new to DVD: Sabotage

I was excited to see Sabotage, and for two good reasons. Screenwriter David Ayer wrote the highly intelligent urban thriller Training Day. And the star is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Look, if you don't like action movies, you don't like Schwarzenegger movies, and if you do, you do. It really is that simple. During his prime, Schwarzengger made some of the best -- and if that's too subjective, let's agree on the words "iconic" and "influential" -- action movies ever made. Even if he had done nothing else, his collaborations with James Cameron are genre-defining moments in the history of cinema. And since coming out of acting retirement, Schwarzenegger has continued to make good choices. I've already noted my appreciation for the Expendables series, but I also found The Last Stand and Escape Plan to be highly entertaining and under-rated. Put simply, Schwarzenegger usually knows how to pick his projects. So yeah, I was excited about Sabotage.

What a disappointment.

Sabotage, starring Schwarzenegger as John "Breacher" Wharton, the leader of an elite DEA tactical team, is an incoherent, thoroughly disgusting mess. Yes, "disgusting" is the best word to describe this movie, because it disgusts on several levels at once. Here are just a few of those levels:

1. The humor. Let me explain to you the running gag. It is repeated again and again throughout the film. Someone on Breacher's team passes gas. Someone else shouts, "who dropped ass?" Part of the "humor" is that even while this question is asked, everyone on the team already knows it's always the same guy. Then comes the punchline of the joke, as someone takes an intentional whiff and tries to guess what the guy had eaten recently. Oh, god, I'm grossed out just describing this joke, and Ayer is so enamored with this joke that he actually repeats it twice within the first ten minutes alone.

2. The language. Here is a typical line from the movie: "oh shit, fuck this fucking goddamn shit!" That's an actual example, and minor variations of this line make up the vast, vast majority of the dialogue. Look, I have nothing against swearing in movies, but dialogue is, above all, supposed to communicate ideas to the audience. Yet nearly every line in Sabotage is so riddled with curse words that I, despite being a reasonably intelligent human being, had real difficulty figuring out what the characters were actually trying to say to each other.

3. The misogyny. There is a woman on Breacher's tactical team. As depicted by Mireille Enos, Lizzy Murray is depicted as foul-mouthed and tough as the rest of the team, ostensibly to prove that she's just one of the boys, but the character seems to have no purpose other than to engage in dirty "just kidding, sort of" sex talk with the guys on the team. To compare this with Schwarzenegger's other most recent film, The Expendables 3 was able to introduce a woman into the boy's club and manage to acknowledge her sexuality without making it her only defining characteristic; she was as respected by the filmmakers as any of the other characters were.

By contrast, the opening scene of Sabotage establishes that Lizzy -- presumably representing the movie's general attitude toward women, I'm guessing based on the evidence -- is willing to have unprotected sex with a criminal in the course of an undercover investigation. Uh, yeah, right, I'm sure that's standard protocol for undercover agents, right?  Give me a break.

4. The set design. The opening scene includes a toilet overflowing with fecal matter, and also a scene in the sewers. It goes downhill from there.

Now, in case you haven't been keeping track, let me re-cap the first ten minutes: two iterations of an unnecessarily elaborate fart joke, several variations of "fuck this fucking goddamn shit," an undercover DEA agent having unprotected sex with a bad guy allegedly in the line of duty, and an overflowing toilet. In the first ten minutes. Or, as one of these guys would say, "shit, and that's just in the first ten fucking minutes, goddammit!!"

5. The so-called "characters" and "plot." The plot is, to use a word that you might be getting tired of by now, incoherent. Basically, Breacher's team is supposed to recover drug-and-gun money, but they instead decide to steal it for themselves, and declare the money "missing," the twist being that the money really is missing, and they only intended to steal it, but they honestly don't know where it is. But here's the thing: Even after watching the movie, I didn't understand any of this (possibly because of all the dialogue being too punctuated with "F this" and "shit that" for me to follow what was being said.) The only reason I understand what was going on is because I read the Wikipedia page on the storyline. I must emphasize that this is unusual for me. I'm usually the guy who gets thoroughly annoyed when people watch a movie and say "I didn't understand" this or that part. For me to be this thoroughly confused says something about the movie, not about me.

