Movie Review The Firm

The Firm (1993) 

Directed by Sydney Pollack 

Written by David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel 

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilfred Brimley, Holly Hunter, David Straithairn, Ed Harris

Release Date June 30th, 1993 

Published July 10th, 2023 

John Grisham was a phenomenon in 1993. He owned the bestseller lists with the rapid fire releases of his easy, breezy legal thrillers. Each story bubbled with melodramatic twists and turns that you legitimately did not want to put down. For a time, Grisham's thrillers were met with the kind of frenzy that has only since been matched by the likes of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, and She Who Shall Not Be Named. In 1993 alone two Grisham novels were adapted into blockbuster movies. 

While we have to wait until December for the joyous pleasure of The Pelican Brief, we first have The Firm, a potboiler of a legal drama surrounding the tumultuous tenure of a young lawyer and his job at a deeply corrupt law firm in Memphis, Tennessee. It's remarkable how easily Grisham's pulpy legalese translates to film without missing a beat. Grisham's style is remarkably detailed and yet wildly cinematic with easy to follow twists and turns that rarely get caught up in things that cannot be easily translated to another medium. It's no surprise that the author designed his thrillers with selling the movie rights in the back of his mind. 

The Firm takes on an extra dimension on the big screen as it is overseen by a masterful director. By this point, Sydney Pollack was winding down his legendary career but when he had good material he could be coaxed back behind the camera and we were lucky to have him class up the pulpy prose of Grisham, dressing it up with one of the most over-qualified casts in movie history. Seven cast-members either had or soon would have an Academy Award nomination, a true murderers row of performers brought to bear on what was already set to be a blockbuster courtesy of Grisham's own ludicrously large fanbase. 

Heading up this Yankee's circa 1932 lineup of performers, Tom Cruise stars in The Firm as Mitchell McDeere, a young lawyer fresh out of law school and highly in-demand. We watch early on as Mitch is courted everywhere from Los Angeles, to Boston, to Wall Street. Least likely among Mitch's many potential employers is a small firm out of Memphis, Tennessee. Bendini, Lambert, & Lock only has around forty lawyers on its roster, unlike the other firms which are teeming with associates. They only want Mitch among his prestigious graduating class and to say he's flattered is an understatement. 

Find my full length review linked here

Movie Review: A History of Violence Starring Viggo Mortensen

A History of Violence (2005) 

Directed by David Cronenberg 

Written by Josh Olson

Starring Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bello, Ed Harris

Release Date September 23rd, 2005 

Published September 23rd, 2005 

Streaming Rental through Amazon 

One unique trend in modern film is the connection between sex and violence. In thrillers and horror films these two disparate acts are often found at a crossroad. In horror; sex is punished, often with a bloody violent death, see Friday The 13th. In thrillers like Sin City sex and violence are married through characters. The prostitutes of Sin City are righteously violent vixens who mete out biblical justice when they aren't serving the few righteous citizens who prove worthy of their services.

In David Cronenberg's A History of Violence the sex-violence link is a little more murky. The sex is hardcore and the violence is bloody and excessive. There is no open link between sex and violence except that extreme forms of both are in the film. What in Cronenberg's mind links the two could be a philosophical circle of life, a birth and death connection. Or it could be that few things are more cinematically attention grabbing than sex and violence.

Whatever the reasoning, Cronenberg's A History Of Violence links sex and violence inside a thriller that never fails to titivate and fascinate.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortenson) has achieved the American dream. Living in a small town in Indiana, Tom own's a diner, his wife Edie is a successful lawyer and their two kids, 16 year old Jack (Ashton Holmes) and 6 year old Sarah (Heidi Hayes) are healthy and thriving. The Stall family is the perfect Norman Rockwell idea of homey goodness.

Lurking beneath the surface of this small town paradise are some violent and dangerous secrets that come to life when two thugs show up in Tom's diner. We have seen these thugs in the opening of the film callously murder the operators of a small motel, now they have arrived at Tom's diner at closing time with the same ill intentions. In a scene that is stunningly violent and graphic, Tom manages to stop the thugs from robbing the diner and murdering his customers.

The violent nature of Tom's turning back these bad guys is overlooked by residents who are just thankful for Tom's heroism. However, when Tom's bravery makes the paper his violent acts and recognizable face draw the attention of people Tom may have been trying to forget. On the heels of Tom's heroic act, three more thuggish types arrive in town and at Tom's diner.

