by Anonymous Logician, Copyright July 04, 2007, all rights reserved.
Ocean's Eleven was the kingpin of heist movies–nearly unmatched for plot, fun, and sheer coolness. The sequel, which boasted that "twelve is the new eleven," was really more like a group of actors trying to relive the fun. The coolness was there, to be sure, but the magic wasn't. It was a stretch and we knew it.
So think of Ocean's Thirteen as redemption. It's Soderbergh, Clooney, Pitt, and co. letting us know that they can still make a good con film. Thirteen doesn't top the roguish audacity and ingenuity of the first, but definitely comes close in originality and pure humor.
The hilarity of Thirteen is surprising, given its darker premise. Reuben Tishkoff, businessman and well-loved member of the original eleven, gets double-crossed by ruthless Willy Bank (Al Pacino) in a new casino project. The betrayal leaves Reuben heartbroken both emotionally and physically, and as he recovers from his heart attack, Danny and crew make plans to go after Bank. Their attack is twofold: make Bank lose big on opening night, and ensure that his hotel gets bad reviews. They face a lack of funds, a lack of manpower, and an automated security system that knows how to think. But when did odds ever bother Danny Ocean?
The acting returns to the level we've come to expect. Clooney and Pitt are calm and collected as Danny and Rusty. Pacino is superb in his bad guy role. Matt Damon, like his character Linus Caldwell, gets the "more central role" joked about in Ocean's Twelve and handles it well–fake nose and all. One nice thing about the Ocean films is that the supporting actors really do support, and Casey Affleck in particular does a nice job this time as Virgil, who gets sent to inflitrate a Mexican dice manufacturer and ends up starting a worker's revolution.
Soderbergh begins with some alarmingly choppy flashbacks, but eventually settles into a nice rhythm that allows the plot to take us on its twists and turns. The plot forces the boys to con as hard as ever and continually solve problems on the fly. Some of Soderbergh's twists are a stretch, but the ride is fun enough that they're easily forgiveable.
And speaking of fun, Thirteen, as I mentioned above, is at times hilarious. There's the running gag about Linus's fake nose, the Mexican workers' protest, and the hotel critic that Danny and Rusty are set on making miserable. Plus Yen upgrades from grease man to con man, debuting as a high-roller who owns "all the air south of Bejing." When Bank's lieutenant (Ellen Barkin) questions this claim, Linus challenges her to "try building something larger than three stories in the Tianjin province, and see if his name comes up in your database then."
Beneath the surface, the theme of loyalty helps carry the story. Ocean's original eleven stick close, and an offense to one of them is an offense to all. And while the movie seems like a revenge story, it's really more about justice than payback–Danny makes it clear early in the film that the point is not to get back at Bank but to do what's right for Reuben.
In the end, Ocean's Thirteen can be taken as a heist movie, a story of friendship, or just a fun ride. But however you take it, the odds that you'll enjoy it look pretty good.
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by Anonymous Logician, Copyright May 13, 2007, all rights reserved.
I realize that movie trailers almost invariably make the films look better than they really are, but I thought Fracture–with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling–was going to live up to the hype. Sadly, it didn't happen.
Don't get me wrong; Fracture wasn't that bad. It's one of those films that seeks to capture its audience by–gasp–telling an engaging story, and for that director Gregory Hoblit deserves props. Hoblit's film contains no explosions, formula villians, bad car chases, or cliched gunfights occurring every ten minutes. Instead Hoblit relies on such rarities as plot tension, moral dilemmas, intense acting, and characterization. The nerve.
Anthony Hopkins stars as Ted Crawford, a wealthy engineer whose success is based on his ability to find minute flaws in mechanical systems. When Crawford discovers that his younger wife is having an affair, he shoots her in the head, then surrenders calmly to police. He even dictates and signs a confession. (His wife is critically wounded and sinks into a coma.) Gosling plays Willy Beachum, an up-and-coming prosecutor who takes the case as his last trial before moving on to his ritzy new private-sector job. The lovely Rosamund Pike (Pride & Prejudice) enters as his new boss, a materialistic siren luring Willy to the "dark side" of the legal profession.
Willy is young, cocky, and sure he can put the would-be murderer behind bars. But Willy's advantage quickly evaporates. Crawford–who believes every person and system to have a hidden weak spot–has found a minute crack in the law. The confession Ted glibly signed is inadmissible (the hostage negotiator who took it was the one sleeping with his wife), and the alleged weapon has never been fired. Unless Beachum can find new evidence, Crawford will be off the hook and protected by the double jeopardy rule.
Not a bad plot line, and the trailer really plays this up. Yet Fracture doesn't really sustain the right level of tension throughout, causing more fidgeting than nail-biting. Too, the film's twists and turns aren't what we were promised, and even the final revelation lacks the arresting cleverness we were hoping for. Rosamund Pike's plot line doesn't click with the rest of the film, making us suspect that it–especially Willy's meaningless affair with his boss–was added to spice up the ads and help the film compete in today's skin-conscious Hollywood.
