Reviews: Non-Stop and Repentance

46. Non-Stop
A solid, entertaining film. Movies like this have to walk a line between delivering the expected beats of the action/thriller genre and being original enough so that it doesn't feel like a pointless retread. It's harder than it sounds--juggling the familiar with the unfamiliar. Give the audience exactly what they expect and there's no real drama. Change things up too much, and the film might not even fit its supposed genre anymore, making the viewer feel cheated. There's never really any doubt as to where the story will go in "Non-Stop", at least in a general sense. But it has a few nice twists and turns along the way that breathe life into the premise. That's really all one can ask from a movie like this: Give us what we're expecting, but throw in a few surprises before we get there.

This film also continues the "action star" phase of Liam Neeson's career. Neeson is such a good actor in general that he has the gravitas to elevate typical action fare above its genre. Having honed his dramatic acting for decades, he delivers characters who are more grounded than those typically seen in this type of film. He depends on his earnestness and stoic determination to defeat the bad guys, and doesn't need cheesy one-liners to do it. This makes all of his characters more realistic and relatable.

47. Repentance
Forest Whitaker delivers a very good, unsettling performance in this film. He is filled with manic energy in his first appearance, but keeps it bottled in, giving the impression that the could (and the expectation that eventually he will) explode. His character has several layers that are gradually revealed throughout the film, and his performance hints at them in advance, but never spoils them.

Unfortunately, his performance is the only good thing about the film. The plot, although it does progress, has no sense of progression. Some events seem to occur based on the whim of the screenwriter, not because they would logically follow the preceding events. The film's other major problem is that none of the characters are particularly likeable. I didn't care about them, and didn't care what happened to them. In a film that derives much of its drama from putting its characters in dangerous situations, that is unacceptable. Whitaker was often fun to watch, but the film itself was not.

Reviews: On the Waterfront and Highway

44. On the Waterfront
I sometimes have trouble coming up with much to say about classic films that I see in theatres. It's not that I don't have an opinion--I usually do, and, if the word "classic" has been applied appropriately, that opinion is usually positive. It's just that when a film is well known and has been out for a long time (since 1954 in the case of "On the Waterfront"), there's not much left that can be added to the conversation. If the film were bad, I'd have something interesting to say as I attempted to refute the reasons it's held in such high esteem.

"On the Waterfront", of course, is not bad. It is a very good film, and is deservedly a classic. Marlon Brando's performance is incredible. While the film may feel a little slow during the beginning, this is not a bad thing. It allows the audience a chance to get to know the characters, and allows the film's tension and pace to build throughout. If this were a new release, I would be spending a lot of time talking about everything that was great about it, but others have beaten me to that.

45. Highway
The second foreign film I have seen in theatres this year, "Highway" is from India. I still experience a bit of trepidation before going into most foreign films. I have no problem with reading subtitles, and I don't really think I'm going to be bored, but there's a bit of fear that if I am bored, I'm going to be really bored. Fortunately, "Highway" managed to keep me engaged for most of its runtime. It dragged a bit near the end, but not horribly so.

The plot generally worked. The film might as well have been called "Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie", as it primarily concerns a rich girl and her kidnapper falling in love. To its credit, the film takes this central relationship seriously and it works for the most part, but does feel a bit contrived in some places. We get a sense from the beginning that the girl is not completely happy with the life that she's been living with her family, and further revelations from her feel organic. Partway through the film, however, when the kidnapper hints at traumatic events from his own past, it feels a bit convenient. If some hints had been thrown in earlier, the films machinations to let the two damaged people find happiness with each other would have been less transparent.

There are several instances where songs start to play on the soundtrack, and the film is edited almost like a music video. In one such instance, a character even starts singing along. These moments would have pulled me out of most typical American films, but there's something about this being a foreign film that helps it get away with these scenes. I can accept them as a stylistic flourish that I'm simply not used to seeing, and they actually piqued my interest and were somewhat fascinating in their own right. Overall, the film combined elements and cinematic techniques that are both familiar and unfamiliar to me. It was quite good.

Reviews: 3 Days to Kill and In Secret

42. 3 Days to Kill
I enjoyed myself well enough with this film--it was a fun way to kill an hour and a half, but that's not to say that it brought anything new to the table or was especially well done.

