Lawless and Tom Hardy's Dichotomies and Paradoxes

Lawless (2012)

Directed by John Hillcoat 

Written by Nick Cave

Starring Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce

Release Date August 29th, 2012 

'Lawless' and Tom Hardy's Dichotomies and Paradoxes

Sean Patrick

Sean Patrick, Yahoo Contributor Network

Aug 27, 2012

MORE:Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyLawlessTom HardyNick CaveThe Weinstein Company

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Tom Hardy returns to theaters this week in "Lawless." The story of legendary 1920's bootleggers The Bondurant Brothers, "Lawless" is the latest violent epic from the team of director John Hillcoat and writer Nick Cave ("The Proposition").

In an interview released by The Weinstein Company, the film's distributor, Tom Hardy talked about why accepted the role of Forrest Bondurant in "Lawless"

"I take characters as they come that interest me… that have scope and diversity; different ranges and colors and characteristics that are interesting and I find paradoxes and dichotomies of man."

Here is a look at how this philosophy has influenced Hardy as his star has risen in Hollywood; his most diverse and fascinating 'paradoxes and dichotomies.'

"Bronson"

Hardy's break out role is among the most fearsome and daring introductions of any actor, I have ever seen. "Bronson" is all about performance and Hardy commands the screen with such vigor that he damn near wins you over toward admiring his utterly psychotic character; based on a real life English criminal who's been in prison for nearly his entire adult life. Here Hardy finds a wonderful dichotomy a man of complete charm who is utterly incapable of putting that charm to good use and instead becomes a violent sociopath.

"Inception"

As a reaction to the grit of his "Bronson" character Hardy chose to show off his dashing handsome side in the brilliant, Oscar nominated Christopher Nolan movie "Inception." Hardy's Eames is a chameleon who in the world of this movie can enter people's dreams and become just about anyone. Here Hardy in a supporting role explores the paradox of a man who can become anyone yet is fully self-assured and comfortable with who he really is.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"

In the quiet English thriller "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" Hardy is once again a chameleon. As Ricki Tarr, a British spy charged with dangerous, often very violent tasks, Hardy plays the dichotomy of a man with no identity who finds himself in love for the first time and wishing he could reveal who he really is. When the love of Ricki's life is taken from him his identity becomes further fractured and he becomes even more dangerous. In any other movie this would lead to fights but in tight lipped, close to the vest style of British intelligence Ricki's dangerous side is expressed through the other characters and their concern for how his sanity might affect their well-being.

"Warrior"

The struggle for identity is once again central to Hardy's work in the family drama "Warrior." In the real life story of two brothers who rise through the ranks of Mixed Martial Arts to face each other for a championship prize Hardy plays a heroic former soldier who is eager for no one to know of his heroism. His reasons for hiding who is would constitute a spoiler so I will not delve to deeply there. That struggle however plays strongly opposite the other pain that drives him; the pain derived from his broken childhood. These two competing pains drive Tommy to feel little pain when he's fighting, yet another fascinating paradox.

"The Dark Knight Rises"

The paradoxes of Hardy's Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises" requires more spoilers than I am comfortable revealing even with a film that's already been seen most of the world. I can tell you that Hardy's unique magnetism and charisma shot through the prism of a sociopath every bit as dangerous as his 'Charlie Bronson' is a paradox every bit as interesting as the character touches the film adds to Bane late in the film.

"Lawless"

In his latest film, Hardy enjoys the notion of Forrest Bondurant as a naïve, almost childlike man who is capable of horrendous violence. At once innocent and dangerous, Hardy's Forrest is just the kind of mixture of warring characteristics that have driven Hardy throughout his rise to stardom.

Movie Review Lock Out

Lock Out (2012) 

Directed by Steven Saint Leger, James Mather

Written by Luc Besson, Steven Saint Leger, James Mather

Starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare 

Release Date April 13th, 2012 

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the TV ad for “Lockout” that praised the Guy Pearce starring action film as “Diehard Meets Blade Runner.” There are so many things wrong with this particular piece of praise that it’s difficult to narrow them all down. Most glaringly wrong is the disservice this overwhelming bit of critical puffery does to “Lockout.”

Comparing the fun, modestly entertaining, far from terrible “Lockout” to the awesomeness of either “Blade Runner” or “Diehard” puts far too much weight on the shoulders of what is a good but far from great sci-fi action movie. Comparing “Lockout” to both of those films combined is just outright cruelty; there is simply no way that any movie, especially “Lockout,” can live up to that standard.