The leader of this group of bad guys is Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris) who claims to recognize Tom as a man named Joey who some years earlier disappeared from Philadelphia after having taken Fogerty's eye out with barbed wire. Tom incredulously explains that he doesn't know who Joey is and is eventually forced to call in the local sheriff (Peter MacNeill) to run Fogerty out of town. That doesn't work and eventually Tom is forced to face Fogerty at his home in front of his whole family.

While all of this drama with Fogerty is going on, tensions at home have amped up over Jack's sudden bursts of arrogance and violence. Being bullied at school, Jack finally retaliated and badly hurt one of the boys who had been harassing him. There is also tension between husband and wife over Fogerty's accusations and holes in Tom's past that he refuses or simply can't resolve. Fogerty confronting Edie in a shopping mall plants seeds of doubt in her mind that eventually leads Edie to believe her husband may not be who she thinks he is.

A History of Violence is a mystery and a thriller. Cronenberg deftly walks the line in teasing the identity of Tom and Joey, allowing for intriguing speculation and cathartic revelation. It's a difficult tightrope to walk and since this mystery plot isn't even Cronenberg's real subject, his skilled handling of it is that much more impressive.

In A History of Violence, David Cronenberg asks; is violence inevitable? Uncontrollable? Is it simply part of human nature? Cronenberg even wonders if violence is hereditary. Is it possible that because Tom is capable of so much violence that he has passed this genetic trait for violence to Jack? Geneticists have debated a violence gene but most feel it is often more nurture than nature. Man is inherently predisposed to certain forms of violence through evolution, the survival of the fittest, but the trait for a violent nature is not passed from one generation to the next through the genes.

Evolution and the survival of the fittest have been a favored subject of David Cronenberg for years. A History of Violence is yet another example of his fascination with the subject. The film displays a kill or be killed example of characters who show themselves to simply be superior in knowing how to survive. One character specifically demonstrates that he is the fittest of all.

Then there is the sex and violence I mentioned in my opening paragraphs. The sex and violence in A History of Violence are graphic and closely examined by Cronenberg's camera. The film opens with offscreen violence which we witness the aftermath of, large pools of blood and a pair of battered bodies, and a shocking finale that also takes place just offscreen, though is no less stunning for not having been seen.

The first sex scene between Tom and Edie begins right away with a bit of kink as Edie dresses the part of a cheerleader and Tom the captain of the football team waiting to take her virginity. The scene progresses to sex that is not often portrayed in a mainstream movie. The scene is not graphic per se, but it is surprisingly frank and revealing.

The violence once again erupts at Tom's diner when the thugs attempt the robbery. Tom defends himself and his customers with serious violence. First shooting one thug in the head, a scene in which Cronenberg captures this mans head exploding from the bullet impact in a vividly realistic flash cut. Tom then kills the other guy with a shot to heart that sends the thug flying through a window.

More scenes of violence proceed the films final sex scene which is completely opposite the tender, loving lovemaking of the first scene. After a major argument in which Edie wonders if Tom may really be Joey, Tom violently takes Edie on the stairs of the family home. The scene begins as a rape but soon an excited and very into it Edie begins to enjoy the violence. This is a highly controversial moment that Cronenberg couches as not being a comment on women and violence but as a comment on Edie's character and her own attraction to danger and the unknown. That's debatable, it's fair to say, many women will justifiably find this scene of violent sex hard to watch so be prepared.

What I really liked about A History of Violence is Cronenberg's depth and curiosity and his bravery in examining so many subjects inside one story. The film considers evolution, violence, sex, and genetics in a frank and intelligent manner. Cronenberg does not hold back at all. His violence is shocking, his sex is no holds barred and his mind is open to exploring; through these characters a wide variety of interesting topics.

There is also in A History Of Violence a smart mystery thriller plot. Is Tom really a mob thug named Joey? Does Edie know the truth? Who is this man Fogerty and who is this guy he works for who claims to be Joey/Tom's brother, played by Oscar nominee William Hurt? This thriller plot combined with Cronenberg's lively mind make a formidable movie.

A History of Violence can be written off as exploitative, but that is only if you look at the surface of the picture. Beneath the surface is a smart and always curious film in search of truths about human nature and our propensity for violence. Inside A History of Violence is a clever dissertation on the modern survival of the fittest.

