Movie Review: 2012

2012 (2009) 

Directed by Roland Emmerich 

Written by Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser 

Starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson

Release Date November 13th, 2009

Published November 12th, 2009 

2012 hysteria has gotten so out of hand that NASA was compelled to put out a press release stating that the Mayan Calendar does not predict the end of the world. Indeed, the planets will align in 2012 but they will as they have numerous times before without massive worldwide destruction. Could there be a better endorsement for the new goofball disaster flick 2012? This latest project from world destruction expert Roland Emmerich goes off the rails of reality from jumpstreet but knows it, accepts it, and even has a little fun being all earnest and serious about stuff blowin' up real good.

John Cusack leads an ensemble cast in 2012 as Jackson Curtis. A failed writer, Jackson drives a limousine for a living and that is how he arrives to take his two kids camping for the weekend. Jackson is estranged from his wife Kate (Amanda Peet) who has remarried to a plastic surgeon, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).

Jackson is taking the kids camping at a rather odd moment. All over California giant cracks are forming. There are a number of mini-earthquakes and other ominous signs of doom that Jackson and family choose to ignore. Meanwhile, across the country a government geologist, Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has discovered that the end of the world is nigh.

The sun is firing off flares that become neutrinos that are heating the earth's core and blah, blah, blah, let's just say science is merely a touchstone for 2012 and leave it at that. The necessary info is that the world will soon end. What luck that there is a solution in place. Giant ships called Arcs will whisk the wealthy, privileged and connected of the world to safety on the high seas while the average folks die horribly.

Thanks to a wacked out, Art Bell wannabe, well played by Woody Harrelson doing a fabulous Dennis Hopper impression, ....Jackson.... finds out about the Arcs and aims to get his kids, ex-wife and even his romantic rival to ..Asia.. where the Arcs are being loaded up.

Basic set up, establish the stakes, establish our everyman hero and then rain down the CGI destruction. You have to give this to Roland Emmerich, the idea is efficient. If only the actual film were so cut to the quick. 2012, despite many guilty pleasures, lingers for nearly three hours blowing up monuments and killing dignitaries.

If you enjoy carnage and human sacrafice then you may marvel at watching priests crushed by the Sistine Chapel. The Pope gets crushed by the ....Vatican.... and the President of the ....United States....? He gets an aircraft carrier named for John F. Kennedy dropped on him.

Roland Emmerich really enjoys these scenes to much. Really, it's rather unseemly, the pleasure that Emmerich seems to take in staging these CGI deaths. It's comparable to the joys that a director like Eli Roth takes in torturing his average Jane characters, minus the misogyny but with a healthy dose of blasphemy.

It is that unseemly quality, along with the film's exorbitant length, that makes me resist liking 2012. And I really kinda want to. The CGI destruction is well crafted and even kind of exciting, especially watching a commuter plane fly between falling buildings.

John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor are shockingly effective in building human surrogates from the rubble of expository dialogue, running and screaming that are the main components of their characters. Amand Peet, Danny Glover and Thandie Newton round out a main cast right at home in a disaster movie ensemble. 

I kind of want to recommend 2012 because there is some real good camp and some terrific CGI. Unfortunately, the film overstays its welcome and becomes a little to blood lusty for my taste. The seemingly random fates of well known heads of state, and a few filler characters, leave a bad taste that I just cannot shake. 

2012 is a movie for the forgiving fan of big, dumb loud, world ending blockbusters only.

Movie Review: War Inc

War Inc (2008) 

Directed by Joshua Seftel

Written by John Cusack, Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser

Starring John Cusack, Hillary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Dan Akroyd

Release Date May 23rd, 2008

Published November 12th, 2008

Mention the plot of War, Inc. and inevitably people flash back to the cult classic Grosse Point Blank. That was the last time that John Cusack played a black clad hetmans who is re-humanized by falling in love. War, Inc. finds Cusack once again as a black clad hit man, cold blooded when we meet him but neurotic enough that a good woman could straighten him out and make him  a better man. So why does Grosse Point Blank work so very well and War, Inc. fail? Read on dear reader.

In War, Inc. John Cusack plays Brand Hauser, a hit man on hire by corporations for military assassinations. You see, in this future world there are no more countries or states of power, only corporations with their own agendas and military arms. One of these unnamed corporations is run by a former Vice President (Dan Akroyd) who looks strangely familiar with his thinning white hair and sailor talk.

