Movie Review Paycheck

Paycheck (2003) 

Directed by John Woo 

Written by Dean Georgaris 

Starring Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhardt, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore, Joe Morton 

Release Date December 25th, 2003 

Published December 24th, 2003 

In the just over 10 years that John Woo has been working in the Hollywood system of filmmaking, we have yet to see the potential that was promised in his earlier Hong Kong work. It's interesting then that he would work on a film based on a story by Philip K. Dick, the legendary science fiction writer whose work has also been difficult to capture in a Hollywood film. An element of both Woo’s best works and Dick’s best writing have been seen in flashes but neither are fully realized. Paycheck goes no further toward capturing the best of either Woo or Dick, and in fact may be a huge step back for both.

Paycheck stars Ben Affleck as Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer who copies a work of technology and changes it just enough to step around copyright laws and delivers a similar product to a different company. For liability purposes, Jennings' works alone, often secluded for months at a time cut off from the outside world. At the end of his work, his memories are wiped clean through a disturbing, dangerous process that literally cooks his brain, burning away the portions of his memory that relate to his work.

Jennings is well paid for his work, often with six-figure paycheck. His next job however is for more money than he could have imagined. Michael's friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) offers him an eight-figure paycheck for a job that will take up to three years of his life. At that price, three years is worth it and Michael takes what should be his last job.

Three years later, Michael wakes up in Rethrick's office with his memory wiped clean. With no memory of the job or anything of the past three years, Michael's only concern is picking up his sizable check. However, when he arrives at the bank he is shocked to find that he has signed away his money, stocks and has only a bag of 19 personal items which he doesn't even think are his. Through a series of odd encounters, each of the 19 personal items comes in real handy in saving Michael's life as he pursues the reason why he refused his paycheck. There is also a minor romance with a biologist named Rachel played by Uma Thurman, which is merely functional and unnecessary to any description of the plot.

Where to begin with the disappointments of this film?

It's big dumb and loud. The film doesn't even have John Woo's usual stylistic virtuosity to fall back on, assuaging style in favor of a more bland action movie mode, save for Woo's trademark doves. There isn't even a scene where Affleck carries Woo's trademark double handguns, one gun in each hand. There is the usual standoff this time with two characters standing in a subway with a train coming. Sadly, it's not as cool as it sounds.

The most egregious problem, as I see it, is the shoving aside of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi story in favor of a generic Hollywood action movie. The story of Paycheck is a man who builds a machine that can see the future. He then forgets the future he saw, and only through a Sherlock Holmes set of clues can he reconstruct his memory to save the future. The implications of seeing the future, of seeing your own future and changing your fate, these are high minded ideas that are hinted at in the film but quickly shoved aside for gunfire and car chases.

Ben Affleck is my boy but Paycheck is a second consecutive misstep after the god-awful Gigli. There is still hope for Ben with Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl coming in March but he needs to begin choosing his material a little better.

Only Spielberg's excellent Minority Report has come close to showing the potential of Philip K. Dick's material on screen. More often than not, Dick's idea-driven stories are like Paycheck. A clothesline from which to hang huge special effects and stunt sequences that may or may not be technical marvels but are definitely less interesting than the ideas that are the core of the stories.

As for John Woo, it's becoming increasingly apparent that it was hype as much as talent that brought him worldwide attention. Woo has turned out a few exciting action pictures since coming to Hollywood but for the most part he has become a cog in the Hollywood money machine, pumping out easy to market, demo-driven, action trash. Special effects films that have posters before they have scripts that he brings a modicum of style but little else. What a shame.

Movie Review Dragonfly

Dragonfly (2002) 

Directed by Tom Shadyac

Written by Brandon Camp, Mike Thompson, David Seltzer 

Starring Kevin Costner, Susanna Thompson, Joe Morton, Ron Rifkin, Linda Hunt, Jacob Vargas 

Release Date February 22nd, 2002 

Published February 21st, 2002 

Kevin Costner has made himself the subject of ridicule in recent years as his ego began to outpace his creativity. Costner began to believe the things being written about him, about his sex appeal and his ability to open a film. This ego feeding caused Costner to push through a number of lame vanity projects that he assumed, because he's Kevin Costner, of course they will be hits. Well they weren't and now maybe he's getting it. In his most recent effort, Dragonfly, Costner doesn't write, produce or direct, he just acts. And it's the best acting he's done in a very long time.

In Dragonfly, Costner is Dr.Joe Darrow the head of emergency surgery at some nameless hospital. Joe's wife Emily (Susanna Thompson) is also a doctor, head of oncology working with child cancer patients. Emily is also a missionary who travels to Venezuela to treat sick kids against Joe's wishes. Joe thinks it's too dangerous and sadly he is correct. Soon after Emily arrives in Venezuela she and her patients are in a bus that gets caught in a mudslide that drops the bus in a river, killing everyone inside. Or at least we think it killed everyone.