Former CIA Operative Snow (Guy Pearce) was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time when a powerful friend was murdered. Suspected of the killing himself, Snow is staring down a trip to the new multi-billion dollar space prison where madness from the station’s cryo-stasis whatnot machines awaits most, if not all who are sentenced there.

It would take, oh I don’t know, the President’s daughter Emily (Maggie Grace, “Lost”) getting kidnapped aboard that space prison for Snow to get out of this predicament. And whaddaya know, the President’s daughter is kidnapped aboard the space prison and only Snow can brave the newly unfrozen, madness addled prison population to rescue her before her dad is forced to blow the space prison out of space.

As my description demonstrates “Lockout” has a classically goofball sci-fi set up filled with enough stock villains and henchmen to fill 20 seasons of the old “Batman” TV series. The one thing that keeps “Lockout” from devolving into camp is star Guy Pearce who plays a slight variation on the wisecracking anti-hero we’ve come to know and be bored by in countless action films past.

It helps that Pearce is such an unexpected action star. In his best work, “L.A Confidential,” “Memento,” and “The Proposition,” Pearce used his thin frame and actorly flourish to sell audiences that he could survive just about any punishment. In “Lockout” however, Pearce is muscled up, heavily armed and wearing the standard issue stubble required of all modern anti-heroes.

The transformation is surprising and yet Pearce maintains some of the steeliness that made his earlier roles so memorable. His wisecracks have a little extra juice in them as if they weren’t just par for the action movie script course. Pearce twists his lines and tweaks the punches in a way that is similar to how Johnny Depp takes everyday dialogue and makes it sound like something no one has ever said before.

Pearce alone is worth the price of a ticket for “Lockout;” without him the film would likely be a droning bore of clichés. Maggie Grace is an attractive girl but saddled with the role of damsel in distress who occasionally gets to look tough, she’s as stuck as any other actress would be. The role is so standard at this point that even Meryl Streep with a complex accent couldn’t distinguish it.

In the end, the critic who claimed that “Lockout” was “Diehard meets Blade Runner” has done more to aggrandize his or her self than to praise the movie they seem to greatly admire. No film could live up to that standard and claiming the movie does rise to that standard is a disservice to the film’s true merits. A very fun, charismatic performance by Guy Pearce is thus lost as fans focus on the lack of “Blade Runner” and or “Diehard” qualities.

Movie Review Sunrise

Sunrise (2024) 

Directed by Andrew Baird

Written by Ronan Blaney

Starring Guy Pearce, Alex Pettyfer, Crystal Yu 

Release Date January 19th, 2024

Published January 18th, 2024 

You know that modern trend of movie musicals that don't want you to know that they are musicals? You know? Wonka, Mean Girls, The Color Purple, movies that downplay the fact that they are centered on characters breaking into song? Sunrise is that as a Vampire movie. Sunrise does little to communicate the fact that it is a vampire movie. Even while watching Sunrise you have to work hard to determine that what you are watching is a vampire movie. The vampire in question walks around in daylight, though its set in the Pacific Northwest so that could just be a function of lack of sun, but truly few of the vampire movie tropes are visible in Sunrise, engendering a deep and abiding confusion over what this movie is supposed to be. 

Sunrise stars Guy Pearce as Reynolds, a bully and a tyrant, ruling over a pacific northwest town with an iron fist. With his mother, Ma Reynolds (Olwen Fouere) imperiously at his side, Reynolds uses intimidation and fear to get what he wants and what he wants is the property of a recently arrived Asian family. Yan Loi (Crystal Yu) has survived seeing her brother murdered and is now facing threats to her own life and the life of her son Edward (William Gao), as she works to maintain her land. It's at this point that an unlikely stranger enters her life. 

Alex Pettyfer co-stars in Sunrise as Fallon, a former cop who was forced to watch as Reynolds' thugs murdered his wife. Fallon himself was also left for dead but something saved his life. For the past several years he's stalked the forest living off the land and perhaps plotting revenge. When he's found on the land owned by Yan Loi he's in bad shape and is nursed back to health. In secret, Fallon asks Edward to get him blood to drink. This begins to restore Fallon's strength and as he comes back to health, he begins to look out for the Loi family, preparing for a showdown with Reynolds. 