The former VP has hired Brand to go to one of the -Istan countries where war has brought peace and hardcore capitalism, at least within the safety of the countries largest city. Outside that safe zone the strife and death is rather horrifying. Brand is sent in to kill a leader of a different country who wants to build an oil pipeline without the aid of the corporation.

Brand's cover is that he is a producer behind a huge international trade show meant to show the world the importance of capitalism and corporate branding. The signature event of the show will be a western style marriage for the countries top pop star Yonica Babyyeah (Hillary Duff). Hauser is to kill his target and make sure the wedding comes off without a hitch, but why does the pop star freak him out so much?

Meanwhile, Hauser becomes infatuated with a crusading journalist who wants to expose what is happening beyond the safety of the so called Emerald Zone. She is Natalie (Marisa Tomei) and though she suspects Hauser is just playing her off to keep her from writing what she wants she eventually see's the wounded man-child he truly is, as well as his darker side.

War, Inc. is the brainchild of writers Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser and director Joshua Seftel who envision a future not entirely unlike the imaginings of a William Gibson or Phillip K. Dick. The movie has all of the paranoia and subtext of classic sci fi without the actual sci-fi. It's a deeply cynical, dyspeptic take on our current government and it's approach to the middle east without the subtlety that made Gibson or Dick so brilliant.

All of the punches thrown by War, Inc. in the direction of the Bush Administration foreign policy are obvious and relatively unfunny. Even if you agree that corporate greed and our current foreign policy are scary, the shots taken at them in War, Inc. are too obvious and heavy handed to draw anything more than a smile of recognition. 

John Cusack is both a clear choice for this role and a strange one. He fits the role like a glove but it's because he's played it before and far better than this. What is there to differentiate this hit man from his Grosse Point Blank hit man? A name? They have the same philosophy, killing without the interference of state or ideology.

They have the same neuroses as well, Martin deals with his in therapy, Brand with long talks with his On Star rep in his Humvee. Brand does have the quirk of drinking hot sauce but most of the major differences don't work in this movies favor. Where Grosse Point Blank was sly and stylish with a kickass soundtrack, War, Inc. is lumbering, predictable and heavy-handed.

War, Inc. wants to be edgy, violent satire. Instead we get a cynical, predictable trip through the muck of a muddy satire taking obvious shots at broad as a barn topics and missing as often as it hits. John Cusack remains a charismatic presence and Hillary Duff has never been this good but they are lost and adrift in this smug, wannabe satire.

Why rent this John Cusack hit man movie when you could get Grosse Point Blank?

Movie Review Hot Tub Time Machine

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) 

Directed by Steve Pink

Written by Josh Heald, Sean Anders, John Morris

Starring John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry, Chevy Chase, Lizzy Caplan

Release Date March 26th, 2010 

Published March 25th, 2010

When The Hangover became the breakout comedy of 2009 it was inevitable that movies about 4 overgrown juveniles getting drunk while on vacation for whatever reason would become a trend or even its own sub-genre. Just watch the DVD shelves, it's coming. The first of what may be perceived as a Hangover knockoff to arrive in theaters is Hot Tub Time Machine.

John Cusack stars as Adam an a-hole insurance salesman who has clearly done something to make his girlfriend leave him; his house has been ravaged by her moving out. Adam's buddy Nick (Craig Robinson) has it worse, working as a dog groomer with a wife he knows is cheating on him. Even still, their pal Lou is in worse shape; he may or may not have tried to kill himself while rocking out to Motley Crue.

As a way of cheering up Lou, Nick and Adam have planned a getaway to the ski resort where they spent many weekends in their hopeful youth. Tagging along is Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) who has spent far too much time on his computer -his Second Life character is spending three years in prison- Adam figures he needs some human contact.

The resort was once a hotspot but now it's a run down dump. On the bright side, after a call to the front desk, the hot tub starts working. It works so well in fact that it becomes a time machine and sends all four guys back to 1986. With the time space continuum at stake, and a physics lesson from the original Terminator movie, the guys agree they must not alter the past or else.

Hot Tub Time Machine plays like The Hangover with time travel. Rob Corddry, best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show, plays the Zach Galifianakis character, replacing creepy childlike naiveté with creepy intensity and slapstick. Cusack is the Bradley Cooper character with all sharp angry humor and Robinson is the sheepish one waiting to break out a la Ed Helms.

