Movie Review Armageddon Time

Armageddon Time (2002) 

Directed by James Gray 

Written by James Gray 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

Published November 10th, 2022 

Armageddon Time  stars Michael Banks Repeta as Paul, a young man in 1980 New York City attending public school. Paul comes from a Jewish background but his family has hidden that behind the name Graf. At school, Paul is unremarkable, a minor rebel who mocks his teacher. He finds a friend in Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a fellow outcast, a young black kid whose been held back at least once. Johnny is in trouble a lot, mostly because his teacher just assumes Johnny is the one causing trouble. 

At home, Paul has a loving, if somewhat angry family. Paul has somehow convinced himself that his family is rich though we can clearly see that there are middle class at best. Regardless, Paul takes liberties with his parents, especially by ordering take out even after his mother, Anne Hathaway, has cooked an expansive dinner for their entire family. His father, played by Jeremy Strong, is loving but can be overbearing and outright abusive. 

That abusive side comes out when Paul finds trouble at school. With Johnny, Paul is caught smoking marijuana in the school bathroom. Paul's father finds out and give his son a frightening beating with a belt in a scene that director James Gray is smart not to romanticize. Many of Gray's generation, my generation, as well, tend to act as if a father who beat their kids was a 'disciplinarian' and not an abuser. Gray and Jeremy Strong give the father character in Armageddon Time a more complex rendering as a man who loves his kids but also feels at a loss at how to care for them. It's clear he was also beaten as a child and he sees it as the only way forward as a parent. 

Paul gets pulled out of his public school and placed in a rich private school with the help of his benevolent and loving grandfather, played by Anthony Hopkins. At this rich private school Paul runs in the same circle as the sons of the Trump family. When they see Paul talking with Johnny at the gates of the school, their sneering racism causes Paul to pull away from his friend. At the urging of his grandfather, Paul tries to repair his friendship but his plan to do so only causes more problems. 

At his new school, the line between white and black, the privileged and the less than privileged, is brought into stark contrast when Maryanne Trump (Jessica Chastain in cameo), visits the school and delivers a speech. The speech is like a message directly to Paul, and thus to us, about where you stand and who you stand for. Will you be part of the future she proposes led by the rich elite, or stand with those in need of help. 

I think... honestly, I am not entirely sure what James Gray is going for overall. There are elements of class warfare, and something being said about white-privilege and the racial divide. That said, what point James Grey is trying to make is undermined by his storytelling choices. The lasting memory of Armageddon Time is that of a young black kid acting as a functionary in the coming of age of a young white kid. The young black kid has no life, no dimension, he exists to teach a lesson to our main character. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review The Good Nurse

The Good Nurse (2022) 

Directed by Tobias Lindstrom 

Written by Krysty Wilson Cairns 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne 

Release Date October 19th, 2022 

Published October 16th, 2022

The Good Nurse is a brilliantly moody and thoughtful dramatic mystery. With Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne at the height of their acting powers, and director Tobias Lindstrom smartly giving them space to find and inhabit these characters, The Good Nurse engulfs you in its story. Why is it so rare for a modern mystery to let their characters be smart? The Good Nurse does a wonderful job of letting these characters be properly intuitive and not duped simply because the plot requires them to be. 

The Good Nurse tells the story of a nurse who was followed by death wherever he went. Charlie (Eddie Redmayne) has worked for 9 different hospitals in his relatively short career. Why? He claims it has to do with an ex-wife who moves a lot and his effort to stay near his children. He's not a charmer per se, but a seemingly kind and simple man, helpful and thoughtful. That's certainly the experience of him that Amy Loughran (Jessica Chainstain) has had as his co-worker. 

Amy is a struggling single mother suffering from a heart condition. She needs to remain employed at this hospital for a year before she can get health insurance which will allow here to get the kind of care she needs. Until then, she's risking her life just to work. When she's given Charlie as her new co-worker on the late shift, he's a god send. He helps cover up her physical problems and having a lesser burden at work makes Amy's life at home a little easier. 