Back in the states Joe is not dealing with his wife's death, instead he is working 15 hour shifts in the ER against the better judgment of his boss, the invaluable Joe Morton. Of course Joe doesn't care what anyone says and despite agreeing to take time off he still shows up at the hospital to visit his wife's patients. It is then that Dragonfly launches into its supernatural bent, with the children's near death experiences leading Joe to believe his late wife is trying to reach him from beyond the grave. That is if she's dead, her body will never recover.

Costner expertly plays the film's supernatural elements against a background of rational cynicism. There are a great deal of logical explanations of near death experiences, many of which the film intelligently lays out. Also as Joe's friends point out, wanting to speak to his late wife is what Joe wants, so it's not inconceivable that he is making these things happen himself.

Costner is backed by one of the best supporting casts I've seen this year including the aforementioned Joe Morton, Ron Rifkin, Jay Thomas and a woman who is becoming one of my favorite actresses, Kathy Bates. Bates plays Miriam, Joe's neighbor and lawyer who does her best to take care of him as both mother figure and best friend. Bates is amazing and never gets enough credit for her amazing work. This film will likely be forgotten by Oscar time, but nonetheless her performance more than warrants a nomination.

The film's only problem is director Tom Shadyac, the guy who lensed Patch Adams can't keep his mushy side in check. While Costner expertly balances emotion and intellect, Shadyac constantly aims for the heartstrings, especially towards the film's sap-covered climax. Aside from the excess sap, Dragonfly is a worthy rental based on the performances of Costner and his superior supporting cast.

Movie Review: The Night Listener

The Night Listener (2006) 

Directed by Patrick Sterner 

Written by Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson, Patrick Sterner 

Starring Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Bobby Cannavale, Joe Morton, Rory Culkin, Sandra Oh 

Release Date August 4th, 2006 

Published August 3rd, 2006 

In 2002 author Armistead Maupin, best known for the New York portrait Tales of the City, began a correspondence with a fellow author. This was, however, no respected colleague of Maupin's but rather, a teenager whose book was a chronicle of abuse and redemption. The author and the kid shared letters, then phone calls and eventually Maupin was promising the possibility of cash and gifts to help the kid and his adopted mother in their time of need.

Eventually however, cracks in the teens story began to show. Something began to nag at Maupin, who, along with his editor, began to suspect that this extraordinary teenage author did not exist. The hoax was later revealed to have taken in not only Mr. Maupin but a number of journalists and talk show host Keith Olbermann.

The story of the hoax became the source of a unique new novel from Mr. Maupin called The Night Listener, in which Maupin morphed the story of this child con-man, revealed to be woman in her thirties, into a thriller involving a national radio host and a hoax involving a teenage writer and his creeptastic caretaker. The Night Listener is now a major motion picture starring Robin Williams as radio host Gabriel Noone. Known for his storytelling, most often taken from his own life as a gay man in New York City, Gabriel has a national following that happens to include a young cancer patient and author named Pete Logand.

Through his book editor, played by the terrific Joe Morton, Gabriel begins a correspondence with Pete that begins with letters, progresses to long detailed phone conversations, and eventually the promise of money to help with the treatment of Pete's cancer. As in Armistead Maupin's real life experience, the cracks in the story begin to slowly emerge. Questioning Gabriel's intense commitment to his young unseen friend, Jess (Bobby Cannavale), Gabriel's ex-boyfriend, begins asking important questions that Gabriel had overlooked.

With his faith shaken by these questions and pressure to send help to the seemingly dying boy, Gabriel travels to where he believes the boy lives with his adopted mother Donna (Toni Collette), and what he finds begins the unfolding of a very compelling mystery thriller that never seems to go the way you think it will. Patrick Stettner directs The Night Listener outside the typical beats of a thriller. His interest is more in the story than in shocking audiences with bloody twists and turns. Allowing his story and characters to invent the tension, Stettner crafts a strong atmosphere and let's the thriller aspects of the film grow around the story organically.

Robin Williams delivers his best dramatic performance since his Oscar winning role in Good Will Hunting in The Night Listener. His Gabriel is a loving but wounded older man in just the perfect position to be taken in by this hopeful, worshipful young boy. Williams makes all of Gabriel's actions in the film feel natural and believable, never overplaying the shock or dismay that Gabriel encounters throughout the picture. 

Sadly, if there is a weak link in The Night Listener, it is Toni Collette's Donna who is something of a creepy cartoon in the film. Near the end, as the plot reveals itself, Collette has a scene that redeems much of her performance in just a few lines but overall, a dialing down of her persona throughout the movie would have helped the picture immensely.  There are little problems with The Night Listener, but thanks to the performance of Robin Williams and the sure handed direction of Patrick Sterner, in his second feature following 2001's The Business of Strangers, The Night Listener is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys a well acted, compelling mystery based loosely on a true story.