Hesher review

It’s a common enough story.  While trying to cope with a loss, a family takes in a charismatic stranger (maybe a nanny?) who ingrains themselves into the family and helps everyone cope with the pain and depression they’re experiencing.  We’ve seen this movie before, right?

Okay, let’s take out the charismatic stranger and replace it with a metalhead who smokes everywhere, curses at everyone, and encourages a kid to settle differences with vandalism.  Oh, and this metalhead guy spends a lot of time with his shirt off so we can see the giant middle finger tattoo on his back. 

So yeah, that’s Hesher.  It’s a movie that seems determined to avoid schmaltzy sentimental crap right until it’s required.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has come a long way from Third Rock from the Sun.  His string of daring performances in films like “Brick,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “The Lookout” continues with “Hesher,” but I’m sad to say the script doesn’t live up to his performance.  Hesher is an asshole.  After encountering young T.J. (Devin Brochu) at a construction site, Hesher just randomly shows up in his house (and yes, I used the correct preposition there.  T.J. literally turns around and he’s standing in the den).  Rather than answer questions like “What the hell are you doing in my house,” Hesher strips down to his underwear and starts doing his laundry.  Like you do.  Making this all the stranger, neither T.J.’s father (a surprisingly effective Rainn Wilson) nor his grandmother (Piper Laurie) seem to have a problem with this.  So just like that, Hesher is pretty much living with T.J.

T.J.’s father is a husk of a man, clearly still deeply depressed over the death of his wife in an automobile accident.  He overmedicates and spends a lot of time in his pajamas just sitting around.   T.J.’s grandmother (unclear which side of the family) does what she can to take care of the boys, but it’s abundantly clear that she’s suffered the loss of some of her facilities.  She seems to take a liking towards Hesher, even when Hesher is debating whether or not a granny rapist would cock-fuck or just finger-fuck a victim. 

Yeah, this is just a weird movie, folks.

 

Then you toss Natalie Portman into the mix as Nicole, a grocery store check-out girl who T.J. becomes infatuated with.  Portman is almost always a delight onscreen and she fails to disappoint here.  It’s very easy to see how T.J. could have feelings for her (despite the sizable age gap – T.J. might be better off with Natalie Portman circa “The Professional”).   Aware of the infatuation, Hesher tries to encourage T.J. by getting  him alone with Nicole so that he…well, let’s be blunt here.  Hesher isn’t encouraging T.J. to start a passionate love affair with Nicole.  He’s really more of a “so did you fuck her?” kind of guy.   Remember, they don’t want any of that sentimental schmaltzy crap.

Which is why it’s so damn frustrating when the film turns to sentimental schmaltzy crap.  Without going into too many details, Hesher takes an unexpected (and also unbelievable) sentimental turn.  Sure, it’s sentimentality punctuated by fingering mashed potatoes and saying fuck a lot, but you can’t deny that it’s there.  And it’s where the film gets hopelessly lost.  Hesher turns out to be the dickhead rebel with a heart of gold, and it rings terribly false.   It’s not Gordon-Levitt’s fault, but the story just isn’t sufficient to earn that character turn.  I’ve spent the whole movie thinking he’s a total asshole, so when they try to flip the script and make him a better person I can’t follow.  Maybe it’s my own sense of cynicism fucking things up, but that third act just does not work at all for me.  And that impacts the whole movie since you really spend the first two acts trying to figure out where they’re going.   You arrive at the film’s destination and realize it’s nothing like what was on the map. 

I don’t want to piss all over the script – there are certainly great moments in the film.  When arguing with T.J. about going to a grief counseling group, his father is enraged because he doesn’t want to be the only “loser” there.  That’s a particularly harsh bit, and it certainly rings true.  But a lot of the good character moments are overshadowed by the aforementioned character shifts.   I just can’t buy into any of the character arcs…

I would recommend the film for the stellar work by Gordon-Levitt, Portman, and Wilson, but at the end of the day the incomprehensible tonal shift just killed the whole thing for me.  