Charlie and Amy aren't romantic, they have a platonic relationship even as Charlie becomes enmeshed with her family, hanging out with her and her two young daughters. It appears that Amy will be able to get by the final months until her health insurance benefits kick in and Charlie appears to be a wonderful influence on her daughters. She has no reason to believe anything is wrong with Charlie but there are things happening at the hospital that are unusual. 

Since Charlie started, there has been an uptick in unexpected deaths, even among patients who should have been able to recover. One such death requires the Police to be called. Detectives Baldwin (Namdi Asomugha) and Braun (Noah Emmerich), are smart and observant detectives. When they find the hospital stonewalling them, the red flags become clear and they use good old fashion instinct and determination to uncover why this case is so very strange. 

While Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are doing incredible work as the two leads, I want to shout out former NFL star Namdi Asomugha and veteran character actor Noah Emmerich. The two have terrific chemistry and detective partners and the smart script by Krysty Wilson Cairns, never betrays the detectives for the sake of creating forced tension or mystery. So many similar movies have characters like these be ignorant in order to force the attention on the main character. Here, the detectives are given believable roadblocks and have to work around them with their wits and intelligence. This is communicated in smartly constructed scenes. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: Dark Phoenix

Dark Phoenix (2019) 

Directed by Simon Kinberg

Written by Simon Kinberg 

Starring Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence

Release Date June 7th, 2019 

Published June 6th, 2019

Dark Phoenix sadly, isn’t very good in the end. This latest adventure in the X-Men franchise has some quite good moments but the film fails in the end to sustain the good in the face of the bad. Former X-Men screenwriter and producer Simon Kinberg nails a few of the emotional beats, especially the bits about family, but his lack of experience with special effects and his often overly earnest beats are cringeworthy. 

Dark Phoenix picks up the story of the X-Men with the world in a form of detente between humanity and mutant-kind. The goals of Dr Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) have seemingly been achieved and mutants are allowed to live freely and thrive within society. Charles himself, even has a direct line to the President of the United States. Things look quite rosy indeed, even if Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) remains uneasy about the current peace. 

The story kicks in when the space shuttle gets trapped in some sort of energy field in space and slowly begins to be torn apart. The X-Men are called upon to save the astronauts on board and while Mystique finds the mission to be far too big a risk, she goes along with it for the good of the team. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), senses her friend’s unease but heeds the call of Dr X anyway as lives are on the line and time is short. 

In space, the astronauts appear saved by the X-Men until they realize they had forgotten one of them. In returning to the space shuttle Jean Grey is able to provide the chance for the astronaut and her fellow X-Men to escape but finds herself engulfed by this bizarre and explosive energy form. Despite the power of this energy, Jean is able to absorb it and keep the rest of the X-Men from being harmed. That she emerges seemingly unscathed only serves to set up our real plot. 

Aliens. Yes, aliens are the real plot of Dark Phoenix. Why aliens? Only director Simon Kinberg and a few comic book fans know for sure. All I can say is, this is one of the many missteps of Dark Phoenix. There is zero need for aliens in this plot. Not one bit of the alien baddie played by multiple time Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain, is necessary to the plot of Dark Phoenix. The aliens are perfunctory and dull villains that even Jessica Chastain cannot render intriguing. 

The problem here is that Dark Phoenix already had a really great villain: Jean Grey. The desire to not allow Jean to be the big bad of Dark Phoenix is a huge failure. There is no need for aliens, Jean has all of the conflict, all of the power-mad vengeance, all of the deeply personal demons to explore. Make Jean Grey become consumed by Phoenix, let her wreak havoc and divide the X-Men into factions of Jean needs to be stopped for the good of the world and Jean is not really bad and can be reasoned with. 

That plot has all of the complex emotions necessary for a strong dramatic arc. Have Nicholas Hoult’s Beast join forces with Michael Fassbender’s Magneto in the kill Jean side of the argument and have Charles and Cyclops on the ‘there is still good in Jean’ sde of the argument and see where this plot goes from there. Chastain and her alien buddies merely muddy the water and get in the way. The plot does not need them and the superfluous nature of these unneeded villains drags down Dark Phoenix. 

