Movie Reviews

The Infiltrator

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

The Infiltrator poster

It’s very tempting to call this movie “Breaking Bad” meets “Donnie Brasco” especially with Bryan “Heisenberg” Cranston starring in it. “The Infiltrator” is about a U.S. Customs Service special agent, Robert Mazur, who goes, as Eddie Murphy put it in “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “deep, deep, deep, deep undercover” to infiltrate one of the world’s largest drug cartels. But more importantly, getting inside this particular drug cartel leads him to the money laundering operation run by the infamous Pablo Escobar who was once called “the king of cocaine.” Yes, this movie is “based on a true story,” but don’t let that dissuade you from seeing it.

“The Infiltrator” takes us back to the year 1985 when the internet didn’t exist, “Miami Vice” was on the air and the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign was the subject of every other commercial we watched on television. Mazur has just come off a mission where he suffered a potentially career-ending injury, but he’s invited to participate in one more mission before retiring for good. Of course, we all know that the last mission will always be the most dangerous one that will test him more than ever before, and we do get the obligatory scene of the hero washing his face and staring at himself in the mirror as he silently questions himself. Also complicating issues is the fact that Mazur has his wife Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey) and two kids waiting for him back at home, and his wife can take only so much more of her husband’s work as every time he walks out the door might be the last time she sees him.

I couldn’t help but think of “Donnie Brasco” as I watched “The Infiltrator” as both films deal with undercover officers with families of their own who get so deep into their work that they cannot help but feel for the criminals they are trying to take down as they get too close to them in the process. This movie never comes across as the kind of undercover movie we haven’t seen a number of times before, but director Brad Furman still manages to keep the intensity strong and tight as Mazur and his colleagues face life or death situations more often than not.

Furman has previously directed “The Lincoln Lawyer” which starred Matthew McConaughey as the defense attorney of many Michael Connelly novels, Mickey Haller. Now that movie managed to be a very entertaining legal thriller while bringing nothing new to genre, and Furman does the same thing here with “The Infiltrator.” There are scenes which remind us of many other movies we have seen before, but Furman manages to tweak those familiar situations to where we are forced to expect the unexpected. Just when you think you have seen everything an undercover movie has to offer, along comes this one which really fries your nerves at certain moments.

It also helps that Furman has quite the cast to work with here. Cranston has been on a roll ever since playing Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” and it is fascinating to see him play the kind of character whose mission it is to take down the Walter Whites of the world. It’s a complicated character as Mazur is dedicated to his job and his family, but not always in the same order. Cranston makes us empathize with a man whose priorities get tangled up as he descends deeper into the drug cartel world. Just watch him in the scene where he has to “audition” to meet one of the cartel’s leaders. Cranston makes you feel the frightening predicament of a man who may have gone one step too far, and he imbues the role with an integrity few other actors are capable of doing.

Cranston is also surrounded by a terrific cast of actors like John Leguizamo who brings his uncontainable energy to the role of Emir Abreu, Mazur’s partner. Leguizamo has one of the movie’s most unnerving scenes as he is forced to defend himself against another person who attempts to blow his cover, and watching the actor play it cool under such intense circumstances is thrilling to watch.

Then there’s Benjamin Bratt who plays Roberto Alcanio, Mazur’s contact and Escobar’s top lieutenant. Bratt makes Roberto into a man as charming as he is ruthless as well as someone far more interesting than the usual clichéd drug dealer we see in movies like these. You want to hate Roberto, but Bratt keeps you from doing that as you become as deeply involved in his family’s plight as he makes this character seem like a cool, down to earth dude even though he is also a vicious drug dealer.

There’s also Amy Ryan (“Gone Baby Gone”) who plays Mazur’s chief officer, Bonni Tischler. She’s a real fireball from start to finish as she barks out orders at her colleagues and has no interest in wasting time on frivolous matters. Ryan makes Bonni into a no-nonsense character who you do not want to mess with as she is not about to let those who work for her take advantage of a situation unless it is for a really, really, really good reason.

Also terrific is Diane Kruger who plays Mazur’s partner and undercover fiancée, and she really hold her own opposite Cranston as her character of Kathy plunges headlong into an assignment she initially seems fully unprepared for. Much like the German actress she played in “Inglorious Basterds,” Kruger (no relation to Freddy) shows a fearlessness as she unveils the many talents Kathy has to get close to the criminals, and she also portrays the perils of undercover work as her emotions threaten to get in the way.