As for the characters, with the minor exceptions that Schwarzenegger is the leader and Lizzy is the over-sexualized woman of the group, every single member of Breacher's team is completely interchangable. Yes, we get it, they're foul-mouthed tough guys who are happy to live in a gritty world by making it even grittier. Once again, a comparison with The Expendables shows, as in that film, all of this can be communicated with some degree of class, and still allow for individual personalities. Not so here. If I don't bother to mention the other characters by name, this is why; differentiating between the characters simply doesn't matter, not to the storyline, not to the writers, and so certainly not to us. So why, in God's name should we even care when things start going wrong for Breacher's men? When the DEA's Internal Affairs starts breathing down their necks, even when they start dying one buy one, who the heck cares? If the writers aren't going to bother investing some individuality into these characters, how do they expect the audience to invest any emotion into their fates?

Oh yeah, the guy named Pyro does have some individuality, I suppose, as he's the guy who farts all the time.

Hey, if after reading all of this, you still want to watch this movie, go to. But this movie single-handedly changed my mind about admiring David Ayer as a filmmaker, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man who knows how to pick a good project. That should tell you something.

A Moment of Homicide and Improv

Last night, I was watching an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street (wait, what did you think I was referring to in the title?). There is a scene in which Detective Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) figures out, to his delight, that his partner, Detective Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) has a crush on district attorney Ed Danvers (Zeljko Ivanek). Beau gleefully teases Kay: "Kay's in love with Ed Danvers, you're in love with Ed Danvers, Kay's in love with Ed Danvers!"

As Kay turns to leave, her jacket momentarily gets snagged on the stair railing. Without missing a beat, Beau says, "oh, stuck on there, are ya? Just like you're stuck on Ed Danvers!"

Now, before I get too into this, I admit that, yes, it's possible that this moment was planned. But think how many takes they would have had to do to get Melissa Leo's coat to get snagged on the railing, at just the exactly right moment, and to make it look natural. All for what? For a quickly forgotten throw-away line that adds nothing but a very minor laugh?

I think the more likely explanation is that Baldwin improvised the line, a line which wouldn't qualify as comic genius, but would qualify as clever for being both unobvious and a natural extension of the dialogue.

Which is all to say that I've found yet another reason to watch Homicide: the unexpected comic wit of a Baldwin brother.

Okay, I admit, that reason's not very convincing. Just watch the show.

new to DVD: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

When Captain America: The Winter Soldier first came out, a lot of critics liked to talk about how the cast included Robert Redford, and about how Redford had previously starred in the spy thriller Three Days of the Condor. At the time, I read these reviews with a roll of my eyes, figuring that it was just critics doing what they often like to do: throwing in random trivia to prove how versed they are in film history.  However, now that I've seen the movie, I finally know what they're talking about; for those familiar with Three Days of the Condor, Redford's presence really does add an extra layer to the story. Allow me to explain . . . 

3 Days of the Condor starred Redford as a naive CIA analyst who finds himself involved in a conspiracy involving deadly corruption within the agency. I don't remember if the line "don't trust anyone" is actually uttered at any point during the film, but if it wasn't, the thought certainly was a constant theme throughout the movie. Condor was, above all, a paranoia thriller.  Despite the veneer of blockbuster action and super-hero trappings, The Winter Soldier really does serve as a modern-day equivalent to Redford's earlier film. Yesterday's commies may have been replaced by today's terrorists, but the paranoia persists, now more than ever.

Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers. The back-story is that 1940s scientists turned Rogers into a "super soldier"; his athletic abilities, fighting skills, and physical fitness are supposed to represent "the peak of human potential" rather than actual super powers, although the line is drawn pretty thin considering how many times Rogers emerges unscathed from blows and falls that would either cripple or kill a regular human being.

After Rogers's adventures in Captain America and The Avengers, good ol' Steve finds himself feeling like his life has no purpose anymore; the fight against undeniably evil would-be world-conquerors that Rogers led in the previous two films has been replaced by missions of moral ambiguity and questionable practical merit, forcing Rogers to wonder, "is this all there is?"

The story is set into motion by an assassination attempt on Colonel Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of SHIELD (the Marvel movies' equivalent to the Department of Homeland Security). The most disturbing aspect of the attack on Fury, aside from its brutality and the number of people involved, is that it doesn't take Rogers long to learn that it was an inside job. It seems SHIELD has been infiltrated by the very terrorists that the agency has been created to combat, and what's worse, the conspiracy may lead all the way to the top -- could the seemingly benign Defense Secretary Alexander Pierce (Redford) be somehow involved?