Hesher, released by Newmarket Films May 13, 2011. Directed by Spencer Susser.  Written by Susser and David Michod. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Devin Brochu, Natalie Portman, and Rainn Wilson. 106 minutes. Budget $7 million.

Fast Five review

I don’t think it’s too embarrassing to confess that I enjoyed the first “Fast and the Furious” film – wait, let me make sure I’m clear that I’m referring to 2001’s Rob Cohen-directed “THE Fast and THE Furious,” not Justin Lin’s 2009 sequel “Fast & Furious.”  I don’t provide this clarification because with the intention of slighting Justin Lin’s film – I just never bothered to see it.  In fact, none of the subsequent films in the franchise really piqued my interest, so I never got around to watching any of them (though I did find myself briefly intrigued by a section of “Tokyo Drift” that I caught on HBO).  Whatever.  The bottom line is that I’ve only seen the first film.  I wouldn’t be watching “Fast Five” if it hadn’t been so damned successful both financially ($200 million domestic) as well as critically (78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the only film in the franchise that was certified fresh).

I figured this was probably a franchise where the plot was thin enough to jump into at any film.  I can’t imagine these things have cliffhangers at the end.  Well, I started “Fast Five” and had to jump to Wikipedia within the first five minutes.  The film starts with Vin Diesel’s character being convicted and sentenced to 25 years with no explanation of the charges.  After reading the Wiki summary of the previous film, I… honestly I have no fucking clue why he went to prison.  If you think my writing style is bad, I implore you to go read the plot summary of “Fast & Furious.”  No, really.  If you can read this sentence:

“Later on, Dominic takes Leticia's stuff and he takes her phone and recalls the last number,revealed to be Brian's number and he realises Brian was the last person to contact her and that he placed her for Braga's driver which resulted in him being attacked by Dominic until he learned Brian put Leticia undercover for tracking down Braga so she could clear Dominic's name.”

and explain to me what the hell it means, you’re far better at reading comprehension than I am.  I’d like to see someone diagram that sucker.

Okay, so Vin Diesel’s Dom character was going to jail for…something, I guess.  And in the first minute of this film he’s bailed out of a prison bus because of a daring high speed chase that manages to cause no casualties despite the fact that the bus flips over like eleventy billion times.  Sure, whatever.   I’m just going to accept that now, recognizing that this may be the most plausible sequence in the film (yes, I’ve written all this after watching only the first two minutes.  I’m cranking it back up now.

Ten minutes later…

Looks like I was right about the believability of that whole non-fatal bus flipping scene.  I just watched a sequence where they were stealing cars off a moving train.  It’s entirely possible that I’m just not up on advanced carjacking procedures, but I definitely find myself scratching my head over the plausibility of that.  But when I get right down to it, it’s been over 20 years since I touched a physics textbook so maybe I’m just out of touch.  But here’s the damning thing about it all – it didn’t really bother me that much.  While watching the sequence, I laughed aloud at how obscenely implausible it all was but that didn’t change the fact that the scene was well shot, well edited, and overall quite exciting.  Turns out Mr. Scott from Star Trek was wrong.  You CAN change the laws of physics.

So okay, I’m going to try to embrace the rest of this thing as the sheer popcorn movie that it seems to be.   I can do this.  Pee break, then we’re gonna jump back in. 

…and I’m back.  I thought sure this would be a movie where I’d have to take a break every five to ten minutes to write some sort of scathing critique, but I just finished the flick.  And y’know what?  It was really good.  Stupid?  Oh hell to the yes.  But it was easily one of the funnest movies to watch this year.   Alright, let’s dig into it.

The plot… like I said, I’ve only seen the first film.  I didn’t really care about the rest of them because I just don’t seem to have that automotive hard-on that some other dudes have.  The first film had just about all the “street racing” excitement I required for at least ten years.  I just didn’t feel the need for more.