“The Infiltrator” is nothing new or groundbreaking in movies, but it does get the job done thanks to terrific performances and some truly intense scenes that really leave you guessing as to what will happen. It also provides us with a main character who is as interested in taking down bankers who launder drug money as he is in going after drug dealers. With the “War on Drugs” continuing to be fought in a futile manner, watching this movie made me think of something George Carlin once said:

“Drug dealers aren’t afraid to die. They’re already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they’re not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn’t mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like… THE BANKERS WHO LAUNDER THE DRUG MONEY!”

* * * out of * * * *

Copyright Ben Kenber 2016.

Cell

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

Cell movie poster

I did have the opportunity to read Stephen King’s “Cell” while I was on vacation in Hawaii. It’s not one of King’s best novels, but it was an entertaining read as it delved into our increasing obsession and dependence on technology, in particular cell phones. When the novel was released in 2006, cell phones still had a bit of a ways to go to get to where they are today; devices that can do just about everything and anything in our daily lives except make coffee. But now it’s 2016 and we have long since reached that point where we can’t bear to live without our cell phones and are a slave to them.

A movie adaptation of “Cell” had been in the works for years and Eli Roth was originally going to direct it, but that didn’t work out. Now it has finally arrived in theaters and can be quickly added to the garbage heap of terrible Stephen King adaptations like “Maximum Overdrive” and “The Mangler.” While its subject matter is still timely, “Cell” quickly devolves into just another zombie movie where the clichés are rampant to where we know exactly what to expect to where any suspenseful moments it hoped to have are rendered moot. In short, it is an uninspired retread of “28 Days Later,” a movie this one can only dream of being as terrifying as.

“Cell” opens up on Clayton Riddell (John Cusack) getting off his flight which has brought him back home, and he is eager to reconnect with his wife and son, both of whom he has been estranged from for too long. But it doesn’t take all that long for all the fellow travelers around him to start losing their minds and convulse to where they start attacking everyone and everything in sight. Clayton manages to escape the airport and teams up with subway worker Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson) and Alice Maxwell (Isabelle Fuhrman) to find a safe haven away from those infected with the cell phone virus that controls the actions of everyone infected by it.

The movie gives us sights and sounds we have seen endlessly in one apocalyptic movie after another. We see scenes of cities in utter ruins, cars turned over, survivors travelling through empty roads and fields, etc. All this does is remind me of other movies that are far scarier and more unnerving to where it’s tempting to turn off “Cell” and watch them instead. There’s almost nothing to separate this film from others of its genre, and it becomes a glum and languid bore of a motion picture that feels too long even at 98 minutes.

Watching John Cusack here made me feel sorry for him. After suffering through a number of bad movies these past few years, he delivered a truly great performance as the elder Brian Wilson in “Love & Mercy” which proved he still has much to give to the world of acting. But here in “Cell,” Cusack just looks bored and barely interested to be a part of this particular Stephen King adaptation. His character is just another father trying to get to his child to ensure his safety, and the actor just goes through the motions with little to show for it.

Samuel L. Jackson fares a little better here as Tom McCourt as he gives a performance that is subtle instead of bombastic. The “Pulp Fiction” actor effortlessly turns his character into an everyman who has seen far too much in this lifetime to where this apocalyptic situation is no different to him than being a soldier in a foreign land. Jackson has been in countless movies over the years, many of them flat out bad, but there is no doubt that he will survive this critical catastrophe to give us great performances in the future.

What’s especially galling is that both Cusack and Jackson starred in another Stephen King cinematic adaptation almost ten years ago, “1408,” and that proved to be a scary time at the movies. Why they couldn’t bring the same enthusiasm they clearly had on that one to “Cell” almost feels like a mystery.

But then again, we shouldn’t be blaming the two stars as much as we should be blaming the director of this uninspired mess, Tod Williams. Back in 2004 he gave us the blistering drama “The Door in the Floor” which starred Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger as a couple forever torn apart emotionally by the death of their sons. It was a breakthrough feature for Williams as he got some of the best performances out of Bridges’ and Basinger’s careers, and he dug deep into the lives of unlikable characters whose psychological wounds were too deep for us to look away from. A few years later he directed “Paranormal Activity 2,” a sequel which proved to be as terrifying as the original. And considering how terrifying the original was, that’s saying a lot.

Those two movies show Williams to be a huge talent behind the camera, so it is very hard to understand why he couldn’t make “Cell” the least bit scary or unnerving. King’s novel dealt with material that was familiar to him, but the writer made “Cell” more than just another exploration into the end of civilization as we know it. Williams doesn’t bother to do that here as he simply throws out one tired cliché after another at us, and some scenes are so badly lit to where it’s impossible to figure out what is going on. This is also not to mention the horrible CGI effects on display which illustrate how this low budget horror movie had an even lower budget than others.

This all leads to a climax which is not at all satisfying, and an ending that is unforgivably confusing. King’s conclusion to “Cell” was a bit anticlimactic and too ambiguous for many readers, but it was still a haunting conclusion that Williams doesn’t bother to include here.