We rarely acknowledge and certainly do not examine modern examples of the survival of the fittest and the various ways one human thrives ahead another. David Cronenberg is the rare person who is quite taken with this subject. A History of Violence, I believe, is just one of many examples of how Cronenberg has and will continue examining this fascinating and disturbing subject.

Movie Review National Treasure 2 Book of Secrets

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets 

Directed by Jon Turteltaub 

Written by Cormac Wibberley, Marianne Wibberley, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Helen Mirren, Harvey Keitel

Release Date December 21st, 2007 

Published December 19th, 2007

2004's National Treasure came out of nowhere to become a late season blockbuster. With its popular take on legendary conspiracies, big time action and stunts and its family safe PG rating, National Treasure was like a perfect map to blockbuster success.

Naturally, with a film so successful there would have to be a sequel and the crew of National Treasure is indeed back. Nicholas Cage returns to the role of Benjamin Franklin Gates, historian, adventurer and most of all treasure hunter. With his electronics wiz pal Riley (Justin Bartha), Ben has been chasing all sorts of treasures for years.

The latest adventure has an important personal connection. As Ben is lecturing to a group of students on the history of his famous family of adventurers and treasure hunters, he is confronted by Mitch Wilkerson (Ed Harris) who claims a scrap of paper from the diary of John Wilkes Booth proves that Gate's great great grandfather conspired to kill President Lincoln.

Knowing that his family history proves otherwise, Ben sets out on a new adventure to track down the evidence that proves his great great grandpa's innocence. The trail leads Ben, Riley and Ben's dad Patrick (Jon Voight) to an ancient book passed down through the ages from one President to another. It's the legendary presidential Book Of Secrets.

Home to all of the greatest conspiracies in history, the book holds the key to whether great great grandpa Gates was a traitor or not. Hot on the trail of the book as well is Wilkerson and his secret society of thugs and Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent whose job has long been keeping on what Ben Gates is up to.

It is impossible to deny the fun of the National Treasure movies. With their goofball stunts and good humor, the movies are inoffensive and easily digestible. While you are watching them you smile and chuckle and for most that will be enough to call it successful.

If you like your movies with low brain power and plenty of distracting explosions and diversions, you will love National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. You won't recall the experience 10 minutes after it's over, but at least it won't take up space in your memory as it didn't in mine. I have seen National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets twice now and I still needed the Wikipedia plot description and Rottentomatoes reviews of my fellow critics to remind me that the film existed.

Forgettable, low watt entertainment, if you like movies the way you like a good candy bar or a can of soda, you'll like the disposable entertainment of National Treasure.... uh, what was that subtitle again? I forget?

Movie Review Buffalo Soldiers

Buffalo Soldiers (2001) 

Directed by Gregor Jordan

Written by Gregor Jordan, Eric Weiss, Nora Maccoby 

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Anna Paquin 

Release Date July 18th, 2003 

Published November 11th, 2003 

We have been waiting for quite awhile now for film adaptation of Robert O'Connor's caustic military novel Buffalo Soldiers. The film version is one of the last films delayed by the tragedy of September 11th.

It gathered dust on the shelves of Miramax because of its decidedly unpatriotic look at military life. The soldiers of Buffalo Soldiers are not the patriotic stick figures trotted out for numerous war movies dating back through all of Hollywood history. These soldiers are drug dealers, murderers, racists and pimps. So it's not surprising that after September 11th and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that the film stirred enough controversy to be dumped into limited release and essentially disowned by it's studio.

This decidedly nihilistic look at military life on a German base in peacetime stars Joaquin Phoenix as PFC. Ray Elwood. From his smirking demeanor, he looks like any other acerbic rebel of a number of different military movies. However, on closer inspection, Ray Elwood is no one liner spouting caricature but rather an amoral drug-dealing, wheeler dealer with few if any redeeming qualities. Bill Murray-lovable loser type this is not. 

Ray runs the military base from the office of Colonel Berman (Ed Harris). As Berman's assistant, Ray can requisition any and all material goods and what he can't get he can trade for on the black market. Ray is also the best drug cook in the military, a skill that landed him in the military when a judge offered him the choice of the army or jail. Ray acquires and prepares heroin for the base's top drug dealer, a military police officer played by Sheik Mahmoud Bey.