Redford's casting is doubly significant; not only was Redford once the naive hero of these types of movies, but there's even a physical resemblance impossible to ignore; Redford himself could have played Captain America, if these movies had been made a few decades ago. It's that very corruption of innocence that is at the heart of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Yes, there are a lot of action scenes, more so than in traditional political thrillers. There are chases, explosions, fist-fights, and gun-fights. A lot of gun-fights. But at its heart, The Winter Soldier is more about the real-life dangers of the modern-day interplay between paranoia and politics. While other Marvel movies deal with fantastic super-powers, monstrous creatures, and fallen gods, the storyline here is best encapsulated when Rogers announces to  all the employees of SHIELD that villainous Hydra agents are everywhere and that one "could even be standing right beside you." I don't remember if anyone ever said "don't trust anyone" in Three Days of the Condor, but people say it here. As well they should.

new to DVD: Snitch

Snitch is a good movie with a good actor in the lead, but because of his persona, it is the wrong good actor.

I have to be very careful here, because my central argument is going to sound like the assertions of a closed mind. So let me preface my complaint about Snitch by stating that I usually admire actors who try to break from the mold created by their personas. Wacky comics want to prove their credibility by appearing in heavy dramas? Fine! Serious actors want to prove their sense of humor by appearing in wacky comedies? Great! Likable nice-guys want to have some fun by suddenly playing despicable villains? Works for me! Oscar nominees want to cash in on big-budget, dumb-but-fun action movies? More power to 'em!

Ah, but when action heroes try to go the other way and prove themselves as serious dramatic actors? With Bruce Willis as possibly the only exception, that particular career switch has always been harder to accept. I have no idea why, but it's true. Arnold Schwarzenegger was wise enough to accept and acknowledge this when he poked fun at the idea of himself playing Hamlet in Last Action Hero. It's a lesson yet to be learned by Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.

Snitch tells the story of a teenage kid who, against his better judgment, agrees to accept delivery of a package of drugs for a friend of his. In a plot twist/ legal loophole that is really hard to see as anything but a clear case of entrapment, the whole thing turns out to be a set-up by the DEA, and the next thing you know, the kid's facing a lengthy jail sentence.

Enter the kid's father. The DEA offers to reduce the kid's sentence from 10 years to 6 months if he'll only rat out a drug dealer or two, but the kid really is as innocent as he claims, and he doesn't know any drug dealers. So the father offers an alternative: Despite his own complete lack of a criminal background, he agrees to go undercover for the DEA in exchange for the reduced sentence for his son. Not surprisingly, the father soon finds himself way, way over his head.

Sounds like the set-up for a great action movie, right? But this isn't an action movie; it's actually a pretty straight-forward crime drama, and although there are a small number of action scenes, they are too few and far between to really qualify this as an action movie.

Dwayne Johnson can call himself Dwayne Johnson all he wants, but even if that is his birth name, Mr. Johnson has to learn that to movie audiences, he will always simply be "the Rock." This is not his fault. The Rock is actually a good actor. He can be sufficiently charming, funny, menacing, or sympathetic as the needs arise. But he has carefully built up a persona as an action hero, and other than his decision to start going by his real name instead of his WWE wrestling name, he has done little to challenge that persona.

That's why he's so wrong for a movie of this type. It's not that he gives a bad performance, but he is just wrong for the role of the father. Everything about the character, right down to the deliberately generic name of "John Matthews," screams out for an "everyman" type actor, and the Rock may be many things, but he is not an everyman.

If you rent a movie starring the Rock in the leading role, you know what you want to see. You want to see the Rock kicking ass, taking names, throwing punches, maybe firing a gun or two.  Yeah, man, that's the Rock!!

What you don't want to see, and what Snitch gives you, is the Rock, his muscles a-rippling, get beat to a pulp by unimportant street punks that are each half his size. You don't want to see him cower and wince in fear, or soak in his own helplessness. You don't want him to take a backseat while most of the few action scenes instead feature the supporting characters, while he's off somewhere hiding or trying to figure a way out of his mess. Snitch features all of this, and with another actor in the role, it would be effective drama. Here, it's only "sort of effective" drama. It works, but not quite enough, because you're constantly reminding yourself, "yeah, but it's the Rock! When's he gonna start beatin' up the bad guys like they deserve?"