Which is why the storyline of “Fast Five” was so surprising.  This isn’t another street racing film.  It’s a flat out heist picture.   Seriously.  If you replaced Vin Diesel and Paul Walker with Clooney and Pitt, this could be Ocean’s 14 (though the high amount of automobile action probably means it’d be better as the planned-yet-unproduced sequel to “The Italian Job.”).   You’ve got a defined villain in Joaquim de Almeida, a defined objective (a hundred million in cash), an assembled crew with different specialties (made up primarily of characters from previous films in the franchise),  an elaborate plan that requires precise timing to succeed… look, I don’t need to list off the expectations of a heist film.  Just believe me when I say that “Fast Five” hits all the required marks.

But then there’s the fly in the ointment – with all this going on, the crew is also being pursued by federal agents led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, formerly known as “The Rock.”).  In a film already overwhelmed by testosterone, Johnson puts everything over the top.  I’ve long been a fan of Johnson, but he never seemed to find a role that really capitalized on his charisma and presence.  He’s found that role here, and he stands out in every scene he’s in.  Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not trying to insinuate that The Rock is the next Pacino.  But he SHOULD be the next Schwarzenegger.

Like most heist pictures, important details of the actual heist are grazed over during the planning stage so the audience can be involved and surprised as the events play out.  That said, some of the elements rushed over do create inconsistencies (Hobbs has satellite surveillance for Dom’s known vehicle, but they never seem to detect him until the EXACT moment Dom wants to be detected, despite the fact that he doesn’t know he’s being hunted based on his car).  There’s also one thing here that’s always bothered me in these heist films that involve elaborate pre-planning – it seems like the technology utilized by the crew would cost an enormous amount of money to get hold of for the purposes of planning, and no one ever explains where the money or the means comes from to obtain this gear.  At least here they gloss over it with a throwaway line or two, but I still think obtaining a brand spanking new 11x7 state-of-the-art freestanding safe is a helluva lot of work.

But like I said two hours ago, if you’re going to analyze this film within those sort of confines, you’re going to find a hell of a lot of problems long before you start trying to determine where the safe and surveillance gear came from.  You’ll probably still be working out how that bus flip didn’t kill anybody.  Just shut up and watch the pretty pictures.

And they ARE pretty pictures.  Director Lin and his cinematographer Stephen F. Windon make the most out of their Rio de Janeiro locations, giving us great views of the beaches, Dona Marta (the slums) and the oft-photographed Christ the Redeemer statue.   

Prior to this movie, my only experience with Justin Lin was from his work on the TV show “Community,” particularly the Season One episode “Modern Warfare.”  If you haven’t seen that episode, it’s well worth checking out.  I would argue that it may be  one of the best half hours of television in recent years.   In a genre that could easily allow for Michael Bay style frenetic editing, Lin brings a more conservative style to the proceedings and it works quite well.  There are certainly moments where fast cutting and shaky-cam rear their head, but Lin uses it in moderation and only when the scene requires that kind of pacing.  He has a clear definition of spatial relationships, and very rarely is that vision compromised by questionable blocking (the most glaring example is in the final chase sequence (which is insane, by the way).  De Almeida’s character is in an SUV, but it’s never entirely clear where exactly that SUV is in the grand scheme of things.  It’s not a massive detraction, but I did find it worth noting when every other action sequence seems so well-defined).  

In the acting department, no awards shall be awarded.  That doesn’t mean that anyone is bad – in fact, I found most of the cast to be quite likable in their respective characters.  As I mentioned earlier, Dwayne Johnson owns pretty much any scene he’s in.  Someone dust off your old Commando reboot scripts! 

If it seems like I’m going overboard with this review, I think it’s partially because I’m just so damn surprised by the film.  I certainly had it mentally tagged as idiot-food – and I was right – but it’s rare to encounter idiot food quite so tasty.  If there’s to be another sequel (and there’s a scene in the middle of the end credits that certainly suggests there will be), I might just be inclined to see it in a theatre if it follows the trajectory laid out here.  It may seem like backhanded praise to say that, but it’s certainly a different position than what I would have taken prior to seeing “Fast Five.”