Elwood's operation is thrown into jeopardy when a new top Sergeant (Scott Glenn) decides to put Elwood out of business. A former Vietnam veteran, the top sergeant has a reputation as a killer. This doesn't stop Elwood from pressing the Sergeant's buttons, even going as far as dating his daughter Robyn (Anna Paquin), a wild child in her own right, who introduces Elwood to ecstasy. The rivalry between Elwood and the Sergeant is the crux of the film.

From a story standpoint, it's interesting to consider what it must have been like for our military for the number of years between Vietnam and the first war in Iraq. Aside from the minor skirmish here and there, our military guys had a lot of time on their hands, and you know what they say about idle hands. Try idle hands with access to a lot of weapons and drugs.

The problem with Buffalo Soldiers however, is that it never establishes a rooting interest. Phoenix's Elwood is nearly charming enough for us to buy into his anti-hero bit. However, he just doesn't quite have the offhand charm of a good movie scoundrel. The performance is all too earnestly nihilistic to care about.

Director Gregor Jordan seems to go out of his way to separate Buffalo Soldiers from obvious genre movies. He isn't making straight drama or comedy but he seems to go out of his way, especially to avoid comedy. The film’s funniest moments come from Ed Harris playing against type as the bumbling Colonel Berman.

Imagine Stripes as envisioned by Chuck Pahlaniuk and directed by David Fincher and you get an idea what Buffalo Soldiers is going for. It's a take it or leave it portrait of questionable behavior, death, machismo, and murder. No one liners, no forced perspectives or lessons to be learned. Buffalo Soldiers is more of an interesting concept than it is a great movie.

Movie Review The Human Stain

The Human Stain (2003) 

Directed by Robert Benton 

Written by Nicholas Meyer 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published November 4th, 2003 

This is truly one of the worst titles you've ever seen. It's made worse by the fact that it is only part metaphor and does in fact refer to the gutter-minded definition your so ashamed to ascribe it. In his 2000 novel The Human Stain, writer Phillip Roth makes it clear that his title refers to that infamous blue dress owned by Monica Lewinsky. Yes there is a deeper metaphorical meaning to the title for the books characters but it's the Monica definition that people come away with and in so doing, forget that there is a rather compelling drama behind that title.

For the film adaptation of Roth's novel, director Robert Benton may have been better off without the literal title. The film is all about the metaphor with little mention of Roth's contempt for the Clinton impeachment and to his book’s first act plot point. You shouldn't judge a book (or movie) by it's title but in this case it's hard not to. So many people will avoid seeing this film because of that title that it renders the whole thing meaningless.

Coleman Silk (Sir Anthony Hopkins) has, in his time as Dean of Classics at Berkshire College, turned the sleepy small town institution into the shadow of an Ivy League University. In so doing he has made many friends and many more enemies. Therefore, it's not surprising then that when he makes one seemingly minor mistake on the eve of his retirement that his enemies seize upon it to get rid of him early.

Coleman's mistake was referring to a pair of students who never showed up in his class as "spooks.” Coleman's reference was to the ghostly definition of the word but because the missing students were African-Americans a complaint was filed and some people seized on the other definition of the word spooks as a racial epithet. And so it is that the very people Coleman himself hired at the college that shove him out the door.

The controversy is ironic because Coleman himself is African-American though you would not know it to look at him. He has for most of his 71 years passed himself off as Jewish and because of his light skin has never had to admit to anyone he is black. Coleman never told his wife of more than 40 years or his colleagues at the college or his closest friend a writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who after Coleman's death must piece his life together from the scraps of lies and half truths he left behind.

Coleman's death is another great source of controversy. After quitting his job, losing his wife to an embolism and becoming a pariah in his small town, Coleman takes up a scandalous affair with Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) a woman half his age, divorced and working as a janitor at the college. Faunia's ex-husband Les (Ed Harris) is a Vietnam veteran and highly unstable.

The situation that Coleman has placed himself in is one that is obviously dangerous. It's a situation that someone of his dignity and intelligence should never find himself in, as his friends including Nathan and his Lawyer Nelson Primus (Clark Gregg) remind him constantly. However as Faunia tells him when they first meet, action is the enemy of thought. Coleman acts without thinking allowing lust to overcome logic. Whether or not Coleman and Faunia can achieve something beyond lust is one of the film’s central questions.

