Movie Review: Basic

Basic (2003)

Directed by John McTiernan 

Written by James Vanderbilt 

Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen, Taye Diggs, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Daly 

Release Date March 28th, 2003 

Published March 27th, 2003 

Just over a year ago, director John McTiernan hit a career low point that made The Last Action Hero look like an Oscar winner. The 2002 remake of Rollerball was a painful cinematic experience for the audience and probably the filmmaker as well. McTiernan soldiers on, literally in fact, with his new military thriller Basic. Re-teaming Pulp Fiction partners John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, McTiernan has improved on his last effort; then again, how could he not?

Travolta, back in military mode for the first time since 1999 trash thriller The General's Daughter, here plays another troubled outsider called into the military fold to investigate a murder. Sergeant Nathan West(Jackson) and a group of six recruits went into the jungle training grounds of Panama and only two people came back. Both men, Lieutenant Kendell(Giovanni Ribisi) and Lieutenant Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) say Sergeant West was killed, but that is where the similarities in their stories end. While Travolta's Tom Hardy--who is paired with a military investigator, Lieutenant Osborne (Connie Nielsen)--interrogates each man, two very different stories evolve as time ticks away before the FBI and military police step in and take the case over.

The camp commander, Colonel Styles (Tim Daly), needs the case cracked before the Feds get there or the camp will be shut down. Of course, his motives come into question, as do the motives of everyone in the film, as the plot begins to spin out of control with flashback on top of flashback. The film's plot is based on so many lucky guesses and well-timed confessions, that by the time it arrives at its final twist, you're too exhausted to care. Whether it was too much editing and settling for shorthand clues that the audience never sees or simply a poorly-constructed plot one is left to wonder.

If you are looking for a Pulp Fiction reunion, there isn't much to get excited about Travolta and Jackson share very little screen time. However, Travolta is well teamed with Nielsen. The two spark with flirty dialogue even while at each other's throat over who is in charge. Travolta is in full-on cool mode, much like his performance in Broken Arrow--all swagger, bravado, and charisma. Jackson, on the other hand, though he is played up as a star, really only has a cameo in the film. He's barely there. In typical Sam Jackson manner, he still manages to make an impression.

Of course, if one is to compare Basic to any of Travolta's past films, the obvious one is The General's Daughter. In both films, Travolta plays a cop on the outskirts of the military called into an investigation that could lead to a scandal. Both are murder investigations with mysterious circumstances and witnesses with conflicting accounts and there is even a soldier with a powerful general for a father who wants things to keep quiet. Thankfully, the general remains off screen. The difference between Basic and The General's Daughter is entertainment value. 

Where Basic tires you with twist after twist, The General's Daughter has the advantage of salacious subject matter and trashy novelizations to titillate the audience and distract from the formula thriller twists. Basic doesn't have that to fall back on and thus, outside of Travolta, it's just no fun. The further I get from the film, the more the cracks in the plot become big gaping holes. Unlike many critics though, I cannot lay all the blame with screenwriter James Vanderbilt because some of these ideas, especially the ending, seem to have been made up as they went along.

Basic is an improvement for John McTiernan over Rollerball. (Then again, repertory theater versions of Rollerball would improve over that film.) McTiernan is in a slump and rumors of a Die Hard sequel are out there. Maybe a return to such familiar ground is what the man needs. That or maybe just a nice long vacation.

Movie Review One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo (2002) 

Directed by Mark Romanek

Written by Mark Romanek 

Starring Robin Williams, Michael Vartan, Connie Nielsen, Gary Cole, Eriq LaSalle 

Release Date August 21st, 2002 

Published August 20th, 2002 

Director Mark Romanek cut his teeth on music videos for artists like Lenny Kravitz, Madonna, and En Vogue. Especially memorable was the video he directed for Fiona Apple's "Criminal." A controversial video with Fiona and others in varying states of undress, the video had an atmosphere that dripped with sexuality. In the "Criminal" video, Romanek used everything from costumes to the set's retro-seventies green carpet to create an atmosphere at once familiar but also forbidden.

Atmosphere is what makes Romanek's second feature film--his previous work was 1985's Static--One Hour Photo, a creepy glimpse inside the mind of the most mundane madman the screen has ever seen.