The characters don't match exactly; Clark Duke gets far more screen time than Justin Bartha did in The Hangover, but with the binge drinking and wild time schtick the films are certainly in the same vein. Where The Hangover played something of a comic mystery plot for big laughs, Hot Tub Time Machine relies on heavy doses of nostalgia and clever references.

Cusack in and of himself as a reference to multiple 80's classics from Say Anything to Better off Dead to One Crazy Summer. None of those films get a direct name check but Cusack does ski in Hot Tub Time Machine, the black diamond, not the K-12 unfortunately, and listen closely and you might hear someone shouting for their two dollars.

Crispin Glover drops in as another self referential 80's joke; Glover was of course Marty's dad in Back to the Future, a film that earns a few laughs for Hot Tub Time Machine along with any comedy about skiing. And yet still another walking punchline, I mean that as a compliment, Chevy Chase pops up in a funny cameo as the Hot Tub Repairman/time travel guru.

Hot Tub Time Machine then throws in one more fabulous 80's cameo that I don't want to spoil; I'll just say Cobra Kai and leave it at that. Hot Tub Time Machine bursts with aching nostalgia that will either delight or invite a nauseous sort of state as one is reminded just how old they truly are.

Yes, Hot Tub Time Machine is easy to write off as a movie taking advantage of the well plowed path of The Hangover but that film didn't have time travel. That's certainly enough of a difference to allow you to forgive the many familiar elements. John Cusack is excellent as always while the rest of the cast brilliantly has his back.

If I may add a cheesy critic’s one liner to close: Take a dip in the Hot Tub Time Machine. Ha!

Movie Review Max

Max (2002)

Directed by Menno Meyjes

Written by Menno Meyjes

Starring John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Leelee Sobieski

Release Date September 20th, 2002

Published November 4th, 2002 

There are problems inherent in dramatizing the life of any real person. But imagine trying to dramatize the life of a man who is considered the most evil person in history. The thought of making a movie about a man who so coldly and calculatedly orchestrated the murder of millions of people, not through war, but through genocide. War is one thing. Soldiers die in a war and are willing participants. 

Adolf Hitler's murder of Jews, gypsies, and countless others, an estimated more than 12 million people, during World War II was an act of pure hatred and incomprehensible evil. To dramatize the life of Hitler would mean an attempt to humanize this man whose history has borne out a monster on par with Satan himself. The movie Max from writer-director Menno Meyjes makes just that attempt, to humanize Hitler as a struggling artist whose gifts were recognized by many but never fully understood.

The Max of the title is Max Rothman played by John Cusack. Rothman, a former German officer who served in World War I, was an aspiring artist until he lost his arm in the great war. Now running an art gallery out of a converted train station, Rothman meets a young artist who shyly asks him to show his work in the gallery. The artist is a corporal in the German army who also fought in World War I and now lives in near poverty on an army base. 

His name is Adolf Hitler and though Rothman finds the kid to be a little odd and disturbed, he recognizes potential in Hitler's art and encourages him to go deeper and paint something that channels the rage that he exudes. Hitler would like nothing more than to support himself as an artist but he is also a German patriot who doesn't like the direction his country is taking.

The conversations between Hitler and Rothman about politics and art being related and the nature of both being one aim are intriguing but never fully explored. The ideas put forth in Max about art and politics can't be dealt with because the surface of the film is dominated by the fact that one of the men involved in this conversation is Adolf Hitler. It is inescapable; you can't watch Hitler, played by Almost Famous' Noah Taylor, without thinking, my god that's Hitler as an artist. It's too surreal to think of Hitler as anything other than the evil slimebag he obviously was.

That surrealism only turns further and further in on itself the more Rothman and Hitler talk. When Max offers to buy Hitler lemonade you can't help but think, a Jew is buying Hitler lemonade. As Rothman makes comments that would be ironic if the character knew what was going to happen, you can't help but chuckle at the surreal aspect of the statements. No doubt the ironic dialogue is intentional but that just calls attention to how surreal it is.

Cusack is one of my favorite actors of all time but he seems miscast in his role. He makes no attempt at an accent which I can understand. If he can't do an accent, he shouldn't, but everyone else in the film from Leelee Sobieski as Rothman's mistress to Molly Parker as Rothman's wife are doing some sort of vocal affectation which make Cusack's lack of accent all the more noticeable.