The other thing that prevents Dark Phoenix from soaring are some seriously silly looking special effects. The effects in Dark Phoenix are rubbery and exist on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. The effect that allows Lawrence’s Mystique and Hoult’s Beast, to morphe endlessly from human and mutant comes off as cheesy in Dark Phoenix. The effect looks like something Windows Paint might have produced in the early part of this decade. 

I realize that Dark Phoenix is set in 1992 but that doesn’t mean the special effects have to look like 1992. Our eyes and our expectations for CGI and practical effects have become more keen, jaded, desirous of things that make a movie appear seamless. Dark Phoenix is far from seamless. The rubbery texture of the effects of Dark Phoenix make the movie look low rent and, at times, make the movie look like a parody of itself. 

I’ve been awfully hard on Dark Phoenix so let’s wrap up by talking about a few of the good things about Dark Phoenix. I really enjoyed the backstory and the developing traumas of Jean Grey. Sophie Turner has come a long way from her rough and uneven performance in X-Men Apocalypse. Given a meaty role to chew on in Dark Phoenix, Turner is impressive. The fierceness of her charisma sells the agony at the heart of Jean Grey. 

I also enjoyed the psychology of Dark Phoenix, the ways in which the film depicts trauma in Jean is very real and complicated and quite moving at times. When Dark Phoenix forgets about the aliens and focuses the attention on Jean and the growing tensions among the X-family, Dark Phoenix begins to get good. What a shame then when the lame effects and those darn aliens swing back into the plot and mess things up. 

I don’t have a strong dislike for Dark Phoenix, Sophie Turner is far too compelling for me to completely dismiss the movie. Sadly, I can’t recommend Dark Phoenix because too much of the rest of the movie is laughably unnecessary, especially those cheesy aliens. We already have mutants, why do the producers of Dark Phoenix insist upon aliens? The story is Jean Grey, not Jessica Chastain acting well below her remarkable talent and stature. 

Movie Review It Chapter 2

It Chapter 2 (2019) 

Directed by Andy Muschietti 

Written by Gary Dauberman 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Bill Skarsgard, Isaiah Mustafa, James McAvoy

Release Date September 6th, 2019 

Published September 5th, 2019 

It: Chapter 1 overcame my skepticism about Stephen King adaptations to become one of my favorite horror movies of recent memory. I went from dreading the idea of two movies based on a 1000-plus page Stephen King monstrosity to being excited to see which big name stars would be chosen to play the adult versions of these wonderful child characters. With the same creative team involved it seemed like everything was on track for another surprisingly great King adaptation. 

I should know better than to get my hopes up regarding Stephen King and the movies. Movies based on Stephen King novels tend to succeed despite the author and the book. The Shining, for instance, is a classic horror movie not because of the brilliance of Stephen King but because Stanley Kubrick is a masterful auteur and Jack Nicholson is an iconic performer. Other King adaptations that have attempted to remain true to King’s… unique… vision, have ranged from not bad to unwatchable. 

It: Chapter 2 falls squarely into the ‘not bad’ category. Not bad, but also, not very good. There are some really good things about It Chapter 2. The characters are easy to invest in and Pennywise is a well conceived villain and as played by Bill Skarsgard he resonates as a figure of menace even when he’s not on the screen. Bill Hader plays Richie Tozier and as every other critic on the planet has told you, Hader is terrific, he delivers the best performance in the film, among the protagonists known as The Losers. 

It’s 27 years after the action of It Chapter 1. Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) has never left Derry. Maine. Mike made it his mission to remember everything that happened in the summer of 1989 having discovered that if you leave Derry, such memories slip away. As the unofficial conscience of Derry, Mike has waited for the evil clown Pennywise to return and when he does, Mike will be ready to call the rest of the so-called ‘Loser’s Club’ to carry out their blood oath to kill Pennywise. 

At a carnival in Derry a young, handsome, gay couple is lovingly enjoying each other’s company when they are menaced by a group of young thugs. The more outspoken of the couple is beaten severely and then tossed off a bridge into a raging river. As the thugs make their getaway, never to be heard from again in the movie, the young man’s boyfriend runs to the river bank to try to save his lover. On the opposite river bank he spots Pennywise who lifts the injured man from the water and... bad things happen. The living half of this couple is also never heard from in the movie again. 

