNiro, he has become a caricature of himself since "Analyze That” and does nothing in this film to reverse that trend.  I liked Abbie Cornish more in “Sucker Punch” but that matters very little because she completely fades from the picture in the third act.  And Andrew Howard deserves recognition for the worst Russian accent on screen since John Malkovich played Teddy KGB in "Rounders."

“Limitless" is one of those films that looks really slick when viewing its trailer because of its catchy premise, but ultimately the film fails to deliver. What you are left with is a movie that is only mildly entertaining and will most definitely be forgotten fifteen minutes after the credits begin to roll.  Watch this movie if you are really bored or if you have a long flight somewhere and are in desperate need of mindless distraction.  When viewed under these conditions, then it seems less like a waste of time.

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