Parallel to the main love story is Coleman's history. Flashbacks take us back 50 years to when Coleman (played in the past by newcomer Wentworth Miller) first decided his life would be easier if lived as a white Jew. While attending school in New York City, Coleman meets a beautiful Midwestern blonde named Steena Paulson (Jacinda Barrett). Steena has no idea that Coleman is African-American, she assumes he is Jewish which explains his ethnic looks. It seems like true love but when Coleman brings Steena home to meet his mother, he gets his first lesson in why his life might be easier if he pretended he was someone else.

The backstory is actually far more interesting than the central love story. Wentworth Miller and Jacinda Barrett light up the screen with a fiery chemistry. Ms. Barrett is particularly surprising as she pulls off the wide-eyed innocence of a mid twentieth century Midwesterner. Until now she has been cast as sexpots, typecast from her time as a one the over-sexed simpletons on MTV's The Real World (she was in the London cast).

Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman make strong impressions, they are terrific actors. Their plot however is astoundingly dreary. Any momentary light that shines in their relationship is punished and it's only in the flashbacks to Coleman and Steena, before she dumped him, that we get any reprieve from the constant onslaught of misery.

Director Robert Benton has a knack for capturing older male characters preparing to conquer their old age. It was Benton who directed Paul Newman to his best late years performance in Nobody's Fool. Here he does well by Sir Anthony Hopkins by giving the legendary actor his first romantic lead role. Unfortunately, as great as Mr. Hopkins is, I never believed he and Wentworth Miller were playing the same character. After leaving his job at the college Coleman's connection to his past is left only as an ironic passage in his life. The film shifts it's focus to his relationship with Faunia which has nothing to do with race. It's an entirely different plot.

As for the allusion to the Lewinsky scandal, that was far more the book’s concern than the films. It is referred on more than one occasion and as in the book it is brought up as an example of political correctness run amok. It runs parallel to the ridiculousness of Coleman's own persecution for his racist remark that wasn't racist. Clinton's indiscretion was bad but not impeachable. 

The novel used Coleman and Faunia's many problems to magnify why Clinton-Lewinsky was such a meaningless endeavor, the movie makes the same reference and both seem heavy-handed to those of us who already realize what a bunch of trumped up ridiculousness Clinton-Lewinsky was. Of course issues of race, and death and family are more important than whether or not Bill Clinton got a BJ in the Oval Office. We know that! Thankfully the film doesn't linger on the point.

I would have liked to see more about Coleman growing up. Pretending to be white while coming of age in the 50's and 60’s with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, that has more inherent drama than any semi-controversial small town May-December romance ever could. Someday someone should revisit Roth's novel and extrapolate on the ideas put forth about Coleman's youth. That sounds like a movie I would like to see.

Movie Review Radio

Radio (2003)

Directed by Michael Tollin 

Written by Mike Rich 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard, Debra Winger, Sarah Drew 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 25th, 2003

Writer-Director-Producer Michael Tollin seems to aspire to mediocrity. A cursory look at his resume shows just that, a string of mediocre films as both a director and a producer. He has a particular affinity for the most mediocre of genres, the sports movie. With his partner, Brian Robbins, Tollin was a part of the predictable football movie Varsity Blues, the lame and predictable baseball movie Hardball and the God-awful Freddie Prinze Jr. movie Summer Catch. The latest addition to the Tollin-Robbins sports pantheon is Radio, a cloying tearjerker that hits all the manipulative notes.

The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a mentally challenged man named Radio, a nickname given to him by Coach Harold Jones, the coach of the local High School football team. Coach decides to help out Radio after finding some of his players harassing the poor guy. Coach makes Radio a part of the team, allowing him to take part in practices and eventually allowing him into the school and classes.

Radio's involvement with the team and the school is good for him but is met with some resistance by a local booster Frank Clay (Chris Mulkey), who doesn't like Radio because, well, because he's just mean. That is really the only reason the movie gives for his unnecessarily rude behavior toward Radio who everyone else in town loves.

S. Epatha Merkerson turns up in the unforgiving role of Radio's mother whose fate is foretold from her first appearance onscreen. The rest of the supporting cast is less than memorable. Debra Winger is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the coach's wife, and young Sarah Drew in her first live action film role (she did voice work on TV's Daria) is not bad as the coach's oft-forgotten daughter.