It's more coherent in my retelling here than it is in the actual movie, Sunrise. For one thing, my description doesn't account for the fact that Pettyfer, though credited as the co-lead of the movie alongside Guy Pearce, spends most of the movie in a bed, in darkness, occasionally rising to drink blood. Pettyfer already isn't the most expressive actor on the planet. Leaving him to mumble a few words while lying down in a dark room is not exactly the best use of his talents. Pettyfer is a handsome dude whose best features, cheekbones, abs, are visual. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Traitor

Traitor (2008) 

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Written by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Starring Don Cheadle. Neal McDonough, Guy Pearce, Said Tagmaoui

Release Date August 27th, 2008

Published September 10th, 2008 

Traitor has a complicated premise that is difficult to describe without taking some of the suspense out of it. This may explain why Traitor arrived in theaters with little promotion and to confused and mostly indifferent potential audiences. Studio marketers simply could not turn the trick of enticing audiences without giving away the films most satisfying twists and turns. The marketing then comes down to star Don Cheadle and while he is a respected actor, the star of Talk To Me and Boogie Nights is still not a household name.

When Samir Horn (Cheadle) was a boy he watched his devout Muslim father killed in a car bombing. Taken from his home in Sudan to the United States by his mother, Samir was a brilliant student who joined the military, made special forces and then disappeared. After years off the grid from Chicago to various points in the middle east, Samir is captured in Yemen while building and selling bombs to a group of jihadists.

After befriending the terrorist leader Omar (Said Tagmaoui) Samir, is invited into the terrorists' inner circle and eventually is asked to take part in an major attack on US soil. On the heels of the terrorists are a pair of FBI agents, Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Max Archer (Neal McDonough), both of whom believe that Samir is the key to cracking the plot but for different reasons.

Directed and adapted for the screen by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Traitor is a smart suspense flick with the popcorn thrills necessary of good entertainment and the top notch performances of a high end drama. Though the plot grows convoluted as more and more of the story unfolds, Nachmanoff keeps audiences engaged by highlighting the performance of Don Cheadle who commands the screen with an actorly presence.

The cast of Traitor is the glue that holds it together. As the plot grows a little weedy near the end, Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce keep things in line with their incredibly engaging performances. Cheadle especially has a talent for getting an audience in rapt attention. See his performances in Boogie Nights and Hotel Rwanda, Cheadle is among the most fascinating and compelling actors working today. 

Pearce, though he has acted sparingly since his blistering debut in L.A Confidential, makes exceptional use of his weary eyes and measured monotone voice, tinged here with a slight southern accent, to give his words greater import. Scenes between Pearce and character actor extraordinaire Neal McDonough, crackle with energy even as the two are just laying plot groundwork.

Traitor is not without flaws, the terrorists are weak characters and some of the twists and turns don't pay off as well as they should. Nevertheless, Traitor hits enough of the right notes to be a compelling often exciting pop entertainment. Don Cheadle may never grow into a box office titan but his talent cannot be measured in box office dollars.

See Traitor for Cheadle and Pearce, performances worth the price of admission.

Movie Review Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories (2008) 

Directed by Adam Shankman

Written by Tim Herlihy, Matt Lopez

Starring Adam Sandler, Courtney Cox, Guy Pearce, Russell Brand, Jonathan Pryce

Release Date December 25th, 2008

Published Decemer 24th, 2008

Oh what a shock! Sean hates an Adam Sandler movie. Stop the presses. Well, now wait a second. I was developing a grudging affinity for the former SNL star. I liked Punch Drunk Love. I thought he was tremendous in the terribly flawed movie Reign Over Me. And, I even liked You Don't Mess With The Zohan for the sheer glee of its offensiveness.

I honestly thought that Sandler was maturing and recognizing that even the most outlandish story, such as Zohan, needed some dramatic parameters. I thought maybe that he was developing a knowledge of how to build believable characters and motivations. And I thought maybe his juvenilia was evolving a little.

Oh how wrong I was. Bedtime Stories is the lowest piece of garbage that Sandler has crafted since Billy Madison. Insulting, stupid, beyond juvenile, this alleged 'family' movie from Disney of all places, ranks among the lowest moments of Sandler's already low career.

Bedtime Stories stars Sandler as Skeeter, a hotel handyman who had grown up in the hotel business. His father played by Jonathan Pryce, who also narrates the movie, once owned the hotel and lived their with his son and his daughter played by Courtney Cox.