That said, Hopkins was phenomenal. He saved the film. Hopkins has the air of an old pro; he tackles the role with an effortless–almost lazy–confidence. In its better moments, Fracture lets us take a glimpse into the subtleties of human nature, and it's here that Hopkins shines. We learn about greed, conscience, love and hate. Yet through it all Hopkins remains enigmatic, flashing a chilling half-smile that implies that maybe he (not just his character) enjoys the game of cat-and-mouse. Gosling, though not at Hopkins's level, isn't bad either. He's likeable while being unlikeable and has a knack for dry humor–which Hoblit employs, though perhaps a bit too much, in the film.
As I mentioned, the movie has its better moments, such as when Willy is caught in a poignant moral dilemma over falsifying evidence. And the dialogue is above-average; Hopkins and Gosling have some great scenes and some memorable lines. Also worth remembering is a comment from Willy's new boss's father. When discussing the trade-offs of "low pay public service work," the older man remarks that every now and then one gets the satisfaction of "putting a…stake in a bad guy's heart." In many ways this is a turning point for Willy, who'd previously pursued the Crawford case out of arrogance. Willy begins to see the deep-seated evil in Ted Crawford and wants to bring him down.
In the end, Fracture is a renter, but it offers a good time and some surprisingly astute glimpses into human nature. The primary theme here is pride. If Crawford is right about every person having a hidden flaw or breaking point, then vanity would have to rank as one of the most deadly. It's Willy's vanity that enables Crawford to toy with Willy, luring him into his game. Arrogance is such a powerful blinder, the film reminds us. Vanity also plays a vital role in the film's later twists, reminding us of ancient wisdom: Pride goes before a fall.
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by Anonymous Logician, Copyright May 08, 2007, all rights reserved.
Given director Antoine Fuqua's brilliant Training Day, you'd expect his latest film Shooter at least to compare. Yet Shooter largely misses the target–it's not so much a thoughtful thriller as an action movie packaged as one.
The film stars Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, an expert Marine sniper who renounces the military after he and his best friend are left behind on a mission that ends up costing the latter his life. Three years later, a bitter Wahlberg is recruited by Danny Glover to prevent a presidential assassination attempt. Glover wants him to plan the perfect long-range sniper attack so that they can (purportedly) prevent it from happening. In true torn-between-grudge-and-duty fashion, Wahlberg predictably agrees, scoping out D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia from the perspective of a sniper and settling on Philadelphia as the only city in which a shot from beyond a mile could be successful.
But when the operation goes horribly wrong, Wahlberg realizes that he's been played. Glover's group wanted to use his skills to plan the attempt themselves and leave him holding the bag. Wahlberg then has to go on the run from every law enforcement agency in the country to find out what's going on. With the help of his friend's widow (Kate Mara) and an unlikely FBI ally (Michael Pena), Wahlberg takes the offensive, gunning for the men who framed him and the secret they hold.
The basic premise is decent, though it smells a bit too much like The Sentinel. But apart from Wahlberg–a top-notch actor who's one of the few good things in Shooter–the acting is so poorly done that we don't even care. And Glover puts so little verve into his villain that we wonder whether he does either. The awkward dialogue doesn't help, landing somewhere between attempts at wit and half-finished musings on patriotism. One such tongue twister: "There's always some poor deluded soul that believes one man can make a difference, and you have to kill him to convince him otherwise. That's the hassle of democracy." Huh? Also puzzling is the film's plot, which twists and turns with all the purpose and finesse of a lawn tractor on ice. By the end, you just learn to accept the story and not to ask questions.
But Fuqua is too good a director to leave us utterly empty-handed. The camera work is superb, as are the scenes in which Wahlberg can really cut loose. The first of these scenes is Wahlberg's escape from Philadelphia after the shooting. Wahlberg outruns the Philly PD and the FBI, driving his stolen FBI vehicle into the Delaware River. Fuqua also nails a later scene in which Wahlberg and Pena attack a heavily-guarded house, brandishing sniper rifles, pipe bombs, and napalm. And despite the bad dialogue, a few good lines emerge, such as when Pena points out to an FBI coworker that they're not that good at their job. "We do work for the federal government…." Also ironic is the comment of an old-timer Tennessee gunsmith Wahlberg consults. When the old-timer mentions that "they say" the attempt on the president was made by Bob Lee Swagger, he adds that of course "they also said WMDs was in Iraq."
In the end, though, Shooter is problematic philosophically. [Spoiler warning.] When Wahlberg is eventually exonerated in a special meeting with the Attorney-General, Glover goes free because his crimes were committed outside US jurisdiction. The A-G laments that this country isn't the Old West. You can't clean up the streets with a gun, however much it's needed. Wahlberg silently agrees, and in the next scene proceeds to shoot up his enemies in cold blood, laying down Bob Lee Swagger-style street justice.
The problem is that this isn't justice, and it isn't what Fuqua defended in Training Day. Training Day made the point that law is crucial, and no one is above the law–especially the government. When Hawke tells Denzel in one scene that Denzel just committed murder and armed robbery, he shows that he grasps this point, even though Denzel justifies his actions with his own bizarre logic. Street justice is essentially about revenge. Though rationalized by complex arguments, it ultimately hurts the cause of true justice.
Tyranny, after all, doesn't come from the state alone.
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