The film's major problem is a lack of focus. It tries to juggle too many plot threads at once. The main character spends the film simultaneously working to rebuild a relationship with his wife and daughter, fighting off an illness that will kill him in a matter of months, getting used to a working relationship with his new handler/partner, and hunting down The Big Bad Guy. And, oh yeah, he also has squatters living in his apartment, including a woman about to give birth. A better film could weave these various threads into a frantic tapestry, but "3 Days to Kill" merely jumps between the various plotlines with no real sense of focus.

Some moments in the film worked better than others, and there were some comedic moments, but I frequently got the sense that the film thought these moments were more clever than they really are. The action scenes were standard, nothing spectacular. Sometimes a film's shortcomings can be overlooked if the action scenes are frequent and good enough that film can be excused as "just trying to be entertaining" ("Pompeii" is a good example). While I was somewhat entertained by "3 Days to Kill", it did not reach this threshold and is, in truth, not a particularly good film.

43. In Secret
I liked certain elements of this film quite a bit, but they never completely congealed into a whole.

The first half of the film executed its premise very well, even if it was nothing original. It features a woman trapped in a loveless marriage (at least on her part) who falls in love with another man. They then plot to murder her husband so they can be together. I've seen the general concept done before--forbidden love leading to murderous acts, but it is done effectively here. The audience is genuinely made to pity the character of Terese, not just because of her unhappy marriage, but because of the series of circumstances, beginning when she was a girl, that led to her being trapped in it. Her attraction to a friend of her husband's and the beginning of their affair are believable. Some of these early love scenes are impressively erotic, especially considering the very small amounts of nudity in the film.

Once Terese and her lover have successfully gotten rid of her husband, things start to fall apart for them. Ironically, this is where things start to fall apart for the film as well. The growing distrust that builds between the characters feels obligatory, like watching a morality play who's purpose is to show that evil deeds are always punished. The rising tension felt like it was taking place for its own sake, rather than as the organic result of the characters and their actions. The ending it built to felt unbelievable to me on a variety of levels. One thing I did enjoy during the latter half of the film, however, was that the actual killing of Terese's husband is not shown where it chronologically occurs in the film. It is used as a flashback much later, when things between Terese and her new lover are at their worst. This was an effective way to illustrate the nature of the secret the two lovers had been keeping between themselves, and it would have been even more effective had the growing animosity between them felt genuine.

Reviews: The Attorney and Pompeii

40. The Attorney
The first foreign film I used my Movie Pass to see (I have since seen one more), I didn't really go into "The Attorney" with much of an idea what to expect. Based on the beginning of a very brief synopsis and the poster, I was expecting a comedy. The first part of the film seemed to confirm this--it was never hysterical, but seemed to be a gently comedic, inoffensive film. Around a quarter of the way through, however, it turned into a serious legal drama. It was an interesting way to set up the film and let the audience get to know the major characters. The dramatic portions get pretty dark, and these moments have more impact when compared the light-hearted scenes that began the film.

The main story is nothing that hasn't been done before, at least in its broad strokes. It's a standard courtroom drama that pits the one attorney willing to fight for the case against incredibly powerful, corrupt government officials. It handles this story well, but doesn't stand out as drastically different from other courtroom dramas I've seen, aside from the fact that it's in Korean. Still, it is a good film, with its most original feature being the switch from comedy to drama.

41. Pompeii
"Pompeii" got mostly terrible reviews, and I went into it expecting the worst. As it turned out, I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. Yes, it's kind of cheesy and the love story is absolutely ridiculous, but I don't think this is entirely unintentional. I read some criticism online that referred to Kiefer Sutherland's performance as the villain as terrible. I disagree. I think he's being deliberately bad, and there is a difference. It's not the biggest scenery chewing performance of all time, but he's clearly having a good time and not taking the film too seriously. This is true of the whole film in general: it doesn't take itself too seriously, and is thus able to just concentrate on being silly and showing the audience a good time, even before Mount Vesuvius erupts.

