Movie Review Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn (2007) 

Directed by Werner Herzog

Written by Werner Herzog 

Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies 

Release Date July 4th, 2007

Published July 5th, 2007 

Werner Herzog is one of our filmmaking treasures. As both a director of fiction and a documentarian he has shined a human light through art that few directors can match. A close friend of Herzog was a man named Dieter Dengler. Herzog chronicled Dieter's extraordinary life in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Now Herzog has fictionalized Dieter's story in the drama Rescue Dawn.

Going from the strict realist perspective of the documentary to the more free form of fiction; one would assume Herzog might take liberties with Dengler's story of his extraordinary escape from Vietcong sympathizers in Laos in 1966. Instead, Herzog is actually more strictly realistic in Rescue Dawn than he was in Little Dieter Needs To Fly and the result is a rather dry and distant recollection of events that should have a more cathartic and human focus.

Dieter Dengler never wanted to hurt anyone, he just wanted to fly. After seeing American pilots nearly kill him in his world war 2 era home in Germany, Dieter moved to America and pursued his dream to fly in the only place he knew he could get his wings, the Air Force. It was 1966, Vietnam was becoming a hot zone and pilots were in demand to straif the countryside and make way for ground forces bogged down by the unique and challenging jungle battlefield.

For his first mission Dieter was given top secret clearance for a dangerous and controversial mission. Hos squadron is authorized to fly over Laos and take out North Vietnamese supply lines coming from that country. Dengler is shot down and is soon captured by Vietnamese sympathizers. Taken to a POW camp, Dengler finds a hopeless group of fellow POW's whose emaciated bodies made for an atmosphere of desperation.

Dengler would have none of it and his attitude began a brave rebellion that would eventually save his life.

Based on the story told to writer-director Werner Herzog by his friend Dieter Dengler in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly, Rescue Dawn is no action movie take on Dengler's struggle to escape. Rather Rescue is a dry retelling of an extraordinary story. Herzog, maybe because he told this story before, doesn't seem to see much that amazes him about this story, he observes Dieter's actions with a detached, just facts approach.

I'm not saying the story needs embellishment or some invented action, just observing that Herzog's approach here is so irreverent that the real life danger Dieter Dengler faced is reduced to a detached recreation of Dengler's memory of the events.

Christian Bale does what he can to bring life to Herzog's sparse dialogue in Rescue Dawn. Bale infiuses Dieter Dengler with a playful arrogance and serious determination that he would have needed to survive this horrific situation. It is a very real performance by Bale, one of his most fascinating if not his most successful.

Rescue Dawn is simply too far away from this material for it to be really involving. Not until the end, after Dengler has made his escape, is the audience allowed a little catharsis but soon after the film is over, as if Herzog sensed the audience identifying with the material and sought to end that as soon as possible. This arms length approach defines Rescue Dawn and handicaps it.

Rescue Dawn is well made and professional but refuses to let audiences get involved in it. Like the just the facts approach of a classic documentarian, Werner Herzog strives for truth in Rescue Dawn at the expense of the kind of audience identification people expect in a movie. Oddly enough, as Roger Ebert observes in his Rescue Dawn review, Herzog approached his documentary version of this story with some magic realism that softened the story and made it more audience friendly.

Taking Rescue Dawn as it is I can recommend it for fans of Herzog and for you History channel lovers but for those looking for a classic war movie or action flick, Rescue Dawn is not the movie for you.

Movie Review Solaris

Solaris (2002) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh 

Written Steven Soderbergh 

Starring George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis, 

Release Date November 27th, 2002 

Published November 27th, 2002 

The teaming of Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney is one of the most promising in Hollywood. Already the team has delivered the sly entertaining popcorn movie Ocean's Eleven. They produced the well-reviewed drama Far From Heaven. Finally, they have in the pipeline the highly buzzed about Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, Clooney's directing debut. The biggest challenge to the team opens this weekend, the tough sell sci-fi romance Solaris. “Challenging” and “experimental” don't often lead to much in the way of box office but I'm happy to say that at least artistically. Solaris is a hit.