Adapting Stephen King novels to the silver screen has always been tricky as filmmakers have to balance out their attention to both the gory aspects of his stories and the characters which inhabit them. Perhaps Williams tried to do both here, but he’s not able to shock us or care about the protagonists at the center of “Cell.” What we get instead is a very below average genre movie that isn’t worth anyone’s money or time. That should more than explain the studio’s decision to dump it in a handful of theaters this past weekend for a limited release. Do audiences even know “Cell” is out in theaters this weekend? Well, even if they do, I can’t blame them for not caring.

* out of * * * *

Copyright Ben Kenber 2016. All Rights Reserved.

 

Marauders

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

MARAUDERS final poster

Watching “Marauders,” I kept wondering how this movie even went into production as the screenplay needs a lot more work. It does have some strong action scenes and the cast for the most part does good work, but the plot becomes so amazingly convoluted that it didn’t take long for me to give up following what was going on. Perhaps the filmmakers wanted to keep you guessing as to who was up to what, but you have to give a damn about the characters for that to work. What we have instead are cardboard cutouts from every other cop drama ever made, and they occupy a movie too brutal and nihilistic to be the least bit enjoyable.

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Robbing the bank

The movie starts off with a bank robbery where the thieves wear these scary looking masks and use a Siri-like device to give orders to the customers and employees. It’s actually a very clever setup as it looks like these thieves have done their homework and have succeeded in covering their tracks. At the same time, “Marauders” announces loudly, thanks in part to a booming industrial film score by Ryan Dodson, that it is going to be a brutal ride. It’s brutal alright, but brutal doesn’t automatically equate to entertainment.

From there we meet a group of FBI agents played by Chris Meloni, Dave Butista and Adrian Grenier who study the crime scene the way cops and FBI agents do in movies and the evidence points to the bank’s owner, Jeffrey Hubert (Bruce Willis), and his high powered clients as the culprits. Jeffrey treats things and people the way he runs his bank, in an exceedingly cold fashion. Oh yeah, Meloni’s character is a widower who still plays around with his wedding ring and listens to voice messages his wife left him. Grenier plays a newbie to the FBI team, so of course he’s going to be seen as the rookie who has yet to learn how things really work in law enforcement. As for Butista, he plays a seen-it-all kind of guy whose work has long since wiped the smile off his face. You know, it’s the usual cast of characters.

Perhaps I am asking too much of “Marauders” or came into it expecting a fresh take on the heist movie. A movie like this isn’t required to reinvent the genre, but it would have helped if the plot made the least bit of sense or gave us characters who you give a damn about. The term marauder refers to a person involved in banditry, piracy, looting, robbery or theft, and after a while it seems like everyone here is one whether they wear a mask or not. Alliances keep shifting to where the screenplay has plot holes as big as the sinkhole which recently opened up on Contra Costa Boulevard in Northern California.

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Then there’s Bruce Willis whose career continues to take a nosedive as he has been reduced to appearing in VOD releases like this, “Precious Cargo,” “Vice” and “Extraction.” Looking at his face, he seems so disinterested to even be in “Marauders” to where I can’t help but think he did this film just for the money. Heck, he’s barely even in it and is only top billed because he is still considered a big time movie star. Is there anything notable to say about Willis’ appearance here? Well, he does have some hair on his head for a change…

For what it’s worth, Meloni does turn in a strong performance as the widowed FBI agent Jonathan Montgomery. It’s a role not unlike the one he played for years on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and he gives Jonathan a gruff don’t-mess-with-me demeanor that few are foolish to question or challenge. It’s also cool to see Bautista here as he proves that there is more to him than just being another action hero or a Bond villain. As for Grenier, he’s also good even though his character is essentially a Johnny “Point Break” Utah wannabe who you know is going to mess up on the job at least once.

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Adrian Grenier

But good performances are not nearly enough to save this mess of a movie which goes in all sorts of directions without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion, and the tone is so vile that there’s not much enjoyment to be had. Director Steven C. Miller may have wanted to pay homage to all the great heist movies like Michael Mann’s “Heat,” but it never comes close to reaching greatness. Instead, it leaves a vile aftertaste and you come out of feeling very unclean. A good long shower is mandatory if you bother to sit through this whole thing.

Seriously, “Marauders” is the equivalent of all those straight to video movies that used to pop up at the video store all the time, but it’s not even enjoyable on a “so good it’s bad” level. One has to wonder if Lionsgate had any interest in making a good heist movie when the script for this came along. Perhaps they figured that with stars like Willis and Meloni, the movie would turn a profit even if people hate it. Then again, movies like this one do have “don’t bother” written all over them, so hopefully its target audience will watch “Captain America: Civil War” for the seventh time instead.