Dad passed away not long after he had sold the hotel to a hotelier played by Richard Griffiths. He turned the tiny hotel into a massive hotel palace and kept Skeeter on as a handyman for some 20 years. Now he is about to open a new hotel and Skeeter hopes to run it.

Meanwhile, Skeeter's sis has lost her job and must travel out of state for a job interview. She needs little brother to watch her two kids for a week despite his having not seen them in four years. Nevertheless, he accepts. Each night at bedtime they require a story and for some unknown reason portions of the stories come to life the following day.

The script for Bedtime Stories was apparently penned on the back of a cocktail napkin. It read "Children's Bedtime stories come to life starring Adam Sandler". The rest of the production involved hiring a cast and director who would simply make up everything else that happens.

Nevermind if any of it connects into some coherent story or if the characters motivation or even their dialogue makes a lick of sense, we've got Adam Sandler and a premise, that's all the filmmakers felt they needed. Oh, how wrong they were.

What the cast and director Adam Shankman invented around this premise was brutal, unending stupidity. True garbage. None of the characters make any sense. Plot strands arrive and then are shoved off screen maybe to be revisited later. Characters are introduced and quickly dispatched without making a lick of difference to the story.

I realize that I am not supposed to care whether Skeeter would be at all qualified to run a hotel, it's not necessary information, but as presented I would not allow Skeeter to run a gas pump. Kids will not care that they are being insulted by such plot insinuations but I was endlessly irritated with the lack of care that anyone from Sandler to the director to the producers took with this plot construction.

But again, this is a kids movie you say. Why does it matter. The kids will love the bright colors and the googly eyed, farting guinea pig. They'll eat it up. Well, I will tell you why it matters. Because kids should not eat this up. Kids should not be subjected to such shoddy work.

Director Shankman's work is sloppy at best and Sandler hasn't been this lazy on screen since Mr. Deeds. Kids deserve better. They may not know it but they deserve better than to simply have their senses tickled. They deserve better than bright colors and fart jokes from a slipshod director and lazy superstar who do their jobs on autopilot why? Because it's just a kiddie flick.

No, kids deserve better. Kids deserve movies that don't patronize and appeal to their lower minds. Kids deserve movies that challenge them to think and imagine. They need and I believe they crave movies that expand their minds and make them think of bigger and better things.

Movies like Wall-E and Horton Hears A Who and Kung Fu Panda have been released this year and each of these animated features have entertained kids and caused their imaginations and intellects to expand. Kids came out of those movies laughing and smiling and best of all dreaming.

Bedtime Stories may occasionally make them laugh or smile but it won't make them dream. It will stifle them. They may not know it or show it but they will feel short changed. They will instinctively know that their time and their imagination has been wasted and the long term effect will be for them to expect less of movies.

The long term effect will be felt when years later they expect nothing of the movies and of art but the base visceral need for a distraction from daily life and that is a sad end. I know you will say I am overreacting and that Bedtime Stories is a mere trifle of a movie that will be long forgotten by most in less than a week but I am telling you, your wrong.

Bedtime Stories is an affliction. It is a long term damaging of the psyche. A movie whose future effect will be to lower the standards of what children expect of art and what they think is expected of them as people. If you care so little what you use to stimulate your child they will come to expect less of their own stimulation.

Bedtime Stories is the worst movie of 2008.

Movie Review: The Time Machine

The Time Machine (2002) 

Directed by Simon Wells

Written by John Logan 

Starring Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, Orlando Jones, Doug Jones

Release Date March 8th, 2002

Published March 7th, 2002 

I have never read the classic story of The Time Machine by HG Wells but the story is so iconic and the idea of time travel so enticing I feel like I've read it. Though now after having seen this film version of The Time Machine I'm glad I never picked up the book.

For the uninitiated The Time Machine is the story of a doofus scientist Alexander Hartdegan, played by Guy Pearce, who after his fiancée is murdered becomes obsessed with going back in time and changing what happened saving her life. Hartdegan accomplishes time travel but finds himself unable to alter the past, for some reason no matter how he changes things his fiancée dies anyway. These early scenes are somewhat effective and setup an intriguing question. Why can't Hartdegan alter the past? Hartdegan, confounded by his inability to change the past, journeys to the future to answer his question.

