Classic Movie Review Fearless

Fearless (1993) 

Directed by Peter Weir 

Written by Raphael Yglesias 

Starring Jeff Bridges, Rosie Perez, Isabella Rossellini, Benicio Del Toro 

Release Date October 15th, 1993 

Published November 6th, 2023 

Fearless stars Jeff Bridges as Max Kline, an architect who survives a deadly plane crash. We meet Max just as he's emerging from the smoking hull of the plane, several passengers trailing behind him. He appears stunned but also serenely calm as holds the hand of a child and is carrying a baby. After handing off the child to a first responder, Max goes in search of the mother of the child. After reuniting mother and baby, Max simply wanders off. He doesn't merely leave the side of the mother, he leaves the sight of the crash. 

Fast forward to a hotel for a quick shower and Max is off. We next see him arrive at a home where the woman inside, a married homemaker recognizes him and welcomes him inside briefly. The two are ex-lovers and they share a few memories over lunch. And then, Max is back at his hotel where he's located by authorities who've been trying to account for him since the crash. The airline wants to give Max a free train ride back to his home in San Francisco but Max, unexpectedly insists on flying back, first class. This is despite his having had serious fear of flying prior to having survived this crash. 

Back home we will learn that Max has a wife and son that he no longer appears to care for. Nearly dying has made Max a creature of the moment, a man with no time for anything that isn't his immediate desire. Much to the dismay of his otherwise loving and caring wife, Laura (Isabella Rosselini), Max has no interest in being home. Instead, Max seeks out one of his fellow survivors, Carla (Rosie Perez), with whom he pursues a relationship, mostly friendly, though he does eventually talk about running away with her. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Sicario 2 Day of the Soldado

Sicario 2 Day of the Soldado (2019) 

Directed by Stefano Sollima 

Written by Taylor Sheridan 

Starring Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan 

Release Date June 19th, 2018 

Published June 18th, 2018

Sicario was a movie where one character tied herself in multiplying more knots in order to do what she thought was right in the pursuit of justice. Sicario may be the Spanish word for hitman but the movie of that title was not about the hitman but rather about an FBI agent who is young enough to still be idealistic about her job until she is confronted by the futility of her work and how even doing the right thing can be a misguided notion when the line between right and wrong is so desperately murky.

It’s unfortunate that Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado doesn’t have an Emily Blunt like character for us to identify with. Without Blunt’s everyman innocence, the story of Sicario 2 is left to a pair of characters who are charismatic but not very believable as arbiters of the moral ground. Sicario 2 asks us to believe that the characters of CIA Fixer, Matt (Josh Brolin) and hitman, Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) are somehow guided to do the right thing when their cold-hearted depravity was the point of the characters when they were conceived.

The story of Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado begins with a pair of terror attacks at the border between the U.S and Mexico. In a shocking sequence we watch three terrorists walk into a super-market and each detonate bombs strapped to their chests. This is the act that convinces the Secretary of State (Matthew Modine) to go after the people who are believed to be helping terrorists into the country, the drug cartels.

For this dirty work he turns to CIA Fixer Matt and tasks him with a black op. The idea is that Matt and his team will kidnap the daughter of a drug kingpin and drop her off in the territory of a rival kingpin. The goal is to get the cartels into a war with each other and in so doing, keep the cartels from providing cover for terrorists to cross the border into Texas. The idea is solid in planning but the execution is bad. Mexican police are supposed to provide a safe lead into Mexico but instead, they go into business for themselves and nearly kill Matt and his team.

This leaves Matt’s friend and professional killer Alejandro to care for the kidnapped girl while Matt high tails it back to Texas to deal with the fallout of Americans killing Mexicans in Mexico. What you have here is a plot with a lot potential, plenty of rich ground to cover in crafting these characters and evolving them from the first film. Unfortunately, the makers of Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado can’t seem to make up their mind about what film they are making.

Turning Matt and Alejandro against each other is a clever idea, their alliance may feel close but there is underlying tension to be exploited. The story is timely and potentially bold but the makers of Sicario: Day of the Soldado can’t seem to decide what movie they are making. Is this a gritty, hard-bitten drama about hard men doing the hard things or is this a critique of the secretive and dangerous methods of an American law enforcement acting from a place of fear and weakness.