Taylor does what he can in a thankless role. He does evoke Hitler's most memorable traits as we remember them from historical footage. Particularly, he captures Hitler's insane rage that was fiery enough to scare an entire country into thinking he was a genius.

I did like Rothman's observation of Hitler's work, especially when Hitler showed Rothman his vision of the future, his drawings of the Swastika, the army uniforms and such that Rothman later refers to as kitsch. Essentially, Rothman thought Hitler was kidding or just putting on some kind of artistic act. Yet another point of irony.

History tells us that the Max Rothman character in Max is an amalgamation of a number of different men who attempted, and obviously failed, to mentor Hitler during his starving artist period. The fact that Rothman isn't a real person is yet another roadblock for Meyjes, whose drama hinges on audience sympathies being with Rothman. Knowing that this story is only vaguely near the truth negates the film's climax that, while beautifully shot by cinematographer Lajos Koltai, feels as false as history says it is. Where there should be poignancy there is a flat feeling of detached irony.

There is something too far out there in hearing someone tell Hitler he needs to get laid, or hey, Hitler, how are you, or hey, Hitler, let me buy you a lemonade. It's just too surreal for a drama and the fact that Cusack's laid-back, detached performance is laced with ironic dialogue that the character doesn't know is ironic only serves to further distance the audience from the material, making any sort of emotional involvement impossible. Max is a misguided effort, a film that is well shot but impossible to take seriously. -

Movie Review: 1408

1408 (2007) 

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom

Written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski 

Starring John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Shalhoub

Release Date June 15th, 2007 

Published June 14th, 2007 

Adaptations of horror master Stephen King's many novels and short stories can't be called hit and miss because there are far more misses than hits. Hollywood has failed on numerous occasions to capture the nuances and intricacies of King's psychological approach to horror. Whether it's timidity, Hollywood producers unwilling to go the extremes of King's writing or if it were simply that King's work is unadaptable to the film medium, we really have yet to see one filmmaker find the right take on King's unbelievably popular work.

The latest attempt to bring King's work to the screen is arguably the most successful yet. 1408 is a short story about a disillusioned writer searching for ghosts in corporeal form and in his own psyche.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a hack who writes fake creepy stuff about tourist trap hotels that purport to have ghosts. Mike is nearly burnt out on searching for the supernatural and never finding it when he stumbles across the legend of room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. It's a room where numerous murders and suicides are alleged to have taken place.

Unlike most of the tourist trap fleapits that claim a paranormal connection,  Mike discovers that the management at the Dolphin Hotel, lead by Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) aren't interested in promoting their haunted history. Olin does all he can to try and discourage Steve from staying in 1408. Explaining that murders and suicides weren't the only occurrances of death in 1408, Olin goes as far as to give Steve the entire gory history of 1408 if he will just not stay there.

Unfortunately, Steve comes to believe this is merely part of the spiel to sell the creepiness of the room. He insists on getting the keys and despite Olin's ominous warnings, he's prepared to spend the night in 1408 come hell or high water. Little did he know hell and high water are literal features of this room.

Mikael Hafstrom, whose last film was the overwrought thriller Derailed, directs 1408 with an eye for dream like detail. Watch the way the room is filmed, how things are always slightly off. Doorways, hallways, paintings all seem to shift uncontrollably and yet ever so subtely that you only notice if you  begin to really look for it.

That said, there is fair debate as to whether what happens in 1408 is meant as a sort of fever dream of depressed writer on the edge of sanity or if this is in fact the evil of the room working its mojo. It's that compelling mix that keeps you guessing throughout this endlessly clever, scary, entertaining film.

John Cusack's complicated performance in 1408 is one of the most fascinating of his underappreciated career. Considering that much of the film takes place with Cusack alone in a hotel room, acting by himself, you must be impressed with his technique and endless charisma. Using the device of a tape recorder to allow Cusack's writer to talk to us aloud, director Mikael Hafstrom trains his camera tightly on Cusack's upper body and head giving us that tight claustrophobic feel.

We are trapped with Cusack in this room and Hafstrom uses his camera to shrink the room around us. It's a remarkable piece of direction that will chill the spine and push you to the edge of your seat. Hafstrom is the rare director who gets the spirit of King's very internalized form of horror. Many other King adaptations have picked up on the more twisted or gory aspects, 1408 is the first to tap the mind of King and follow his disturbing psychic instructions.