His travels take him over 800,000 years into a future where there are now two species of human, the above ground and peaceful Eloi and the below ground terrorists, the Morlocks. Singer Samantha Mumba plays Alexander's perfunctory Eloi love interest and Jeremy Irons, chewing any scenery left over from his performance in Dungeon's and Dragons, is the evil Morlock overlord. Irons' character provides Alexander with the answer to why he can't change the past, an answer so unsatisfying I wanted to get up and leave. All of the scenes in this future world are boring illustrations of the missed opportunity The Time Machine truly is. Instead of tackling time travel from an intellectual, moral, or spiritual angle we are given a dull adventure plot that goes nowhere fast.

The film's main problem is it's perspective. I understand that since Alexander is from 1895 he doesn't have much of an idea of what to do with his invention other than to change his past, but what a squandered opportunity. The chance to see history in the making and all he can think of is himself, which doesn't make for a very likable character. It doesn't help that Pearce, plays Hartdegan as perpetually waking from a deep sleep always squinting and confused. Here is the guy who invented this time machine yet he still has no idea what it is he's doing with it.

And is it me or has Jeremy Irons completely slipped into self-parody? I can't watch him without laughing and I'm sure that is not what he is supposed to be going for.

The Time Machine is yet another big budget mess, all bells and whistles and no brain. Now that I think of it that is just typical Hollywood.

Movie Review Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Queen of Scots (2018) 

Directed by Josie Rourke 

Written by Beau Willimon 

Starring Saorise Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, Guy Pearce

Release Date December 7th, 2018 

Published December 6th, 2018

Mary Queen of Scots is a handsome but mostly forgettable mid-centuries soap opera starring two of our finest working actresses. Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie are incredible performers but there isn’t anything in Mary Queen of Scots that rises to the level of their talents. The film is not bad because Ronan and Robbie are too good for it to be bad but the story is far too thin and the film loses steam quickly given the amount of juice this story appears to have on the surface.

Mary Stuart (Ronan) is a fascinating historical figure. At a very young age, though she was heir to the throne of Scotland, she was forced to flee to France. While there, she married the French King but did not become Queen by marriage, she was 5 at the time she was promised to the 4 year old future King. When the King died young, Mary fled back to Scotland where she was welcomed back as Queen by her brother, the Earl of Moray.

Mary’s return was not welcomed by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie). Ever suspicious, the Queen of England kept a distance from Mary that was as strategic as it was out of fear. The Elizabeth of Mary Queen of Scots appears concerned that Mary’s beauty eclipses her own and that any invitation for comparison between the two could lead to a confrontation over her legitimacy as Queen.

The flames between Mary and Queen Elizabeth were further heated by the growing tension between the Protestants and Catholics. Mary, being a proud Catholic and Elizabeth, a Protestant, each had factions to serve and keep at bay from religious leaders and members of their respective courts. The two maintained correspondence with Elizabeth acknowledging Mary’s desire to ascend to the throne if Elizabeth died but the succession discussion was as political as it was about whom God ordained as royalty.

Eventually, the two would come into more direct conflict when Mary rejected Elizabeth’s suggestion that she marry the Protestant Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, ineffectually portrayed by Joe Alwyn. Mary took things a step further by marrying Catholic and English subject, Lord Darnley, her cousin. That Mary proceeded with the marriage to a family member and English subject without the Queen’s permission was a significant slight.

Eventually, it would be the Protestant and Catholic factions that would be Mary’s undoing but not before we get a baby, a pair of murders, and a rape and finally a beheading. There is a whole lot of drama packed into Mary Queen of Scots but it doesn’t land because, though Mary and Elizabeth are deeply compelling, the men surrounding them wither in comparison. Schemers, toadies, and sycophants, the men of Mary Queen of Scots do little to deepen the drama of Mary Queen of Scots.

The script repeats the same beats in Mary’s life over and over again. She rises to power, she is challenged by a man and defeats him. She rises again, is challenged by a man and out maneuvers him until finally, her luck runs out. The timeline is confusing as well as we jump ahead months and sometimes years at a time with only a few minor visual cues to indicate such a change.

As I mentioned, the production of Mary Queen of Scots is handsome. The costumes look authentic and lavish, the hair and makeup are gorgeous even as they push the bounds of believability for the period, and the sets have a lived-in and worn down quality that suits the period. I have no issues with the presentation of Mary Queen of Scots, I just wish the story had been as involving as the set dressing.

