Movie Review On Sacred Ground

On Sacred Ground (2023) 

Directed by Josh Trickell, Rebecca Harrell Trickell

Written by Josh Trickell, Rebecca Harrell Trickell, William Mapother 

Starring William Mapother, Amy Smart, Frances Fisher 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 6th, 2023 

On Sacred Ground tells a very unique story. Long time character actor William Mapother stars in On Sacred Ground as a reporter with a very specific right wing perspective. He's long been suspicious of environmental terrorists and his reporting on that subject catches the eye of a right wing news outlet. This right wing news outlet, working in league with oil company lobbyists, seeks to hire Mapother's Daniel McKinney to cover the story of an oil pipeline that is the subject of Native American protests. 

The story that news organization and the oil company are pushing is that the Native American activists are violent, eco-terrorists who are disrupting a safe and legal oil pipeline and causing the kind of environmental crisis that they claim to be protesting against. The propaganda has Daniel on the side of the oil company, a perspective furthered when he arrives at the site of the pipeline protest where he witnesses a particularly emotional and physical protest in progress. 

Access to the site is controlled by an oil company representative named Elliott (David Arquette). Elliott claims that the violence of the protests is not coming from the army of mercenaries hired as security by the oil company or the lines of Police Officers also on the side of the oil company. No, according to Elliott the supposedly non-violent, mostly Native American protesters are the ones throwing rocks, threatening Police and Security and doing damage to oil company property. 

What Elliott and Daniel's new newspaper boss, Ricky (Frances Fisher), did not expect was for Daniel to embed himself with the protesters. Thinking he can uncover the violence among the protesters, Daniel goes to their camp and finds himself drafted in as a volunteer in a very well organized and trained group of protesters. The protesters bring Daniel in, show him their training in non-violent protest and place him on the front line of that non-violent protest where he witnesses what has really been happening. 

The story of On Sacred Ground is based on the story of a group of military veterans who joined the ranks of Native American protesters Standing Rock in North Dakota. This group of veterans were brought together by a fellow veteran, Wesley Clark Jr., son of General Wesley Clark, a former Democrat Presidential candidate. He went to Standing Rock at the behest of a friend and found Native American protesters being brutalized by what he called a private army employed by the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media 

Movie Review House of Sand and Fog

House of Sand and Fog (2003) 

Directed by Vadim Perelman 

Written by Shawn Lawrence Otto, Vadim Perelman

Starring Ben Kingsley, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Jennifer Connelly, Frances Fisher, Ron Eldard

Release Date December 19th, 2003 

Published December 17th, 2003 

This time of year we hear a lot of talk about so-called prestige pictures. Art films with opulent production design, heavy on the period detail and generally perceived as over the head of the average filmgoer. With a title like House of Sand and Fog, a pedigree that involves the adaptation of a National Book Award finalist and a starring duo of Oscar winners, it's not surprising that the perception of prestige is all over this film. Look deeper however, and you find a surprisingly populist picture. An Oprah Book Club selection and a bestseller. Also, you’ll find a story that is very compelling even if it is over the head of many filmgoers.

Jennifer Connelly stars as Kathy Lazaro, a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser who's only asset in the world is the home left to her by her late father. That however is taken from her when the city government sends cops to her home to evict her over a tax debt. The debt is bogus but unfortunately, Kathy hasn't bothered to open her mail in weeks and thus it will take months to sort out the problem.

In the meantime, her home is quickly sold to an Iranian immigrant, a former Colonel in the Iranian army named Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley). The Colonel and his family, wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and son Esmail (Jonathan Adhout), see the home as a mirror of their home in Iran that was on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Amir also sees it as an investment that, if fixed up, could be resold for three times its worth.

With the help of a legal aid lawyer played by Frances Fisher, Kathy is working to get her house back. After some back and forth wrangling, it's agreed that if Kathy can convince the Behrani's to sell the house back to the city for what he paid, then they can give it back to Kathy. Meanwhile, Kathy is being cared for by one of the cops who helped her move out, Deputy Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard). In a short time, the deputy has fallen for Kathy, has left his wife and family to care for her, and is willing to risk his job to help her get the house back.

All of this mundanely sets the table for some very compelling drama well strung together by Writer-Director Vadim Perelman. Having adapted a book by Andre Dubus, Perelman lends the story a visual style that evokes the title of the film without being heavy handed. The title is a double metaphor that ties the story together.