Ed Harris is the only real asset of the film. His stature and dignity infuse his role with more credibility than it deserves. As written, the character is rather wishy-washy liberal do-gooder but with Harris in the role, the character has more weight and the melodramatic script is improved with his presence and delivery.

As for Gooding, just add Radio to the growing list of roles that have marked his career's death spiral since his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire. I've written way too much about Gooding's self destruction and it's getting harder and harder to watch. Jerry Maguire continues to be one of my all time favorites and Gooding was a huge part of that. However, the goodwill he earned from his role as Rod Tidwell is completely gone and his presence in any film is becoming unwelcome.

As for Tollin and his producing partner Brian Robbins, Radio shows little improvement over their previous mediocre outings. While it's billed as a true story and there is a real man named Radio who lives for high school football in South Carolina, the movie of his life never once rings true. Rather it is the same market-tested family drama that is better left to Hallmark Hall of fame.

Movie Review The Hours

The Hours (2002) 

Directed by Stephen Daldry 

Written by David Hare 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes 

Release Date December 25th, 2002 

Published December 29th, 2002 

One of the first things I wrote when I started writing for this site was a column lamenting the lack of good roles for women. At that time, the majority of lead roles for women were still in service to male characters. However, in the second half of 2002, something happened and the trend began to reverse. Strong roles for women like those featured in The Good Girl, White Oleander and Secretary showed great progress. Now, with Stephen Daldry's The Hours, we have not one great role for a woman, but three: Three sensational roles for three sensational actresses in one excellent movie.

Three women over three generations are united by one book written by one of the characters. That character was a real person, writer Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman. Her book, "Mrs Dalloway," is read by both Julianne Moore's 1950's housewife Laura Brown and Meryl Streep's modern day Clarissa Vaughn.

Laura Brown is a troubled housewife whose troubles are written on her face. Her every action seems slowed by depression. Everything, including her interaction with her young son, seems to be affected by her depression. After seeing her husband off to work, a neighbor played by Toni Collette stops by for a visit that shows Laura what life might have been or what Laura really wanted in her life. The scene illustrates Laura's connection to the book "Mrs. Dalloway" as it demonstrates the dilemma that also haunted Virginia Woolf's literary creation--choosing the safe route of marriage over the adventurous life with a lover.

In the modern story, Meryl Streep's Clarissa Vaughn is planning a party for an ex-lover played by Ed Harris. Now dying of AIDS, Harris' character entertains thoughts of suicide as he comes to realize how close to death he is. He has called Clarissa by the nickname Mrs. Dalloway for years and now, in an ironic twist that mimics the classic book, Clarissa plans a party and her poet friend is planning his death. The characters are aware of the parallels but only Harris' character accepts his fate.

The third story is that of Virginia Woolf played by Kidman. We watch as Woolf, whose mental health problems are well documented, creates her masterpiece "Mrs Dalloway." Forced by her husband to live in a quiet, suburban, England country house, Woolf longs for the lively nature of the city. Attended by doctors on a daily basis, Virginia's only sanctuary lies in her writing. The fate of Virginia Woolf, much like her troubled life, is well known. If you don't know how she died, I will leave the mystery. Her death is dramatized in The Hours in a powerful scene that bookends the film.

In an unusual way, The Hours reminded me of Adaptation, in that a writer writes another writer into his screenplay. Then, the actions of the book are played out in the film and (not literally) the actions of the book unfold onscreen.

Director Stephen Daldry, working from a script by David Hare and the book by Michael Cunningham, creates a film of great emotional and intellectual power. While "Mrs. Dalloway" has been adapted for the screen before, the film shows what a truly special work it is. The film manages to communicate just how powerful and effective the book is without literally translating it. The Hours is a brilliant, remarkable film.

Movie Review: The Way Back

The Way Back (2010) 

Directed by Peter Weir

Written by Peter Weir, Keith Clarke

Starring Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saorise Ronan, Colin Farrell

Release Date December 29th, 2010 

Published December 27th. 2010

Sometimes a movie will place a critic in the odd position of appreciating the artistry and craftsmanship involved and yet leaves the critic almost entirely incapable of recommending the film. Director Peter Weir's The Way Back is a movie that inspires such a feeling. The work here is exceptional but it is exceptional in delivering a cinematic experience that I would not recommend to the average filmgoer trained on mainstream, Hollywood genre films.