As it is, Mary Queen of Scots is something of a pot boiler but a trifle of one. The film pretends toward seedy exposes and serious costume drama and never settles on which tone it prefers. A love scene between Mary and Lord Darnley prior to their marriage is intended as a moment of sexy excess but comes across as needless and awkward in execution. Rarely is the sex in Mary Queen of Scots anything necessary or titillating, it’s either uncomfortable, criminal or merely problematic.

So if the film isn’t sexy and it isn’t serious enough to rise to the level of the great costume dramas of the past, then just what is Mary Queen of Scots? At its very least, it is a fine showcase for Ronan and Robbie who bite down on their roles with gusto. If the script were better, the male characters more well-rounded as either foes or allies, and if the film’s shifting in time narrative were cleaner and clearer, perhaps Mary Queen of Scots would work. As it is, it’s messy and narratively unsatisfying despite the stars.

Movie Review: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011) 

Directed by Troy Nixey 

Written by Guillermo Del Toro, Matthew Robbins 

Starring Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison, Guy Pearce 

Release Date August 26th, 2011

Published August 25th, 2011 

"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is a fraud. The marketing of the film, starring child actress Bailee Madison and Katie Holmes, was promoted heavily on the name of director Guillermo Del Toro with allusions to Del Toro's wildly imaginative masterwork "Pan's Labyrinth." "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" however, was not directed by Guillermo Del Toro but rather by first time pretender Troy Nixey.

At a Rhode Island mansion Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison) has been left by her mother in the care of her distant father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his kindhearted girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes). Sally's discomfort with her new surroundings is made worse when she discovers monsters in the basement. From there "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" devolves into a series of teasing set pieces in which Sally narrowly escapes capture while the adults around her question why she has made up a story about monsters. The first adult to discover the truth is, of course, attacked and left unable to warn others until it is too late.

The story is based, not surprisingly, on a TV movie from the 1970's; something you might have intuited from the low rent plotting. With the focus on Guillermo Del Toro in the marketing it's fair to assume that the visual elements of "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" are supposed to be the film's draw. Sadly, the visuals are only slightly more appealing than the plot.

The one bright spot in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is young Bailee Madison. As Sally Draper on "Mad Men" Madison is the picture of despairing 60's youth, too young for revolution but young enough for post revolution ennui. Madison was also the sad, compelling face of the long forgotten drama "Brothers" in 2010. In "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" Madison is compelling and sympathetic; something that can't be said of her wooden adult co-stars.

Troy Nixey isn't a bad director. His work in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is competent for a first time director. The problem is that Troy Nixey is not Guillermo Del Toro. Nixey can't overcome a thin plot with sumptuous visual pleasures in the way Del Toro did in his otherwise blasé 'Hellboy' sequel. "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is one of those mediocre movies that you forget moments after seeing it. It's not so bad that you're angry you spent money on a rental but bad enough that if you can be warned away from it you will appreciate the warning.

Movie Review The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker (2009) 

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow 

Written by Mark Boal 

Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Evangeline Lilly, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce 

Release Date June 26th, 2009 

Published June 25th, 2009 

The Hurt Locker is the most intense, breathtaking moviegoing experience of my critical career. I have had some movies really grind me into my seat but few do so as compellingly as The Hurt Locker, an Iraq war drama that avoids nearly all of the pitfalls of the myriad Iraq war movies of the past five years.

Lost in a sea of muddled agendas and fearful pandering, movies about the Iraq war have never taken hold within the culture the way movies like All Quiet On the Western Front or Patton did for World War 2 or Platoon and Full Metal Jacket did for Vietnam. Hell, even Rambo managed to be both an audience grabber and a commentary on Vietnam.

No such luck for movies like Jarhead or Stop-Loss. Each a well made, well intentioned movie, but movies at a loss to capture this elusive and ill-defined conflict in the middle east. Each attempts to be about soldiers and their real life struggles and each fails for lack of conviction and an inability to draw a line between anti-war agendizing and dramatizing the real struggles of their characters.

Now comes The Hurt Locker a film that sidesteps agendizing through the luck of timing and a smart specificity. The luck of timing comes in being released at a time when the conflict has receded from the headlines and is no longer the burning hot lightning rod it once was. The specificity comes from the focus on a set of very specific, very unique soldiers, the men in the business of bomb disposal.