Mike hears of the grisly murder and while an adult victim is not typical of Pennywise, he tends to prey upon children, Mike's curiosity is piqued. The brutality of the murder, as described by careless exposition cop over a police band radio, tips Mike off, this is the return of the evil clown. Mike goes to the scene where a red balloon confirms his fears and he begins to call the Losers back to Derry where they will confront their past, regain their memories, and battle the evil clown once again. 

Bill Denbrough (James MacAvoy) has grown out of his childhood stutter and narrow shoulders to become a handsome and henpecked author, screenwriter and husband. When Bill receives a call from Mike Hanlon he jumps at the idea of getting out of Hollywood, away from his demanding actress wife, and demandingly blunt director, Peter Bogdanovich, to head back to his childhood hometown, even as his memory of Derry has deteriorated.  

Stanley Uris is a little more reluctant than Bill to jump back into the Derry fray. So reluctant is Stanley in fact that when he receives Mike’s call, he forgoes his vacation with his loving wife to take his own life so as not to have to go back to Derry and battle Pennywise. Richie (Bill Hader), Ben (Jay Ryan) and Beverly (Jessica Chastain) are only slightly more amenable. Richie is eager to see his childhood friends again even though returning to Derry makes him violently ill. 

Ben is now a bored, super-rich architect who still pines for Beverly so of course he’s in. As for Beverly, she uses the trip to Derry as a good excuse to abandon her abusive husband. What about Eddie (James Ransone) you’re wondering? Honestly, I forgot about him. Eddie’s ‘arc’ in It Chapter is so forgettable that, well, I forgot to include him as I was setting the table in this plot description that has gone on far too long, not unlike the movie It Chapter 2 which also goes on far too long. 

It: Chapter 2 is an unnecessary 2 hours and 50 minutes long. The film is fat with scenes that could be cut from the movie to create a pace and story more amenable to the kind of pulse quickening, chest tightening horror that the movie is intended to inspire. The opening of the movie is a good example. I described the scene of the couple that is attacked and one of them is murdered by Pennywise, this scene does not need to exist. 

None of the characters in this opening have any bearing on the rest of the story. I guess you could argue that what happens to them informs a part of another character’s arc but It’s a long way to go for a point that could be made any number of more efficient ways. The opening scene becomes doubly inessential when the movie includes the murder of a small child that serves the exact same purpose of underlining and highlighting the return of Pennywise. 

The deathly inessential length of It Chapter 2 isn’t the film’s only problem. The performance of James McAvoy is a surprising and unexpected issue for the movie. From the moment he opens his mouth in It: Chapter 2, something is off about McAvoy. The attempt that he is making at an American accent is one thing but the main issue appears to be an attempt on his part to evoke Jordan Lieberher’s characterization of young Bill. It’s genuinely cringe-inducing listening to McAvoy struggle to add an authentic stutter and slightly higher register to his voice and the strain is evident in his stilted performance. 

Then there are issues with the special effects in It Chapter 2. A scene in the trailer for It Chapter 2 featuring Jessica Chastain’s Beverly being menaced by an elderly woman, plays, in the trailer, as terrifying and filled with creepy suspense. In the film, that same scene ends with an unintended laugh as the old woman morphs into a comically terrible special effect reminiscent of a low budget 80’s horror movie or the limits of special effects in the 80's as seen in, say, Ghostbusters, impressive in the 80's, silly looking in a modern movie. 

Later, in a scene dedicated to how incredibly bland the Eddie character is, even when he’s being menaced by Pennywise’s terrors, we get another comically bad effect of a CGI zombie-leper character. I believe this monster was also featured in It Chapter 1 and I recall that visual being more effective than what we get here but I don’t recall completely. Anything featuring Eddie tended to leave my mind almost as soon as it arrived. 

Eddie features prominently in yet another unnecessary bit of padding in It Chapter 2. Fans of the first movie recall the character of the bully, Henry Bowers. Henry is back here in a completely inconsequential fashion. Forget the book, if you can, and consider Henry Bowers. His arc really finished when he was defeated in Chapter 1. Bringing him back for Chapter 2 is a choice that is made only as a sop to fans of the book. Bowers does not matter in this story at all as far as the narrative of the movie is concerned. The movie plays out exactly the same whether he has a subplot or not. 