The Way Back tells a remarkable true story in a fashion that feels intensely real. In 1942 three men emerged in India, then under the British flag, claiming that they had walked 4000 miles from a Siberian Gulag. The journey, if true, cost the lives of 6 other members of their party and had taken them across the frozen forests of Russia, through the Gobi Desert, and finally over the Himalayas 

In 1941 we watch as Janusz (Sturgess) is accused of treason by Russian military authorities who tortured his wife in order to get a confession. Janusz is sentenced to five years in a Siberian Gulag where the harsh conditions hold life expectancy well below Janusz's sentence. The prison is surrounded on all sides by unforgiving frozen wasteland and with few supplies to hoard and fewer places to hoard them; death would seem to be the only possible escape.

The forbidding forest however, doesn't intimidate Janusz who enlists several other inmates in an unlikely escape attempt. Among the prisoners is an American named Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) and a criminal, Valka (Colin Farrell), whose only appeal is that he has a knife that could be handy for hunting and protection. Several other nameless inmates come along but all seem to melt into one behind thick accents.

The names aren't important; it's the remarkable and unlikely journey that is the star of The Way Back. Escaping the gulag turns out to be the easy part. The trouble for these brave journeymen will be surviving the forbidding wasteland and getting out of Communist territories where, if they were caught, they could easily be shipped back to Siberia. This means getting to India, more than 4000 miles away. 

The Way Back is based on a book ghost written on behalf of a Polish World War 2 veteran named Slawomir Rawicz. However, Rawicz’s account was found to be false based on documents, some in Rawicz's own hand, which showed he had been released as part of a general amnesty in 1942. Then again, records from Russian prisons amid World War 2 are notoriously unreliable, especially after more than 50 years. 

In 2009 another Polish vet named Witold Glinski emerged to say that Rawicz's story was true but also stated that it was his story as he told it to Rawicz. Investigators and historians are still weighing the truth of Glinski's claim. Regardless of truth or fiction though, the story, as captured by director Peter Weir, is a grueling trek filled with death, despair, and triumph in heartbreaking detail. 

Jim Sturgess is a terrific star for The Way Back. With his soft face and warm, kind eyes, you can't help but feel for him and root for him. Ed Harris meanwhile is just the right stalwart second in command of this journey, a man so hard you are welcome to wonder if the freezing cold of the forest or the intense heat of the desert could penetrate his cragginess. Colin Farrell then, is on hand to give the film a little life beyond Sturgess's straight arrow hero and Harris's distant toughness. I can imagine many film financiers saying no to The Way Back without someone of Farrell's star power. Even under dirty makeup and crooked teeth Farrell is a charismatic presence. 

Director Peter Weir spares no image to demonstrate how difficult this journey was, as if merely describing a 4000 mile trek from Siberia to Tibet, over the Himalayas and ending in India were not enough. There is yeoman work on the part of the cast and the makeup department to demonstrate the physical toll this 11 month journey took on the seven men and one woman, played by Saorise Ronan, who made it. 

The Way Back is extraordinarily effective. Watching the film, it is as if you can feel the bone chilling cold, the burn of the sweltering heat, and the emptiness of starvation and dehydration. Peter Weir, not unlike Danny Boyle in 127 Hours, wants to give you some approximation of the physical toll being exacted on his protagonists so those feelings can underline the feeling of triumph at the end of this allegedly true story. 

I want to recommend The Way Back because it is so very well made. Peter Weir is a master director who gives this story a visceral, agonizing and yet triumphant feel. But, based on my description is this a movie you want to see? At well over 2 hours The Way Back is an extensive and exhaustive inventory of suffering even with it’s thrilling and cathartic conclusion. The poster for The Way Back could boast the word ‘Grueling’ and count it as a positive. 

Film buffs and historians perhaps will be rewarded with a comprehensive, fictional account of what may be the greatest single physical feat that a man has ever undertaken. The truth of Witold Glinski's story remains in question but history buffs may find the details of Weir's telling of this story revealing. Film buffs will surely be impressed with director Peter Weir's masterful direction but beyond the buffs The Way Back is a tough movie and one that I cannot recommend for a general audience.