Now, you might think that despite all of this, casting the Rock against type still might somehow work in the movie's favor. After all, doesn't that cognitive contrast of an action hero in a passive role add a layer of suspense and tension? The answer is yes -- but not in a good way, because it's not the "what's going to happen to the characters" kind of suspense, it's more of an impatient "when's the Rock gonna start throwing punches" kind of suspense. After all, the movie was advertised as an action flick, and that's not what I'm getting! If you think I'm just coming across as a bloodthirsty maniac of a movie-goer, than imagine going to see Colin Firth and Emma Thompson in a Merchant-Ivory costume romance, only for Firth and Thompson to pick up machine guns and start blowing away all the nobles and duchesses who come to visit them. You'd be just as ticked. It's a bait-and-switch, plain and simple.

As I said at the beginning of this review, I know all of this sounds closed-minded, especially in light of the fact that I've even admitted that the fault isn't in Johnson's performance. I've even admitted it's a good movie, and yet here my review is, filled with nothing but repetitions of the same complaint over and over again. But if you think about it for a moment, I suspect you'll know what I mean -- and maybe even agree with it.

mini-reviews: Expendables 3/ Lucy/ As Above, so Below

The Expendables 3: For once, the ads ain't lyin' -- The Expendables 3 is indeed the best one yet. After a fun first entry and a disappointing sequel, this "homage to 80s action films" series redeems itself with Expendables 3, and it's the writing that makes all the difference. After a mission goes awry near the beginning of the movie, resulting in a serious injury for Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), team-leader Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) decides to disband the Expendables. He claims that he just thinks his team of mercenaries is getting too old, and can't bring himself to admit that he fired his friends only because he loves his teammates and couldn't stand if any of them were to die on one of his missions. To replace them, he hires a new team of younger recruits, but when that mission also goes FUBAR, he has to bring the old team back together to rescue the young'ns.

With the sole exception of Jet Li, who appears only in a cameo and never even gets off the helicopter (it seems a crime to put Li in an action movie and not allow him to fight anyone hand-to-hand, which, of course, is what he does best) every action hero, famous and obscure, young and old, gets at least one moment to shine in this film. And I don't just mean that in terms of the action scenes; the sequence in which the "old" Expendables struggle with their emotions over being fired invites real empathy for all these tough dudes.

As with the previous two Expendableses, the cast is a who's who of action stars, everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Harrison Ford. Mel Gibson clearly has a lot of fun as the over-the-top villain, and Wesley Snipes gets most of the cool "bad-ass" lines and moments, but it's Antonio Banderas's "Galgon" character who is the real treat, as the comic relief. Only the movies could bring us a character who loves to kill people, but still comes across as a cuddly-nice-guy.

Lucy: Compare Lucy to its own movie trailer, and it's safe to say you get what you pay for -- plus just a little bit more. The ads give you the gist of the story, which is completely dependant on the erroneous but popular myth that humans use only ten percent of our brain capacity: Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), an American college student in Taiwan, accidentally ingests an experimental mind-altering drug, and as a result, suddenly gains the ability to access a larger and larger percentage of her brain, which in turn gives her increasingly fantastic mental and physical capabilities. As Lucy has a vendetta against the drug cartel that tried to force her into becoming a mule, Lucy utilizes her new powers to make mince-meat out of the army of gun-toting drug dealers. Meanwhile, evolutionist/ neurologist/ philosopher Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman) wants Lucy to share her amazing abilities and insights with the world, but the very drug that's giving her such amazing powers is also killing her. This is a fun and visually inventive action/sci-fi/ special effects picture, and despite the inaccuracy in the very notion that drives the story's concept, the movie seems to have an earnest love for science.

As Above, so Below: A look at the IMDb pages of brothers Drew and John Erick Dowdle will reveal that they've been bringing us some of the best, most intelligent horror films of the past decade. They continue that trend here, telling the story of a multi-national group of young urban adventurers who get more than they bargain for while exploring the catacombs beneath Paris, France. I do have a minor bone to pick with the story, as the screenwriting brothers go to so much trouble to root their supernatural story in reality, and then sorta muck it up with the unnecessarily unrealistic detail that the main character is in search of the Philosopher's Stone.

Still, the Dowdles manage to side-step both the cheesiness of the concept (the Gates of Hell itself!) and their own decision to use the over-used "found footage" format to bring genuine scares. Masterful command of atmosphere and darkness helps, but the real master stroke is in the brothers' decision to leave so much to our imaginations. Usually, we see unanswered questions in a movie as a negative, and rightly so, as "unanswered questions" too often translate into "sloppy screenwriting," but here, the brothers' consistent refusal to answer any questions is clearly deliberate, and skillfully plays in to the real horror of this movie, fear of the unknown.

I have devoted several previous blog entries to how tired I'm getting of "found footage" movies, so if you see me praising one, you know it's worth a look.