Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens (2011) 

Directed by Jon Favreau

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby

Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Paul Dano

Release Date July 29th, 2011

Published July 28th, 2011

Why isn't Cowboys and Aliens the biggest event in popular culture ever? With the elements that the film has in place there is simply no excuse for this film to not be the biggest moment in pop culture, at least in this short century. Consider that we are talking about the combination of two of the most popular genres ever, western and science fiction. And that the film stars both James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), not to mention Han Solo and Jack Ryan.

How about the fact that Cowboys and Aliens was produced by a Hollywood dream team that includes Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Steven Speilberg. To top it all off, this geek god of a movie was directed by the director of Iron Man 1 & 2--himself a cult figure for his role in Swingers--Jon Favreau. I ask again: Why isn't Cowboys and Aliens the biggest pop culture event ever?

Somewhere in the old west a man who doesn't yet know that his name is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) awakens in the desert. His memory is gone, he's wounded and he has some sort of device strapped to his wrist. Eventually, Jake makes his way to the town of Absolution where everyone is under the boot of Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford).

Unknown to Jake, he and Dolarhyde have a history; Jake robbed a stagecoach full of Dolarhyde's gold before his memory loss and subsequent desert awakening. Before Dolarhyde and Jake can have it out however, an alien spaceship attacks and begins kidnapping townsfolk. Suddenly, Jake's new jewelry comes to life and he's able to destroy one of the alien ships.

Now, Jake and Dolarhyde must team up with a posse that includes a little kid, a dog and a woman, Ella (Olivia Wilde) along with a preacher (Clancy Brown), a saloon owner (Sam Rockwell) and several random posse members who act as cannon fodder for subsequent alien attacks. Together this disparate band must traverse the desert, find the alien HQ and get their people back.

Cowboys and Aliens was adapted from a graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg though how much of his original story remains is anyone's guess. At least six different writers have credits on the screenplay of Cowboys and Aliens including Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, the Star Trek reboot team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, The Simpsons staff writer Bill Oedenkirk and the Iron Man team of Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby.

Wrestling these different visions into one mostly cohesive whole is director Jon Favreau who does pull off the Herculean task of making Cowboys and Aliens a believable combination of old school western and high end sci-fi while wrangling this wild horse of script into one well told story. Unfortunately, what is lost in the mix is a sense of humor as well of a sense of the film's place in popular culture.

For some reason, Jon Favreau wants us to take Cowboys and Aliens seriously. Both stars, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, deliver taciturn, old west tough guy performances that feel authentic but lack the awe, wonderment and humor that this goofy sci-fi story calls for. The film needed a Will Smith injection; a character who we can believe will hold up in a fight and yet has the aplomb to be impressed by the situation he finds himself in.

Cowboys and Aliens also suffers from a lack of cultural awareness; director Favreau wants to pretend that he is making an old school western that happens to have aliens. Favreau also wants to pretend that his stars are not weighted by pop culture history; why else has the film's marketing failed to mention that one of the stars is James Bond and the other is Indiana Jones?

You simply cannot cast Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford and not find some way to pay homage to their place in the culture. This head in the sand approach blunts the impact of everything they do in the film. We in the audience crave the release of having someone reference how huge all of this is and no one does. This is where the lack of a sense of humor comes into play; a sense of humor would find some way to make a joke about spies or the territory of Indiana, or an offhand reference to something about a Star War.

That however, would not have played into Jon Favreau's misguided choice to play the material of Cowboys and Aliens as a straight western that happens to have aliens attacking. On its own merits Cowboys and Aliens is well crafted, a little fat in the run time at over two hours, but solidly built aside from its lack of humor. Matthew Libatique's cinematography is terrific, the special effects are eye catching and believable, the film simply lacks the proper amount of awe.

In the end, if Jon Favreau did not want the weight of pop culture on his old school, John Ford Western that happens to have Aliens, he shouldn't have cast James Bond and Indiana Jones. Favreau set the pop culture table and then refused to serve it and that leaves Cowboys and Aliens a well made but slightly bland feast.

Movie Review: Flags of Our Fathers

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Written by William Broyles Jr, Paul Haggis

Starring Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker, John Slattery, Barry Pepper

Release Date October 20th, 2006

Published October 18th, 2006

Clint Eastwood has always been one of our most beloved and respected artists. However, it wasn't until recently; with the release of Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby that Eastwood rose to the rank of auteur alongside men like Scorsese and Altman, directors whose work is awaited, debated and more often than not breathlessly praised.

Clint Eastwood's latest effort is the most ambitious of his career. A two part film series that takes on the extraordinary battle of Iwo Jim from the perspective of both the Americans, in Flags of Our Fathers and the Japanese, in Letters From Iwo Jima. First up is Flags of Our Fathers, an epic of heroism, sacrifice, sadness and war.

When his father passed away James Bradley -on whose book and real life experiences the movie is based-began searching thru his things and found that his father was one of the flag raisers at the battle of Iwo Jima. The artifacts lead James Bradley to seek out Iwo Jima veterans and tell his father, Doc Bradley's (Ryan Phillippe) story.

Ostensibly, Flags of Our Fathers is the story behind, arguably, the most famous photo ever taken; the raising of the flag atop mount suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima. What many may not realize is that the flag raising was not a gesture of having won the battle. The flag was raised a mere five days into what would become a 35 day conflict.

The photo was not what it seems either. The first flag raising wasn't captured well and when a politician who saw the photo requested to have the original flag a col, played by Robert Patrick, asked to have the original flag brought to him and a new flag raised. That second flag raising is what Joe Rosenthal immortalized but that was not the story that was sold to the American people.