* ½ out of * * * *

Copyright Ben Kenber 2016.

The Innocents

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

The Innocents movie poster

“The Innocents” is one of those movies which just washes over you. Anne Fontaine has directed it in such a way to where it never calls attention to itself. Instead it just sucks you into its post-war setting to where you never question the attention paid to the period detail, and you enter the lives of these characters in the same way the movie’s protagonist does as you make the same discoveries as she while the story unfolds. It feels like it has been a long time since a movie has had that effect on me, so that makes this one rather unique.

The movie takes us back to December 1945 in Warsaw. The second World War has ended and Mathilde Beaulieu (Lou de Laâge), a young French Red Cross doctor, is treating the last batch of patients who survived their time in the German camps. One day she comes into contact with Benedictine nun who begs her to visit the covenant she lives at, and it is there where Mathilde shockingly discovers several nuns who are pregnant, one of which is about to give birth. These nuns were raped by Soviet soldiers, and the covenant is desperate to keep these incidents as its inhabitants are fiercely private and eager to avoid shaming and persecution from the new anti-Catholic Communist government. But as their strongly held beliefs continually clash with harsh realities, they become reliant on Mathilde to help their sisters with a condition forced unto them.

“The Innocents” covers a part of history that many, including myself, were not aware of before. It was inspired by Madeleine Pauliac, a Red Cross doctor, who documented in her notes the story of these nuns who were raped by Soviet soldiers as much as 40 times in a row. It’s an infuriating crime that many will still not admit happened even though historians know full well that it did. To see it covered in this movie feels like an overdue recognition of the cruelness many women were forced to experience against their will. I came out of this movie angered at what happened to these nuns, and that’s the way I should have come out of it.

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Fontaine’s previous films include “Gemma Bovery,” “Coco Before Chanel” and “The Girl from Monaco” Along with screenwriters Sabrina B. Karine, Pascal Bonitzer and Alice Vial, she has given us a tale where the views and beliefs of believers are forced to clash with those of non-believers. This is always a fascinating debate as our views on religion and God always differ in various ways. Because of this vicious crime that has been perpetrated, the nuns have to confront how their beliefs are threatened and forever changed by it. And then there’s Mathilde who is not a believer but shows no hesitation in helping those who are. This brings about many fascinating conversations which make you wonder if much has changed in the years since World War II.

I’m not familiar with Lou de Lou de Laâge’s work as an actress before this movie, but she is perfectly cast here as Mathilde. Here is a doctor, let alone a female one, who risks her life to help those who could be unfairly persecuted for reasons we would never accept today, and she barely bats an eye in the face of adversity. De Laâge is a natural as she makes Mathilde an especially brave character, but one who is simply doing her job to help those who need mending. Other doctors in that same situation might have stayed away in fear of severe consequences, but de Laâge gives us one who is not out to be a hero in the slightest as she is simply doing the job she was trained to do.

Vincent Macaigne also gives a fine performance as Mathilde’s superior and lover, Samuel. At first it looks like these two will have a relationship not unlike the one Peter Benton had with John Carter on “ER,” but theirs proves to be more complex than that. They fall for one another not out of lust but necessity as their lives may be snuffed out on the front lines before they know it, and that makes what they go through especially unpredictable. Macaigne makes Samuel into a doctor who could have easily fallen into clichéd conventions, but he turns him into a fully fleshed out character who is ready to overcome his deeply held prejudices to help those in need.

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Then there’s Agata Kulesza who portrays Mère Abesse, the Mother Superior of the covenant. This is the movie’s most complex character as she struggles to keep all the nuns in line while committing rash actions to protect them from what she feels would be an unbearable derision. In another movie this would be a character you would come to seriously hate, but here she is a person doing what she can to keep her sisters in line with the faith while doing things they will come to hate her for. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Mère comes to show how that is the case.

In some ways “The Innocents” could have dug deeper into the themes it explores as the movie feels like it only goes so far. Also, its conclusion feels a bit too pat as such circumstances can never be easily solved in so simple a fashion. Still, a movie like this is an immersive experience which demands your attention in a way few others do. Many I know have a ridiculous aversion to movies with subtitles, but I invite them to put that to the side as this one covers a part of history that can no longer be ignored. In a day and age where women are still not considered equal to men, this one reminds us of how that should never be the case.

PLEASE NOTE: “The Innocents” will open on July 1st at The Landmark in West Los Angeles and on July 8th at Laemmle’s Town Center 5 in Encino, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Edwards Westpark 8 in Orange County.

Copyright Ben Kenber 2016.

* * * ½ out of * * * *