As I said earlier, this is a rich playing field for characters like these. Unfortunately, director Stefano Sillima is unable to capitalize on the work of his terrific cast. Sillima’s direction is lazy and deeply conventional. Where the original Sicario was an artful study of characters struggling with their morality in an amoral world, Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado is a macho, posturing, pointless action movie.

Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado trades the best part of the original, the character based acting and observational plot in favor of the more familiar gun fights and chases of the action genre. What they fail to consider are the expectations of people who’ve seen the first Sicario. I loved Sicario for its thicket of moral grey area and how Blunt’s character would navigate that thicket. I enjoyed her struggle and understood her frustration.

Without Blunt or a similar character in this sequel what is left is rather weak sauce. There are far less complicated notes being played. The motivations of the characters are lacking as is the clever visual technique of Academy Award winner Roger Deakins who made the grit and grime of Mexico come to life as if Mexico itself were a dangerous character. All of the best stuff of Sicario is missing from Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado and what a shame that is.

Movie Review Sicario

Sicario (2015) 

Directed by Denis Villenueve 

Written by Taylor Sheridan 

Starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin 

Release Date September 18th, 2015 

Published September 17th, 2015 

Sicario stars Emily Blunt as Kate, a tough young FBI Agent who is recruited for a joint government task force on drug enforcement. Immediately she smells something fishy, especially after she meets Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a specialist in cartel politics who is supposedly working for the Department of Justice. Alejandro answers only to Kate’s new boss, an equally shady character named Matt (Josh Brolin).

Both Alejandro and Matt are suspiciously good with a weapon for a pair of Department of Justice lawyers and that’s not the only thing about this new assignment that is nagging at Kate. Among other things, Kate’s first day on the job finds her crossing the Texas-Mexico border to capture a high level drug asset. The fact that she’s flanked by an elite military force for this mission gives the strong impression that whoever has arranged this, is working outside the bounds of diplomacy and the rule of law.

As the story evolves, Kate is torn between the desire for results in the unending battle between the government and the fractured but still functioning cartels which have only grown more violent and territorial since the fall of the Medellin cartel which had kept an uneasy peace among the cartels while keeping the flow of drugs into America as high as it has ever been. The choice for Kate is simple, the idealistic and seemingly futile pursuit of results inside the bounds of the law or giving up a piece of her very soul for the chance to slow the flow of drugs into the country.

How much moral flexibility does Kate have? Can Kate kill unconvicted people if it means capturing or killing those who’ve earned it? These questions form the drama and suspense of Sicario and director Denis Villenueve gives these questions weight and patiently unfolds them as the movie goes on. Villenueve, one of the finest filmmakers working today, an Academy Award nominee for his work on Arrival, has a mastery of pacing and building toward powerful moments.

With the help of two time Academy Award nominee, Editor Joe Walker, Villenueve slowly allows tension to build via clever character moments and splashes of sudden violence. The editing is seamlessly brilliant and essential to how Sicario slowly builds to a pair of remarkably tense closing scenes including a sweaty and intense dinner conversation with a drug kingpin and one final moment between main characters that is downright devastating.

I could go on and talk about the brilliant production design by Patrice Vermette, another two time Academy Award nominee or about the breathtaking cinematography of Roger Deakins, an Academy Award winner for his work on Villenueve’s Blade Runner in 2017 and the only member of the cast and crew of the first Sicario movie to be nominated for an Academy Award. Believe me when I tell you, every sequence of Sicario is impeccable.

Great performances, tremendous direction, beautifully spare cinematography and production design and a great story combine to make me very excited for the new movie Sicario Soldad. It should be fascinating to watch Alehandro and Matf do what they do without Kate around to force them to weigh their consciences. Just how low will these rogue elements of our spy underground go to stanch the drug pipeline between the U.S and Mexico.

Movie Review: Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) 

Directed by Susanne Bier 

Written by Allen Loeb 

Starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Omar Benson Miller, Allison Lohman

Release Date October 19th. 2007 

Published November 5th, 2007 

The Oscar curse is over for Halle Berry. After subjecting herself and us to the horrors of mainstream flotsam like Catwoman, Perfect Stranger and Gothika, following her well deserved Oscar for Monster's Ball, Halle Berry is back in stride in Things We Lost In The Fire. This difficult drama, co-starring Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro, brings Halle Berry back from the brink with a character every bit as memorable and deeply affecting as her Monster's Ball award winner.