Jeremy Renner stars in The Hurt Locker as Lt. Willam James. On his third tour, James claims to have disposed of more than 800 bombs and he keeps coming back for more. Whether he is addicted to adrenaline or has a serious death wish, William is the best at what he does and his seeming recklessness is arguably what has kept him alive. He makes decisions that others don't have the guts to make.

Joining William on this tour is Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) a bomb tech in duty only, he has yet to raise the nerve to don the protective suit and walk up to the bomb. And Specialist Owen Eldridge, a skittish youngster who remains tortured by all he's seen.

Together they are fighting through the last 100 days of what will hopefully, for Sanborn and Eldridge anyway, be a last tour. Each day brings a seemingly more dangerous and even larger bomb and the tension released at the end of the day is something akin to a constant stream of adrenalin that never shuts off.

Director Katherine Bigelow chooses a pseudo-documentary style of shooting that amps the tension even more. The digital cameras and limited angles draw the audience right into the danger. You will be surprised to learn that The Hurt Locker recorded more footage than even Coppola's epic Apocalypse Now and yet, what is onscreen is so tense and tight it seems of a moment, in the moment.

You have seen bombs and even bomb disposal in movies before and you have certainly seen the horrors of war before. But, there is something in the style of Director Bigelow and the intensity of Jeremy Renner's performance that sets it apart, and above so many other war movies.

Much of that comes from the scripting of Mark Boal who researched The Hurt Locker as an embedded journalist for Playboy Magazine. Traveling with and witnessing what bomb techs do in Iraq gave Boal a unique and thorough perspective on these very particular men and their job.

The Hurt Locker is a visceral, physical, filmgoing experience that will have you twisting in your seat, holding your breath and begging for the air to come back into the room. It is a fierce and ferocious film that will leave you spent by the end. The walk from the theater is likely to be a somber one, but with the reward being a movie experience like few others.

Moving, exciting, exhilarating and enthralling, The Hurt Locker is among the best movies of the year.

Movie Review: The Road

The Road (2009) 

Directed by John Hillcoat 

Written by Joe Penhall 

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce 

Release Date November 25th, 2009 

Published November 24th, 2009 

I had to suffer through The Road on two separate occasions just to reach the end. Director John Hillcoat's bleak vision of the end of the world is so overwrought, ugly and cynical that the first time I had to walk out and get some air. The second time I suffered the whole of The Road and then needed a long shower to forget it. In some unspecified future the world simply begins to consume itself. Whether what happened was environmental, nuclear war, or some kind of biblical apocalypse we are not to know. What we do know is that inhabiting this world are The Man (Viggo Mortenson) and The Boy (Codi Smit McPhee).

Together they are making their way to the coast where rumors of a colony of some kind near the ocean give them some kind of hope for the future. More likely, however, is the idea that The Man has invented this idea to give them something to do so that The Boy won't lose hope. That is pretty well it for plot. The film is more or less a series of dank, gloomy scenes of sadness and degrading landscape. Things are so awful that even the trees seem to take a sentient stance and decide to simply topple to the ground. The journey along the road for The Man and The Boy is a slow, repetitive journey toward death.

Is The Road well realized? Yes, Director John Hillcoat can certainly suck the life out of landscape and star Viggo Mortenson is exceptional at becoming the physical embodiment of decay but don't ask either what the point of it all is. I tried imagining that the point of The Road was to have no point at all, that went nowhere and I was left really not caring. I have not read Cormac McCarthy's much praised novel on which the film is based but I am familiar enough with McCarthy and have read enough about the novel to know that the point in McCarthy's book is as much about his words as it about anything else. It seems The Road the novel was more about the way McCarthy wrote it than about any vision of the apocalypse.

What may have been at the heart of the movie The Road is a misunderstanding. Director Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall seem to have assumed that Cormac McCarthy was offering a vicious and unyielingly bitter judgement on humanity and offering a vision of the end of the world. The reality may be, again not having read the book, that McCarthy was working in prose and that this is where his vision and wordplay took him.

However the movie The Road came about, whether it is true to McCarthy's vision or not, it is far too depressing, vile and gloomy for me to recommend. Again, I respect the technical work of John Hillcoat who could suck the life out of even the most scenic locales and the work of Mr. Mortenson who immerses himself wonderfully in every role. I just cannot abide such a dark vision without some point. I don't want to live in a world where I cannot find meaning somewhere. There seems to be no meaning, point or purpose anywhere in the ugly cynicism of The Road.