Fast Five, released by Universal Pictures April 29, 2011.  Directed by Justin Lin.  Written by Chris Morgan (based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson).  Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, and Jordana Brewster.  130 minutes.  Budget $125 million.  Now available on DVD/BR.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

It appears to me that there just aren't enough movie critics online.  I did a quick search on Bing and couldn't find anything (though I believe this may have something to do with the fact that Bing sucks ass).

So I've decided to throw my hat into the ring for the title of "another annoying fucking critic."  I hope someday people will refer to me that way.

Here's the thing about critics.  I've never found a critic that I can agree with 100 percent.  I really like Roger Ebert, for example, but that doesn't mean that I agree with every one of his reviews.  His personal bias may impact how he feels about a movie, or vice versa.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing if you're the type of person who knows a bit about a critic before basing all buying decisions on their opinion.  Ebert doesn't have a lot of love for the horror genre, for example, so it stands to reason that I shouldn't look to Ebert for someone whose opinions are going to match my own (I like horror just fine). That doesn't invalidate his review, of course.  It just means that I need to understand the basic mindset of his review.

It's all about pattern recognition.  We don't have a local film reviewer where I live, but we used to.  After a few months of reading her stuff, I came to recognize that any film she gave a four star review to would certainly be worth my time.  A three star review usually also warranted viewing.  Like Ebert, however, this critic had a very difficult time finding positive things to say about the horror genre.  So I configured my response to her reviews accordingly.

The point of all this is that we have to set up a bit of a primer.  I'm going to give you ten films that I consider to be great.  This is NOT a list of the ten best films ever made.   What this list should do is provide you with a reference point of movies that I love.  These are the movies that are considered "remote killers" in my house - if you flip to a channel showing it, you're going to be stuck here for a while.  It doesn't matter that we own the movie on DVD - instant gratification trumps everything.  I provide this list with the full understanding that I'm a bit of a geek.  I don't want to make incorrect assumptions, but if you somehow managed to find this stupid blog, I'm thinking you might be a geek as well.

CRITICAL STEVE'S PRIMER 
(not in any particular order)

1. Jaws - Spielberg's masterpiece.  There's simply not a frame of this film that fails me.
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark - Unquestionably one of the funnest films ever made.
3. Ratatouille - My favorite Pixar film.
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World/Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead - Edgar Wright can do no wrong.
5. The Hunt for Red October - The only Jack Ryan movie worth a shit.
6. How to Train Your Dragon - Best non-Pixar animated film in ages.
7. The Shawshank Redemption - Yeah, big obvious one here.
8. Goodfellas - We can give Marty an Oscar every year and it won't make up for "Dances with Wolves" beating "Goodfellas" back in 1990.
9. Big Trouble in Little China - If you have to ask, we're probably not going to get along.
10. Aliens - Simply one of the best action movies ever made.  Game over, man.

So there's your primer.  Those are ten films that I think are all just really fucking great.  No, I didn't list Casablanca or Citizen Kane or The Godfather.  They're all superb films (and I readily admit that they're all better than half the movies I listed), but they aren't movies that I think are inherently rewatchable.  Or maybe it's just that they aren't nearly as fun to rewatch, and maybe that's my Achilles heel: I want my movies to be fun!  I would never begrudge a film for being somber or sad, but the simple fact of the matter is "Requiem for a Dream" would be a really shitty desert island movie. 

Hopefully you'll read a few actual reviews and get an idea for whether or not you like what I think.  It's totally cool if you don't, and I encourage you to let me know either way.  Critics who don't allow criticism are fickle fools best ignored.

So yeah.  It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.  For the first month or so, we're going to be trudging through the films of 2011.  There's not going to be any rhyme or reason in the order, though I'll try to at least hit some of the December releases as soon as I can.