The feel good ending is great but the journey to get there is agonizing and that’s not really the reason most people go to the movies. Unless you are someone who hears a movie described as ‘Grueling’ and ‘Agonizing’ and gets excited, I would recommend not seeing The Way Back. Perhaps as a primer, read Ronald Downing’s book, ‘The Long Walk, on which The Way Back is based. If you can get through that book and think you want to see that in a movie, then see The Way Back.

Movie Review Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone (2007) 

Directed by Ben Affleck 

Written by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard 

Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver 

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 18th, 2007 

Ben Affleck has long been unfairly maligned as an actor. Yes, he made Gigli and Paycheck and Reindeer Games and they are no picnic, fair. But those movies do not define his talent. The vitriol aimed at Ben Affleck has long seemed like over the top piling on and more than a little jealousy, from my perspective. Now, with the release of his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, Affleck haters will have to eat their words. In a season of Oscar shortfalls, Gone Baby Gone is the fall season's first film to exceed the awards hype.

Casey Affleck stars in the moody, noirish Gone Baby Gone, based on the Dennis LeHane of the same name. Casey plays Patrick Kenzie, a small-time detective in the slums of Boston. Along with his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan), Patrick usually handles missing person cases involving bail jumpers and child support deadbeats.

Imagine Patrick's surprise when a family involved in a high profile kidnapping seeks his help in finding a missing four year old girl. Amy Madigan plays the child's concerned aunt who hopes that Patrick can use his familiarity in the neighborhood to get better leads than the cops can get. Needless to say, the cops aren't entirely happy for the help.

Morgan Freeman is Jack Doyle, the local police chief in charge of missing children cases. Ed Harris and John Ashton are the two detectives leading the case who accept Patrick's help grudgingly and quite skeptically. Soon witnesses and suspects begin to pile up and so do a few bodies and Patrick finds himself wrapped in a very dangerous mystery and a moral crisis.

Gone Baby Gone plays like a police procedural but there is so much more to it. As the movie goes on Casey Affleck's Patrick is forced to make choices that no one would want to make. Choices that require an examination of his morals and ethics and his sense of right and wrong. The script by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard doesn't make the decisions easy or overly dramatic. The plot elements of Gone Baby Gone develop organically, natural to the story being told.

It's a rare modern movie that gives characters time to make moral decisions that aren't forced or pathetic. Patrick will be haunted by his choices, right and wrong. The consequences are aired and examined and smartly dispatched in one of the best scripts of the year.

Casey Affleck comes to life in Gone Baby Gone. Long known as Ben's little brother, Casey steps out of big brother's shadow with a performance that combines toughness, street smarts and sadness. Never angsty or overly dramatic, Casey's Patrick reveals himself slowly as just a good man turned into a reluctant crusader by some ugly circumstances and a promise he made to a grieving mother.

Affleck is matched grit for grit with Michelle Monaghan who nails the south Boston accent and the neighborhood's tomboy chic. Sexy with just a touch of naivete, Monaghan is the perfect dramatic and romantic foil for Casey Affleck's street smart tough guy detective. Together they spark with terrific romantic chemistry that gives the perfect impression of a relationship begun long before we meet them.

The third lead character in Gone Baby Gone is South Boston, a hard knocks area of one of America's most well known city's. Ben and Casey Affleck are quite familiar with these streets and this neighborhood having grown up there and as a director Ben Affleck gives gritty life to these downtrodden, drug and crime ridden streets.

That familiar turf is likely what drew Ben Affleck to the work of Dennis LeHane on whose series of novels Gone Baby Gone is based. Like Affleck, LeHane is from Boston and knows these streets, these crimes and these people. The naturalistic dialogue comes from a very knowing place in both Affleck and LeHane and while they are unafraid to expose the dark side of Boston even as you can sense a certain loyalty and love in the way they draw these characters.

Gone Baby Gone is the first film of the fall of 2007 that, for me, exceeds the awards expectations. Casey Affleck's confident and concise performance and the terrific adapted screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard seem like locks come Oscar nomination time. And here's hoping that the long time, unwarranted public disdain for Ben Affleck doesn't affect his chances of being nominated for directing Gone Baby Gone.

Ben Affleck's work here is as gritty and hard boiled as a young Scorsese with the polish of modern Hollywood production. Gone Baby Gone is Ben's baby and it succeeds on his talent. This one is a must see.