George Clooney stars in Solaris as Chris Kelvin, a psychologist who is asked by the government to go to a far-off space station orbiting an unusual planet called Solaris. Once on the space station Chris should investigate the strange behavior of the station’s crew. Upon his arrival at the station, named Prometheus, he finds a good friend dead and is informed by one of the remaining crew members that the friend committed suicide. The two remaining crew members are Snow (Jeremy Davies) and Gordon (Viola Davis), and both of them are exhibiting odd behavior. 

Gordon refuses to leave her quarters and Snow rambles vaguely about the odd phenomena that befell the crew. Snow warns Kelvin about going to sleep, because when he awakens he will understand everything. Upon awakening Kelvin finds himself in bed with his wife. This would not be unusual except Kelvin's belovd wife has been dead for a number of years. Natascha McElhone plays Rheya Kelvin, or at least that's who the character thinks she is. Logically she can't be but she feels physically real to Chris.

Only a master craftsman like Steven Soderbergh could manage to make a woman as beautiful as McElhone seem so creepy. The scene where Rheya is revealed is a dizzying ride of camera spins and out of focus shots that draws the audience into Chris's nightmare, or fever dream, or whatever it is that is happening to him. From there Solaris spins into the realm of existential crisis, religion and human nature. It's like the best episode of Star Trek: Next Generation ever.

George Clooney is sensational and his chemistry with McElhone is electric. As the couple’s back-story unfolds and we learn what happened to Rheya and the nature of Solaris, Soderbergh toys with the audience, offering innumerable explanations that will have people talking long after the film is over. The film is daring and intelligent in toying with questions of what counts as existence, what approximates experience, if something feels real isn't it then real? 

Solaris is a great film with an intelligent script and a truly magnificent performance by Clooney. That Steven Soderbergh also includes numerous visual and storytelling homage to Kubrick's 2001 and , of course, Tarkovsky's original Solaris from 1972, only deepen the film’s message and help make the film a transcendent sci-fi experience.

Movie Review: Secretary

Secretary (2002) 

Directed by Steven Shainberg 

Written by Erin Cressida Wilson 

Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies, Leslie Ann Warren 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 19th, 2002 

Recently, I have come to hate even the idea of a romantic comedy. The genre's many conventions and classic elements have overwhelmed any film tagged with the romantic comedy label. Take for instance the Resse Witherspoon romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama, which seems as if it were assembled in a romantic comedy factory. Every element of that film was clipped from previous films in the genre and pasted together under a new title with a big star's name attached to the poster. However, just when I have lost all faith in movie romance comes a most unlikely romantic comedy called Secretary. This is by no means a traditional romantic comedy, but it does have both comedy and a very unique romance.

In Secretary Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a troubled young woman just out of the hospital after what was believed to be a suicide attempt. Lee is looking for a way out from under her dysfunctional family which includes an alcoholic father (Stephen McHattie) and her overprotective mother (Leslie Ann Warren). Lee has taken to cutting herself with knives and needles as a way of dealing with her parents' constant arguing; the apparent suicide attempt may not actually have been suicide but rather an accident while cutting. Lee is still trying to figure herself out but she seems to take pleasure from hurting herself.

One way for Lee to get away from her parents may be to marry an ex-high school friend named Peter (Jeremy Davies) or she could get a job and make her own way. Lee decides to get a job and, using her amazingly fast typing skills, Lee lands a job as a secretary for a lawyer named E. Edward Grey (James Spader). It doesn't take long before Lee figures out that there is something unusual about her new boss who seems quite particular about the order of the office. When Edward catches Lee cutting herself, he orders her never to do it again and his forcefulness begins a strange sort of courting that includes sado-masochistic punishments for mistakes--which Lee makes a lot of once she realizes how much she enjoys it.

Secretary is so unique and funny that you laugh at things you once may have thought shocking or even appalling. The performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader are pitch perfect which helps the audience to accept the weird behavior. Though Spader has been criticized for too often trading on his creepy persona that he has cultivated throughout his career, I found it interesting to see him make that creepiness a likable trait for once.

Director Steve Shainberg does an excellent job of combining likable performances with difficult material. It's likely that if Secretary were made without the amazing lead performances of Gyllenhaal and Spader it wouldn't have worked. Even when the film seems to fly off the rails in the last 20 minutes, the actors save it with their endlessly likable performances and fiery chemistry. In a year light on good comedy, Secretary is a standout. The material might not appeal to all audiences, but the actors will--if you give them the chance.