As I said before, the love story is ridiculous. The whole relationship between the two leads is built on wistful glances from afar--they barely exchange two words until over halfway into the film. But the film knows the relationship is just an excuse to set up frantic action scenes near the climax, and it doesn't expect us to really invest emotionally in the lovers' plight. "Pompeii" acquits itself especially well when compared to the Roland Emmerich school of disaster films ("The Day After Tomorrow", "2012"). In those movies, you get the big, well done disaster scenes you came for, but you also have to deal with bloated runtimes of over two hours, with too much time spent trying (and failing) to tug at your emotions. "Pompeii" doesn't bother wasting time with any of that. It tells enough story to set up a few well choreographed gladiator battles before letting the volcano do its thing. It then has the requisite visually impressive disaster sequences, with a few more fights and a chase scene thrown in for good measure. Before these can become too repetitive, it has the good sense to end, coming in at a brisk 104 minutes. All in all, a pretty fun movie.

Endless Love and Winter's Tale

I'm excited to finally be back to writing new movie reviews.

38. Endless Love
This was a terrible movie. A hilariously, ridiculously terrible movie. It was like watching three seasons of a bad prime-time soap opera crammed into 103 minutes. I laughed several times, but never in ways the filmmakers would have wanted.

Nothing in the film feels genuine. Character motivations are clichéd. Plot twists can be seen coming from miles away. They aren't even really twists, not when we've seen them done many times before.

My earlier comparison is what I just can't get over regarding this film. It really does feel like someone has edited the "greatest hits" from a television soap opera into a movie. On television, though, the story (while still bad) would have had time to breathe. Instead, the film rushes from one overly dramatic cliché to the next. It's almost exhilarating in its badness. Still, one gets the impression that the actors and filmmakers were trying to make a good film. If they had actually recognized how bad the film was going to be and embraced it, we could have had a new classic on our hands--the worst (or best) so bad it's good movie ever. As is, it's still a contender.

39. Winter's Tale
I was looking forward to this movie based on its trailer. It didn't manage to live up to my expectations--I would probably rate it about a 'C'. Had it been edited differently, however, I think it could have been a solid 'B'.

The film seemed, in previews, to be a mostly simple love story, but with a bit of a fantastical element to it (after all, it somehow spans roughly a century). In reality, the movie is much more complicated, unnecessarily so. It involved demons, and angels, and attempts by the former to prevent miracles from taking place. If the movie wanted to allude to some of this, that would be fine, but it is much too "in your face" with it all. A wise, magical horse showing up to help the main character is okay. Learning that it is literally a guardian angel takes away any sense of whimsy or mystery.

This lack of mystery is my main issue with the film's editing. With the exception of the very beginning, the film mostly takes place in sequence, first in the early 1900s, then, after a time jump, in the present day. I think that these two sequences should have been intercut. In the beginning of the present day sequence, Colin Farrell's character is even suffering from amnesia. That's the perfect place for the movie to begin. It would be a more effective way of drawing the viewer in. We would be going on a journey of discovery with the character instead of, two-thirds through the film, waiting for him to remember what we already know. There are a few places during the modern day scenes that would have made for good moments to put in lengthy flashbacks. By showing the story's events in chronological order, the film feels less like a unified whole. Instead, it feels like two distinct sections, neither with a great payoff. I still don't think "Winter's Tale" would have been a great movie if it had been more skillfully edited, but it could have been a good one.

Goals for March

1. Watch at least 10 different movies in the theatre. Again, this is a goal I'll probably give myself and exceed every month.

2. Complete a first draft of a screenplay. I think I've done enough of my pre-writing to get to the point where I can start my actual writing. It may be pretty rough, but the important thing is getting the script down on paper. Then I can really start messing around with and improving it.

3. Clean my room. It's a mess. Has been for a while. That needs to change.

After several non movie-related posts, it's finally time to get back to my mini reviews in my next post.

February Goals Wrap-Up

With February just behind us, it's time to take a look back at my goals for the month.

1. Watch at least 10 different movies in the theatre. I think this will be a goal I give myself every month--one that will be easy to attain, but that will ensure I keep regularly using my Movie Pass. I ended up surpassing this goal, seeing 16 different movies in theatres (not counting the Best Picture nominees).

2. Go to the gym every day. I met this goal, and on one occasion even ended up going twice in one day. We had a big snow storm coming in, and I wasn't certain I would be able to get out of the house and to the gym the next day, so I waited until just after Midnight to go. As it turned out, I was able to get out the next day, so I ended up going again.

3. Read two books. As previously discussed, I read both "Divergent" and "Dr. Sleep".

4. Do more screenplay prep work. I didn't end up writing anything new down, but I've given my ideas some more thought and come up with some new ones. I should be ready to start writing, so I consider this goal a success.