The fealty to the lengthy Stephen King novel appears to be a burden here that wasn’t part of It Chapter 1. That film relied heavily on the performance of Bill Skarsgard and the uniquely creepy images he helped create as Pennywise. Sarsgard is a wonder in the role. His vocal performance alone induces nightmares but it was his odd physicality that stood out in It: Chapter 1 and is slightly lacking in Chapter 2. Pennywise is sidelined far too often in It Chapter 2 in favor of characters like Bowers or old lady CGI or Eddie’s leper-zombie thing. Sarsgard remains brilliant and effective but the movie could have used more of him. 

I don’t hate Chapter 2. The movie does have moments of genuinely chest tightening, heart jumping suspense. Unfortunately, the bad of It Chapter 2 outweighs the good. It: Chapter 2 is overlong, overwrought and far too precious about mythology from a book that really should not matter in the making of the movie. The book is an inspiration, a jumping off point, but movies are very different, they serve different masters and remaining faithful to what works on the page comes at the detriment to what works on the screen as demonstrated in It Chapter 2 and its many failings. 

Movie Review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) 

Directed by Michael Showalter 

Written by Abe Sylvia 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Vincent D'Onofrio, Cherry Jones 

Release Date September 17th, 2021 

Published December 24th, 2021 

A trope that has become overused in biopics is the necessity to provide a literal explanation for something that becomes part of the life of a famous person after they become famous. With that in mind, I was prepared with a heavy sigh and an eye roll while watching the biopic, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, all about the life of Tammy Faye Bakker, played by Jessica Chastain. As I started the movie, I girded myself for a very literal explanation of why Tammy Faye began wearing garish clown-like makeup. 

What a surprise then to see that the main explanation of Tammy’s love for makeup was simply because she liked makeup. The backstory of Tammy Faye’s makeup gets a very brief scene at the very start of the movie and is mostly left behind as Tammy’s true obsession is revealed to be religion and being completely oblivious. Credit goes to director Michael Showalter who makes many smart choices in how to bring the unusual life of Tammy Faye Bakker to the big screen. 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye stars Jessica Chastain in the role of Tammy Faye Bakker and Andrew Garfield as her husband, con-man conservative Christian talk show host, Jim Bakker. The two met at a bible college in Minnesota. Here, Jim preached prosperity gospel, much to the dismay of his professors but to the great delight of his classmate, Tammy Faye. It was, and likely remains, Jim Bakker’s belief that God wants certain people to have great wealth and anyone with great wealth is therefore blessed by God. 

Never mind all of that stuff Jesus said about the poor, Jim Bakker was not one who believed that there was divinity in poverty. Thus he set out to be rich by any means necessary. After marrying Tammy Faye, Jim took Tammy Faye on the road where they preached the gospel and Jim took out loans and raised money for their personal needs via the many church congregations that accepted him as a guest preacher. 

Meanwhile, Tammy Faye also had her eyes on the horizon, searching for her big break. That break comes when Tammy Faye incorporates a puppet show into their preaching and singing and it gets seen by leaders of the Christian Broadcast Network, owned and operated by Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) and Jerry Falwell (Vincent D’Onofrio). They jump at the chance to bring the young and talented Jim and Tammy Faye aboard for a kids show but Jim has bigger plans. 

After finding success with children, Jim pitches himself as the host of a late night religious talk show that would be called The 700 Club. This comes at a cost however, to his marriage as a pregnant Tammy Faye is left off of the show and sulks at home. Before long Tammy Faye is demanding that Jim spend time with her while also getting in his ear about how they should be making more money. It’s Tammy Faye who plants the seeds that would become their crowning achievement, PTL, Praise the Lord the cable channel. 