A taut psychological horror flick, 1408 far surpasses the product that passes for horror in this day and age. 1408 proves that you don't need idiot teenage characters in tight clothes (or no clothes at all), sadistic directors, or pseudo porn to make a horror film. This is a movie that thrives and scares with smarts and technique.

1408 is also the very rare example of a Stephen King adaptation that actually looks and feels like a King work. Terrifyingly cerebral, 1408 is Stephen King brought to the big screen for the first time in his finest form.

Movie Review Martian Child

Martian Child (2007) 

Directed by Menno Meyjes 

Written by Seth E. Bass, Jonathan Tolins

Starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Joan Cusack, Sophie Okenedo, Oliver Platt, Bobby Coleman 

Release Date Novemer 2nd, 2007

Published November 1st, 2007 

I will never understand why Hollywood film studios spend millions to make a movie and then abandon it. Take, for instance, the new dramatic comedy Martian Child starring John Cusack. The film was completed in 2005. It sat on the shelf for two years before trailers for the film began appearing in early 2007. It was supposed to come out back in the spring, then the summer, then in the fall, and now as we tilt toward winter the film is dropped into theaters with little fanfare.

Despite a popular star and a good marketing hook, Martian Child is not unlike its poor misguided protagonist, a child who believes he's from mars. Abandoned, dropped into the world, forgotten.

How sad.

David Gordon (John Cusack) was picked on a lot as a kid. It was traumatic but it fueled his imagination and it led him to become a successful science fiction writer. His past and his vocation are the main reasons why his friend Sophie (Sophie Okenedo), a social worker, thinks he would be the perfect guardian for Dennis (Bobby Coleman).

Dennis is a strange little boy who believes he is from mars. He is afraid of the sun and so he spends hours in a box. He doesn't believe in earth's gravitational pull so he wears a weight belt wherever he goes. David is terrified at first, and not just because Dennis thinks he's a Martian, but eventually he agrees to adopt Dennis and an unusual family is born.

You don't need a map to see where this plot is leading. Each character, especially the supporting characters, are obvious signposts that guide the plot to the next obvious moment. You know when you meet Richard Schiff's officious social worker that he will be something of a villain who may try to separate the new family.

When you meet Harlee, the sister of David's late wife, you know that Amanda Peet would not have been cast in this role if she weren't going to play an important role in the plot, likely as David's love interest. The only supporting character with some breathing room is Joan Cusack as David's sister. Never portrayed as a villain in the film, Joan gets both voice of reason and comic relief moments. This allows her to riff a little and the interaction between Joan and his real life older sister is one of the minor joys of this predictable little movie.

As predictable and stunningly simplistic as Martian Child is it is also good natured and well intentioned. John Cusack brings his trademark likability to the role of David Gordon and you believe every moment of his interaction with this strange boy. Yes, he does pour on the schmaltz a few times but there is just enough classic Cusack disaffection and self deprecation to offset some of the sap.

Unfortunately, director Menno Meyjes knows no other way to direct this material than by the book. If you've ever read the critical work of the great Roger Ebert you are aware of the hack movie concept of the false crisis/false dawn, real crisis/real dawn. It's the hackiest of plot contraptions and it plays to clockwork efficiency in Martian Child. Even the novice filmgoer can mark the moment when the false crisis and real crisis begin and end and easily predict how they will resolve.

Martian Child is not a horrible film. Any movie with John Cusack will struggle to be truly awful. It is far from being a good movie however. It just sort of exists as a forgettable throwaway movie that will pass from theaters and the memories of the few who see it without leaving much of an impression. I still don't understand why New Line Cinema treated this film so poorly though. It's not a good movie but it's not Kickin' It Old Skool either.

Movie Review Runaway Jury

Runaway Jury (2003) 

Directed by Gary Fleder

Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Matthew Chapman

Starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Jeremy Piven, Bruce McGill

Release Date October October 17th, 2003 

Published October 16th, 2003

John Grisham novels and the movies made from them are a guilty pleasure for millions. I say guilty pleasure because the work is often merely melodramatic potboilers that adopt legal and political stances that the author bends to his melodramatic will. Indeed, the law in a Grisham novel is often specious and more often than not inaccurate, but necessarily inaccurate to fit the story.