Robin Williams stars as Sy the Photo Guy, as his customers at the retail store SavMart call him. Sy is an affable photo shop employee who is overly dedicated to the quality of his customers' photos. He has worked in the photo shop long enough to know the names and addresses of his regular customers and through their photos he knows even more than they would want him to. 

There is a very effective scene early on where Sy, the narrator, introduces us to some of his regular customers including amateur porn guy--maybe the only guy creepier than Sy himself. Sy's favorite customers are the Yorkin family. Stay at home mom Nina (Connie Nielsen), 9 year old Jakob, and Will (Michael Vartan). As the film develops (bad pun) Sy's obsession with the Yorkin's grows.

What sounds like a typical suspense thriller setup is played much more simply. Romanek allows the story to unravel at its own pace. This gives Williams the opportunity to reveal his character in more unique and interesting ways than your average thriller usually does. Williams seizes every opportunity to make Sy more vulnerable and almost innocent, which makes him so much scarier. You don't sympathize with Sy, but he earns your pity easily. I really liked the way Williams and Romanek conveyed Sy's sense of feeling that he was doing the right thing, Sy never seems to rationalize what he does because he doesn't think he has to.

As great as Williams is in One Hour Photo, for me the film is all about Romanek, who crafts a film of both visual and intellectual depth. Romanek employs these sensational tracking shots of Sy walking down these sterile hallways and perfectly assembled shelves at SavMart, all of it with the camera trained on Sy's determined, creepy stare.

Also effective is the score, which seems, at times, to be running through Sy's head. The rhythm of the score seems at times to match Sy's emotion. An early scene that takes the camera inside the inner workings of a film-developing machine is like a trip inside Sy's mind. Even the things that Sy watches on television however mundane they are seem to dovetail with what Sy is thinking. All of it creates an atmosphere that has not been so well-evoked since the days of Hitchcock.

Others have said that the film is told in flashback as Sy explains what happened to a detective played by Eriq Lasalle. I have a different take. I think Sy was running all that happened back in his own mind. He never told the police anything, except at the end, when he hints at what motivated the actions that the police already know about.

While the ending is somewhat unsatisfactory, attempting to explain why Sy does what he does demystifies him too much. Nonetheless, One Hour Photo Is an awesome film with visuals that should be used in film schools as a teaching tool. This is one of the year's best films.

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

Movie Review The Ice Harvest

The Ice Harvest (2005) 

Directed by Harold Ramis 

Written by Richard Russo, Robert Benton 

Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt 

Release Date November 23rd, 2005 

Published November 22nd, 2005 

Director Harold Ramis is best known for lighthearted comedy with an edgy intellect. His best work, 1993's Groundhog's Day, is such a true gem of a film that its polish has only shined brighter in the years subsequent to its release. Most credit for that film goes to Bill Murray's complex curmudgeonly existential performance. But, behind that performance was Ramis' sly, sneaky direction that played games with the audience that many did not discover until years later.

Even in lesser efforts like Analyze This and Analyze That, Ramis has at least delivered moments of pithy intellect and sly commentary. Ramis' latest effort Ice Harvest is nothing like anything he's directed before. A black hearted comic noir so thick with dark irony and detached violence one wonders if a late night cocktail of Pulp Fiction and Fargo somehow festered in Harold Ramis' dreams.

John Cusack stars in Ice Harvest as Charlie Arglist, a low level midwestern mob lawyer whose job seems to be holding down bar stools in mob controlled strip clubs. Charlie had never shown an ounce of ambition until a mobster named Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) convinced him to lift two million dollars in mob money from a local bank.

Getting the money was easy, now Charlie simply has to get out of Wichita. Unfortunately that will have to wait until morning as the entire town is nearly shut down due to an ice storm. Vic also has a few loose ends to tie up before they can go, including his soon to be ex-wife and a mobster, Roy (Mike Starr), who has discovered Vic and Charlie's scam.

Charlie is not simply waiting out the storm either. He is hiding from Roy while being seduced by Renata (Connie Neilsen), the manager of one the many strip clubs Charlie frequents, who is well aware of the money Vic and Charlie stole and has an eye on joining them in their getaway. Before Charlie can close that deal however, there is the matter of his best friend, Pete (Oliver Platt), who has chosen this night to get record-breakingly drunk and only Charlie can help him get home.