Steven Burke (David Duchovny) was loved by his family and loyal to his friends. He was the kind of guy who would go out of his way for you, friend or stranger. When he died, he left a hole that would be impossible to fill. Steven's death is the dramatic drive of Things We Lost In The Fire which stars Halle Berry as Steven's wife Audrey and Benicio Del Toro as his troubled best friend Jerry.

Playing out in flashbacks and flash forwards we see Steven as the Mr. nice guy that he was, we see his funeral and its aftermath. The style sounds distracting but under the skilled eye of director Suzanne Bier we are never lost or confused. Bier uses this style to great advantage, setting up dramatic points and paying them off with powerful, cathartic moments.

Benicio Del Toro's Jerry is a heroin addict and yet Steven remained his friend. Taking time week after week to drop in on Jerry, Steven is saint-like in devotion to his old friend. When he dies, Jerry is the last to know and his arrival at the funeral in his rumpled over sized suit and dark circled eyes, is greeted with great discomfort.

Despite her obvious discomfort, Audrey is driven to take up her husband's cause and check in on Jerry. When she see's him honestly attempting to get sober; she does what she thinks Steven would have done and invites him to stay in their garage, easily converted to a small apartment. The conceit sounds strained, she has two kids and brings a virtual stranger and drug addict to live in her home? It's a stretch but Berry and Del Toro make us believe it.

Suzanne Bier is from Germany and she brings a distinctly European conceit to Things We Lost In The Fire. Focusing on her actors to tell the story, rather than employing an arching narrative, Bier gets inside these characters through the eyes of her actors. Tight close ups, right on the eyes truly give us a sense of these characters' pained souls.

Things We Lost In The Fire can be oppressively sad at times. This is a very downcast film. It's about loss and pain and heartache. On the other hand it's also about remembrance, recovery and catharsis. Allison Lohman plays Kelly in the film, a member of Jerry's narcotics anonymous group and she has a moment in Things We Lost In The Fire that is beautifully bold and probing. It's about remembering, it's about forgiveness and it leads to more powerful moments of catharsis.

John Carroll Lynch, so good in David Fincher's Zodiac earlier this year, is a real scene stealer as Steven and Audrey's neighbor, Howard, who adopts Jerry as his new best friend. Desperately unhappily married  Howard is kind of pathetic but in a cheery sort of way. He first meets Jerry at Steven's funeral and after Jerry moves into the garage, Howard insinuates himself into Jerry's daily life, eventually offering to help him get a job.

Like the tremendous star turns of Del Toro and Berry, these supporting turns are nearly flawless in their execution and in the way that director Suzanne Bier reveals them.

Things We Lost In The Fire has a few minor issues. The structure can be a little jarring and there is one scene, late in the film, between Del Toro and Berry involving her asking him about drugs, that is truly wrongheaded, nevertheless this is an exceptional film. The acting is phenomenal. The direction is of near perfect pitch and though it is admittedly grim in tone, the cathartic moments more than make up for the sadness.

Hey, sometimes a good cry isn't such a bad thing.

Movie Review: The Wolfman

The Wolfman (2010) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, David Self 

Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving 

Release Date February 12th, 2010 

Published February 11th, 2010 

Andrew Kevin Walker is one of the most daring and dark screenwriters Hollywood has ever known. As famous as his script for Seven is, Walker may be known better as the most rewritten screenwriter in history. Rewrites of Walker screenplays include 8Mm, Sleepy Hollow and countless un-produced properties from Superman to X-Men.

His work has been criticized for being too dark and violent for mainstream audiences, despite Seven having made more than 300 million dollars worldwide. It was with this in mind that Walker went to work on a remake of The Wolfman in 2007. Today, The Wolfman is ready for the big screen and, no surprise, Walker's work has once again been rewritten into a compromised, mainstream ready version.

The Wolfman 2010 remixes Lon Chaney's classic creature with modern day special effects wizardry. It is directed by Jumanji and Jusassic Park 3 director Joe Johnston as a wild ride of techno factory dreariness. Benicio Del Toro takes the lead role of Lawrence Talbot an actor raised in America but born in Wales.

Lawrence happens to be touring in England when his brother Ben is mauled to death by some unknown creature. Ben's fiancee Gwen (Emily Blunt) informs Lawrence of his brother's death and calls him back to his childhood home where Gwen is staying with Lawrence's estranged father Sir Jon Talbot (Sir Anthony Hopkins). Father and son parted ways when Lawrence was a child and witnessed the aftermath of his mother's suicide by cutting her own throat.