The performances of Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly are the strong points of the film and the Oscar winners are once again award-worthy. Kingsley is especially powerful as the deposed Colonel. Prone to violent outbursts and amazing compassion all brought about by his deep, religious faith. For a good portion of the film, he seems to be the villain but as the film winds to it's inevitably tragic conclusion, Kingsley's performance becomes the emotional center of the film and draws tears without forcing them.

As for Connelly, she is every bit as strong as Kingsley is, She infuses Kathy with the sadness and longing that wins our sympathy even as she acts in less than likable fashion. Her performance is all the stronger for having to carry the lunkheaded Ron Eldard as her love interest. Eldard plays Lester as the dumbest cop on the force. His performance is the weakest of the film and unfortunately, somewhat pivotal near the end. Thankfully, the film does not collapse because of him. Props to Director Perelman for getting the film to its astonishing and powerful finale even as Eldard's performance sinks.

Be sure to bring your antidepressants because as one of my fellow critics said after the screening, House of Sand and Fog may be the most depressing film of the year. Indeed, there is very little light in the film. It works because even depressing emotion can be cathartic and House earns it's awesomely cathartic and emotional ending. The label prestige picture is well earned by this emotional film.

Movie Review In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah (2007) 

Directed by Paul Haggis 

Written by Paul Haggis 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jonathan Tucker, Frances Fisher, Susan Sarandon 

Release Date September 14th, 2007 

Published September 13th, 2007 

I'm going to come off ignorant or insensitive in this review. Of this I have no doubt. I can't begin to guess what is like for our soldiers in Iraq and thus to draw conclusions, especially from a movie, is going to bring out my ignorance to some readers and my insensitivity to others. Nevertheless, I can't dismiss In The Valley of Elah and the extraordinary pain and anger it evokes and where that anger comes from. Written and directed by Paul Haggis, In The Valley of Elah is a sometimes maddening, sometimes dawdling and always compelling drama of a father, a son, and a war that should not be fought.

Growing up in the home of Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) a boy knew he was going into the military. Hank is the kind of patriotic American who gets up early to help properly raise the flag over the middle school. Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker), whether he was ready or not, went to Iraq because he wanted to make his father proud.

When the call comes that Mike has gone AWOL from the Fort Rudd military base in New Mexico, Hank thinks his son couldn't possibly be missing in New Mexico, he's still in Iraq. Turns out that Mike's unit came home several days earlier and, for some reason, he didn't call home. Thinking his son is drunk and in the bed of some lovely young local; Hank drives through the night to Fort Rudd to help find his son.

What Hank eventually discovers is that his son is dead, butchered and burned in a vacant field on the edge of the base. Sensing that the military is set to sweep his son's death under the rug, Hank turns to the local cops and detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) who resists the potential jurisdictional fight with the military until Hank shows her evidence that both the locals and the military investigators missed. Thus begins a murder mystery that uncovers truths about Michael that Hank may not have ever wanted to know. The son he sent to Iraq was not the man who returned from Iraq.

Paul Haggis directs In The Valley Of Elah with an eye toward meditative sadness. Mixing an almost subliminal anti-war message into a rather straight edge murder mystery, In The Valley of Elah can be quite maddening. The film distracts itself with murder mystery conventions while truly being about the horrors of war and the trauma of the young men forced to fight it.

To point out that our soldiers could be vulnerable to great sadness and pain after having experienced war is considered by some to be unpatriotic. That is the cover that pro-war politicians take in order to justify the continuation of a failed policy that has cost us all so much. A generation of young men dying, losing limbs and scarred forever emotionally, all for what? What are they fighting for?

In The Valley of Elah offers this sentiment under the guise of a murder mystery and maybe this is the way to get some people to listen. Drawn to the movie by the mystery plot people will be exposed to the pain, the sadness and the futility of this war. Even as we are told that the war is turning around we cannot forget the young men and women who died not knowing what it was they were fighting for.

The final image of In The Valley of Elah is the one straightforward moment of commentary in the film. It's a powerful symbol of a distressed nation dealing with losses it can hardly begin to understand. Lied into a war with the wrong country; with loved ones dying for a cause that seemed to change with the wind, In The Valley of Elah captures the heartache and devastation of the losses we should all feel for allowing this travesty to begin and continue today.