Here is where Jim and Tammy Faye would find multi-million dollar success but also eventually find their grave downfall. As successful as the PTL was, Jim’s dedication to prosperity gospel drove him to constantly spending more than the PTL was bringing, especially spending it on himself while allowing Tammy Faye to shop to her heart’s content. While Jim desperately chases every dollar, Tammy Faye quickly comes to recognize the emptiness of their lives and the conflict between Jim and Tammy Faye eventually spills into their very public downfall. 

It’s a good story but not one that translates easily to a film narrative. Despite what The Eyes of Tammy Faye might want you to believe, Tammy Faye is not an entirely sympathetic character. Some might be able to buy Tammy Faye as a naïve innocent, as Jessica Chastain plays her, but reality also indicates that Tammy Faye was as or even more ambitious than her husband. Even as she may have been a victim of her husband's duplicitousness, she very much indulged and enjoyed the lifestyle trappings that his scheming made possible. 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye quite often tips into hagiography, as if the filmmakers and star Jessica Chastain were striving to make Tammy Faye a martyr and a counterpoint to her con-man husband. I say that but I don't say it with a great deal of confidence, especially after a final scene that appears to push the film into an area of camp that seems to both deify and deflate the legacy the film had been building for Tammy Faye. The final moments highlight a problem with The Eyes of Tammy Faye that's difficult to explain. 

For most of the movie, it doesn't appear that the film has a sense of humor regarding Tammy Faye, she's not being pitied or parodied. The final act, and especially the final scene of the movie, are the first time we get a sense of what I know I was looking for in the film, a slightly more savage and unrelenting look at Tammy Faye. In the final scene, the film reaches a remarkable climax that is both high camp and genuinely emotional. It's a moment where the potential of The Eyes of Tammy Faye emerges. Sadly, it emerges to late to rescue the movie and instead serves to highlight the tone that was missing from the first two acts of The Eyes of Tammy Faye. 

Ultimately, I am mixed on The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I adored the ending and I loved elements of Jessica Chastain's full bodied performance as Tammy Faye. The problem, for me, appears to be that Chastain started to like Tammy Faye and feel protective of her. That appears at times to be at odds with the tone that director Michael Showalter is going for. The disconnect between her desire to do justice to Tammy Faye and Showalter's high wire act attempt to bridge Chastain's performance into his more savage send up of Tammy Faye, ultimately short circuits both Chastain and Showalter's efforts. 

Movie Review The Help

The Help (2011) 

Directed by Tate Taylor

Written by Tate Taylor 

Starring Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain

Release Date August 10th, 2011 

Published August 9th

"The Help" catches you off guard with warmth and humor in the midst of great turmoil. A tremendous cast of extraordinary women will move you to laugh and to cry within the space of moments. This story of racism, civil rights and dignity in the face of undignified circumstances finds glorious moments of grace and humor amidst a story that invites anger and sadness.

Emma Stone stands at the center of "The Help" as Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan, a budding journalist who returns to her family home in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. Things haven't changed much since she left but they are about to. Skeeter's writing career is about to take off after she gets the idea to write a scathing novel that exposes the ugly, racist side of Jackson's high society.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays Hilly, a high strung ex-classmate who touches off Skeeter's controversial idea by angrily insisting that her African American maid, Mini (Octavia Spencer), not use her bathroom. Hilly is convinced that Black people carry different diseases than white people and she intends to start a trend in Jackson of building separate bathrooms in everyone's home for the Help.

Mini is soon fired after she refuses to use the outdoor bathroom in the midst of a hurricane. Eventually, Mini will tell her stories about Hilly to Skeeter for her book which will for the first time tell a story from the perspective of The Help. First to aid Skeeter however, is Aibileen (Viola Davis) who decides that telling her story is necessary after seeing another maid arrested for doing something desperate to take care of her kids.

Soon other maids are talking and Skeeter has a remarkable book that is more than just juicy gossip; it may be an article for change. In the time of the story of The Help Medgar Evers and President Kennedy are assassinated and Dr. Martin Luther King is risking his life to lead the fight for Civil Rights. This historic context lends seriousness to The Help that underlines the film's poignancies.

This remarkable cast has the power to move audiences with just a word or a glance. The emotional strength of Viola Davis is matched by the fearlessness and attitude of Octavia Spencer and each creates a bond with Emma Stone that allows the book writing scenes to crackle with unexpected life and wit.