Lawrence spent years in a mental health facility before going overseas. His return is warm enough for a father who put his son in a psych ward but the undercurrents of discord are resonant in their halting conversations. Lawrence gets on far better with Gwen whose grief rather quickly gives way to a sad flirtatiousness that Lawrence welcomes.

Unfortunately, the romance has to be put on hold as Lawrence searches for the beast that murdered his brother. The townsfolk blame a dancing bear owned by local gypsies but Lawrence, visiting the gypsies, encounters a woman, Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) who has a different and far more terrifying theory: a Werewolf did it.

Lawrence has no time to be skeptical of Maleva as soon the camp is overrun by villagers and then the angry, ravenous beast himself. Lawrence chases the beast into the forest and is bitten. When his wounds heal startlingly fast there is only one conclusion, he will become a beast himself.

While Lawrence ponders his fate, Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) arrives and with suspicions cast on Lawrence he aims to keep a close eye on him.

The plot puzzle that emerges in The Wolfman fits together well enough. Sadly, director Joe Johnston's hyper-kinetic style does not seem to fit a story that thrives on atmosphere and heightened emotions. Johnston cuts to quickly, whirls and tilts his camera and relies on too many cheeseball effects scenes for the gothic atmosphere to set in.

Watch The Wolfman and you find that stars Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins are making one movie while director Joe Johnston seems to be making another. Del Toro and Hopkins halt and suspect and busily feel each other out as fits a movie of a slower, more deliberate pace. There are important father/son issues they hope to seed into the story. Director Johnston leaves them no time for that however.

Johnston's charge is to make a fast paced monster movie with modern tech and modern gore. Neither approach is wrong really but the two together are ill-fit and the film falters for a lack of a singular vision. That vision likely could have been writer Andrew Kevin Walker’s whose script the cast signed on for and then saw rewritten when director Johnston came on board by the more by the more mainstream horror writer David Self (The Haunting, Thirteen Days).

The failure to meld two visions into one movie is the failure of The Wolfman and yet it is hard to call the whole film a disaster. Makeup and effects legend Rick Baker's work on Del Toro, what little we see of it in the final CGI heavy edit, is solid as is the work of Del Toro who cuts a strong figure as the titular Wolfman.

It's unfortunate that once again Andrew Kevin Walker finds his work compromised into a by-committee, safe for the simpleton mainstream crowd horror movie. Hollywood studios it seems are the first to underestimate the brains and taste of the majority of audiences and that is part of the downfall of The Wolfman.

Movie Review: The Hunted

The Hunted (2003) 

Directed by William Friedkin 

Written by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths, Art Monterastelli 

Starring Benicio Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, Connie Nielsen 

Release Date March 14th, 2003 

Published March 13th, 2003 

Director William Friedkin, the action director best known for the Oscar winner The French Connection is back with yet another great chase movie. In The Hunted, Friedkin teams fellow Oscar winners Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones in a one on one, mano e mano, chase movie that is remarkable for its economy of characters and lack of special effects. Hand to hand combat in movies usually involves some form of martial arts. In The Hunted, a hand to hand knife fight is the central scene and the combat feels raw and exciting. 

In The Hunted Del Toro plays Aron Hallem, a Special Forces soldier that we are introduced to as he and his unit infiltrate a Serbian incursion in Albania. Incursion is merely a kinder term for genocidal slaughtering as Aron is witness to horrible atrocities including children being forced to watch their parents killed then be killed themselves. Despite the atrocities, Aron sticks to his mission, which is to kill the commander of the Serbian forces, which he does as coldly and efficiently as one might gut a fish. Back in the States, Aron is awarded the Medal of Honor for combat bravery. However, in his quiet moments, Aron is tormented by the atrocities that he could not prevent.

Parallel to Aron's story is that of his mentor, a survivalist named L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones). Though Bonham is not a military man, he was contracted years ago to teach special forces officers how to kill in cold blood. Working off his debt of conscience in British Columbia, Bonham rebuilds his karma protecting wildlife from trappers. Meanwhile Aron, back in the States, is also into wildlife but to more of an extreme as we watch him slice up a pair of goofy looking, orange vest and camouflage wearing hunters. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media