Of the men who raised the flag; only three survived the remaining battle. The fame of the photo leads the three survivors, Doc, Rene (Jesse Bradford) and Ira (Adam Beach) to a modicum of celebrity. Plucked from the pacific theater and plopped into the middle of the war machine ad campaign, the so called 'heroes of Iwo Jima' became a rallying point for renewed American support for the war.

In 1945 support for the war was flagging. The economy was reeling from the expense and the treasury needed to raise 13 billion dollars to fund the war or risk giving in to Japanese demands. That was when Joe Rosenthal's iconic photo landed on the front page of every newspaper and reassured a weary country that this war was being won.

Becoming spokesman for the war and being hailed as heroes wherever they went was not as easy for the flag raisers as it might seem. Each man is haunted in their own way by what they witnessed and what they did during the battle. Most troubled of all is Irv who slowly comes apart at the seams over the horrors he witnessed.

Adam Beach gives a heart rending performance in Flags of Our Fathers. In war he was brave but overwhelmed. On the tour to raise funds for the war the horrors, combined with heavy drinking, begin to catch up with him. He eventually is given the chance to return to what is left of his unit but nothing could ever relieve him of the nightmares and his life is a tragic one. Beach's performance is nuanced and heartbreaking and the stuff Academy awards are made of.

The rest of the cast struggles to be separated from one another. Ryan Phillippe does a credible job as Doc Bradley, however, during the battle scenes you struggle to tell doc from any of the other soldiers on the field. The same could be said of Jesse Bradford as Rene who never saw much in the way of action as he was more often kept to the rear of the battle as a runner.

Rounding out the cast are a few more recognizable faces. Jaime Bell gives another riff on the clueless but loyal manchild he played in King Kong as Doc's loyal pal Iggy. Paul Walker and Barry Pepper give effective performances simply for showing up and being so recognizable. Because the battle scenes are so chaotic there is no time to meet everyone. Our psychic connection to these men is sympathy for their basic humanity but it is deepened by these recognizable faces.

Structurally Flags of Our Fathers bounces around time periods from modern times, where veterans recall the battle, to scenes prior to and during the battle that are intercut with scenes from the heroes tour of America. The lurching about can be confounding but this is not fatal flaw. Clint Eastwood's work is far too extraordinary to be damaged by some minor editing choices.

The battle scenes in Flags of Our Fathers rival the carnage and heroics of Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan, and Speilberg is a producer on Flags. The carnage, the torn and tortured bodies of thousands of American soldiers who gave their lives for this sliver of land, no bigger than New York City, is exceptionally and stunningly rendered.

Clint Eastwood's calm and assured direction of Flags Of Our Fathers helps us settle in to an unsettling and violent experience. Brilliantly balancing honoring our heroes while not overly sentimentalizing them, Eastwood crafts a film that pays tribute without begging for your love and your sympathy. Never falling back on patriotic asides, Flags of Our Fathers earns your admiration by telling a true story in a most compelling and heartbreaking fashion.

Letters From Iwo Jima, Eastwood's Japanese based follow up to Flags of Our Fathers will be released in February. Ken Watanabe stars as the leader of Japanese forces in the battle. The verisimilitude of this venture only serves to deepen the stories being told. On it's own Flags of Our Fathers is a powerful, moving even heartbreaking story. Imagining what it will be like once we see it from the other side makes Flags of Our Fathers even more fascinating.

Flags of Our Fathers is a must see movie.

Movie Review: Windtalkers

Windtalkers (2002) 

Directed by John Woo 

Written by John Rice

Starring Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Stormare, Christian Slater, Noah Emmerich

Release Date June 14th, 2002 

Published June 13th, 2002 

War is hell and now so is watching war movies. The drive towards more realistic violence have made for some very hard-to-watch films. Saving Private Ryan set the standard, followed by films like Enemy At The Gates, We Were Soldiers, Black Hawk Down and most recently John Woo’s Windtalkers. Though it purports to be about Navajo Indian code talkers, Windtalkers as they were called, the film is actually about violence and war movie clichés. 

Nicolas Cage stars in Windtalkers as Joe Enders, a borderline crazy marine. When we are first introduced to Joe he is attempting to hold a position that is, to the rest of his platoon, already lost. Joe’s entire platoon is killed but he survives and returns to battle with a new assignment. Joe is to ship out to Saipan where he and his platoon will protect the military's new secret weapon, a pair of Navajo Indians whose native language is used as code to transmit Japanese troop movements without the Japanese being able to spy on it. 

The Navajo soldiers are Ben (Adam Beach) and Whitehorse (Roger Willie). Rounding out the platoon is your typical cast of recognizable character actors whose names become interchangeable though their faces are semi-recognizable. Christian Slater, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Stormare, and Noah Emmerich, amongst others, are the interchangeable soldiers.

Director John Woo is the absolute wrong choice to direct this film. With his penchant for stylistic violence, Woo forgets that the story is the code talkers and not video game style pyro technics. Adam Beach and Roger Willie get the short shrift from a story that would be better served by a smaller budget and a more centralized script. If the film would have focused more on the development of the code and the Navajo characters the story would be far more interesting. Of course it would have been far less commercial.

My guess is that the original story was about the code talkers but producers with dollar signs in their eyes got a hold of it, signed on big name star Cage and big name director Woo and put aside the real story in favor of one that played up Cage’s character. Once again, typical Hollywood greed ruins a good story. Navajo Code talkers were real, and the code they created helped the U.S win the war in the Pacific. There is a really good story to be told about them, Windtalkers is not it. -