Pete happens to be married to Charlie's ex-wife which leads to an awkwardly humorous scene where Pete confronts his wife's growing dissatisfaction with their marriage in the midst of Christmas dinner at her parents house as Charlie stands by saying goodbye to his young daughter and unhappy son who he never sees. Platt is very funny in the scene but his plot really has little or any relation to the rest of the movie.

The rest of the film is full of double and triple crosses, bodies pile up high and all the while director Harold Ramis and writers Richard Russo and Robert Benton can't decide if they are making a dark comedy or a modern noir. Cusack's performance is, for the most part, dark comedy. Charlie assesses every plot development with a cowardly paranoia and suspicion that makes him the butt of every joke and the comic victim of every other character in the film.

In fact most of the cast is playing dark comedy. Thornton plays it cool for the most part but then there is the scene, featured prominently in the films trailer, where he has stuffed Roy in a trunk and comically beats it with a golf club which is straight slapstick. This is followed by a funny exchange in the car on the way to dump the body as Roy, in the box, attempts to save his life by convincing Charlie that Vic is going to kill him too and run off with all the money. The scene is funny but nothing after it is and much of what comes before it is unamusing as well.

As Cusack, Thornton, Platt and Starr are all playing dark comic riffs, Ramis is directing a bleak, mean spirited and violent Coen brothers' style anti-thriller with Neilsen's femme fatale and Randy Quaid's mob boss clearly not in on the rest of the cast's joke. The film shifts uncomfortably from ugly violence to black comedy, never able to incorporate the two in a way that makes both work.

Ice Harvest is shot as confusingly as it is plotted. Certain scenes have the bleak grays and blacks and dark colors of a noir mystery right down the rascotro lighting. Other scenes feature the bright colors and slick styling of any major mainstream comedy. A scene of Charlie standing in the empty frozen tundra of a Kansas highway is straight noir but the scenes between Cusack and Oliver Platt are from a dysfunctional holiday comedy filled with brightly decorated Christmas items. The shooting further muddies the line between the film's noir and dark comic intentions.

John Cusack does find a way to make his hapless loser Charlie work in terms of winning the audience to his side. Even as Charlie engages in some of the bad behavior in the film he retains an air of detached observation. With every dark development Charlie rarely gets riled up, he merely rubs his eyes in frustration and gets down to the distasteful business of surviving this one extraordinarily difficult night.

Oliver Platt's performance is equally as winning as Cusack's. The two actors spark a terrific chemistry in the few scenes they have together. Despite his oafish and even rude actions, Platt's sad sack Pete is very sympathetic in his sad drunken way. Had the film been able to straighten out the problems with its tone Platt and Cusack's performances alone could have made Ice Harvest a worthy effort.

It's not that dark comedy and modern noir are mutually exclusive genres.  It's just a difficult balancing act to make the two elements work together. Fargo, for example, works on both levels because of its exceptional cast and the assured direction of the Coen brothers. Ice Harvest director Harold Ramis is unable to find the balance between the comic performances of his cast and the dark action script.

Ramis wants to escape his reputation as a director of light comedy and indulge his dark side but his comic instincts are uncontrollable and express themselves in the direction of his actors. Ramis clearly wants to indulge his dark side in Ice Harvest but he cannot quiet his crowd pleasing instincts. After years of light, entertaining comedies, Ramis is very in tune to giving the audience the simple pleasures that most seek. Ice Harvest is not a film as a whole that can or should give audiences what they want.

The film's happy ending underscores my point. Watching Charlie escape with the money, and with his pal Pete, I could feel the gears turning as Ramis attempted to please the audience with a pseudo-happy ending. But what did Charlie do to deserve a happy ending? Granted that both Cusack and Platt are very good together and earn our sympathy, their plot is from an entirely different movie. Charlie still did a lot of unforgivable things and punishing him in a darkly ironic way would have been a more appropriate ending.

With a cast this talented Ice Harvest should be far more entertaining than it is. The failure lies with Ramis who, whether unwilling or unable, cannot find a way to mix his comic instincts with this black-hearted script. The result is a mixed bag of darkly humorous moments and awkward modern noir violence. John Cusack delivers a dead-on performance but the film lets him down and more importantly it lets the audience down.