Bryce Dallas Howard has the most difficult role in The Help and pulls it off with remarkable ease. Howard is the focus of our hatred as the virulently racist Hilly and while it would have been easy to make Hilly a racist punch line, Howard invests Hilly with truth and life.

The revelation of "The Help," however, is not Stone or Davis or Howard but Jessica Chastain. In a role that really doesn't need to be in this movie in terms of plot, Jessica Chastain plays Celia Foote, a reputed gold digger who is desperate to be accepted into high society. Celia begins as a caricature of Southern flightiness but as the film goes on her pluck and spirit become so delightful that you wish she had a movie of her own to show off in.

This is Jessica Chastain's second Oscar worthy performance of 2011 following her stunning turn in the Terence Malick epic "Tree of Life." Chastain's work in "The Help" is such a transformation from "Tree of Life" that I didn't know it was her until I checked the credits after the movie; a demonstration of Chastain's amazing range.

"The Help" is one of my favorite movies of 2011; a smart, moving, funny and warm movie that features one of the most talented casts we've seen assembled in a long while. Emma Stone is about to be a huge star and Jessica Chastain is the next big thing while Viola Davis is the pillar of strength on whom the performances of others are built and find firm foundation.

Movie Review The Debt

The Debt (2011) 

Directed by John Madden 

Written by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson

Release Date August 31st, 2011 

Published August 30th, 2011 

"The Debt" is one of the bigger disappointments of 2010. A phenomenal cast, including Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Chastain, led by Oscar nominated director John Madden deliver a movie that is truly riveting until the final 15 minutes when the film flies so far off the rails that it trashes all that came before it.

"The Debt" tells the story of three Mossad agents who travel to East Germany at the height of the Cold War in an attempt to capture a Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen). This particular criminal is hiding out as a gynecologist thus creating the need for a female agent to join a pair of male agents already in place.

Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain) is just 25 years old and working as a translator when she is drafted for this dangerous mission. She joins mission commander Stephan Gold (Martin Csokas) and the man who will pose as her husband, David Peretz (Sam Worthington), in East Germany where she will pose as a patient for the Nazi and get close enough to render him unconscious.

The mission is undoubtedly the most exciting sequence in "The Debt." Director John Madden brings an arm rest, squeezing tension to the scene where Rachel takes down the doctor and her fellow agents sneak the doctor out the side door. What happens next I will leave you to discover.

"The Debt" employs a shifting timeline that allows us a glimpse 30 years into the future. In the future Rachel's daughter has written a book about her mother's heroic actions in the capture of the butchering Nazi criminal. Rachel, now played by Helen Mirren, however, indicates by her lack of cooperation with her own daughter's book that something happened on the mission that we aren't entirely aware of.

Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play the elder versions of Stephan and David and while Stephan has parlayed the results of the mission into a highly successful political career, David disappeared for a very long time before emerging on the eve of the release of Rachel's daughter's book.

What drove David underground and has Rachel feeling intense guilt? I will leave that for you to discover should you decide to see "The Debt." Sadly, I don't recommend that you do see "The Debt." Despite a few terrific scenes, another terrific performance from It-Girl Jessica Chastain, brilliant in both "The Help" and "The Tree of Life" earlier this year, and a very compelling turn by Helen Mirren, "The Debt" has a massive flaw that it cannot overcome.

The massive flaw, which I will not reveal, is in the film's ending. It's one of those endings that, if you're like me, will leave you shaking your head and wanting to say to director John Madden: Really? In an apoplectic fashion reminiscent of the SNL Weekend Update snark.

I cannot stress enough how wildly disappointing this ending is. The end of "The Debt" reduces the film to a message so juvenile and parochial that you just can't believe the filmmakers wasted their time with it. More importantly, you can't believe they wasted your time and that of this brilliant cast who deserved so much more.

"The Debt" is among the biggest disappointments of the year. There is so much good in this movie that only an ending as wildly ludicrous as this could take the movie from potential Oscar contender to a movie that I cannot recommend because of its massively, wildly flawed final minutes.