That said, the novels are also tightly plotted and populated by colorful Southern characters and terrific dialogue. It's easy for the non-lawyer crowd to forgive Grisham of his factual indiscretions because his work is just so damn entertaining. The latest of Grisham's work easily transplanted to the screen is Runaway Jury, a look at a trial from the jury's perspective.

John Cusack stars as Nick Easter, a seemingly normal video game store clerk. When Nick is called for jury duty, he reacts like most Americans, utter contempt and annoyance. However, that is merely a cover. Nick has been trying for jury duty and the opportunity to sit in on a huge lawsuit against gun manufacturers. Nick, along with his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz), are rigging the jury in a scam to soak either side to pay them $10 million dollars.

On one side is the noble Southern gentlemen Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), representing the wife of a stockbroker who was killed in an office shooting by a disgruntled employee with an illegally purchased semi-automatic weapon. It is Rohr's contention that gun manufacturers were aware of and rewarding the illegal sales of their guns by company owned gun stores.

On the opposing side, representing the gun manufacturers is Durrwood Cable (Bruce Davison). He however is merely the legal mouthpiece for a shady jury consultant named Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch is the gun manufacturer’s hired gun for rigging a favorable jury by any means necessary. With the help of his team of investigators, Finch compiles blackmail information against potential jurors.

That sets the tables for a number of clever twists and turns, but not so clever that they wink at the audience. Clever in the sense that they play directly to audience expectations. The twists don't surprise the audience, but they aren't insultingly predictable. Screenwriter Brian Koppelman does a great job of adapting Grisham's tight pacing and colorful characters, even as he is forced to change the trial from Grisham's tobacco companies to gun companies. I say forced to change because lawsuits against tobacco companies aren't exactly a fresh topic.

My favorite part of Runaway Jury however is the film’s unquestionably liberal politics. Where so many films shy away from taking a stand on an issue, Runaway Jury is clearly sympathetic to the liberal cause of gun control. The gun manufacturers are the most thinly drawn characters and their smoke-filled private meetings in which all the major gun companies discuss their conspiracy is so blatantly conspiratorial you marvel at the filmmaker’s brazenly malevolent portrayal.

Director Gary Fleder is the perfect director for Grisham. His last directorial outing was the non-Grisham Grisham movie High Crimes. Both films have a mere gloss of real law and are heavy on the melodrama. Both films cleverly cast their films with actors whose audience cache get us past minor plot holes and specious legal wrangling. Fleder has the same talent for pacing as Grisham and while the story is somewhat unwieldy with a number of small supporting characters that get lost occasionally, Runaway Jury is still a very entertaining legal thriller.

Movie Review Identity

Identity (2003) 

Directed by James Mangold 

Written by Michael Cooney

Starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Clea Duvall 

Release Date April 25th, 2003 

Published April 24th, 2003 

I have harped on this issue many times in many reviews, and though I know many readers have tired of my constant ranting on the subject. Nevertheless, I must once again complain about a movie’s ad campaign. While many felt the trailer for Identity is one of the best of the year thus far, and I don't disagree necessarily, I must complain about how much of the mystery it gives away.

Now the most observant of viewers will not solve the film’s mystery from the trailer. However, once you’re sitting in the theater and applying what you learned from the film’s marketing campaign, it doesn't take long for the mystery to fall apart. That said, thanks to the clever script and another stellar performance by John Cusack, Identity neatly transcends its predictability.

So we have a dark and stormy night, a lonely motel with a creepy clerk (John Hawkes), and a group of strangers with something in common. The setup is familiar, and the various homages are sprinkled throughout. Cusack plays Ed, a former cop turned limo driver for a diva ex star (Rebecca De Mornay). As Ed is driving the star to LA through Nevada, he accidentally hits a woman (Leila Kenzle) as she waits for her husband (John C. McGinley) to change a flat tire. The injury is life threatening, and the woman needs immediate medical attention. 

Unfortunately, the roads were washed out by the storm. Ed takes everyone to a roadside motel where they are joined by a cop (Ray Liotta) who is transferring a prisoner (Jake Busey). Also on hand is a prostitute (Amanda Peet), giving up her profession to go to Florida and start over and a young married couple (William Lee Scott and Clea Duvall) to round out the group. As soon as everyone is assembled, people start dying.

In parallel to this story is a court hearing for a convicted murderer (Pruitt Taylor Vince) whose psychiatrist (Alfred Molina) attempts to convince an obstinate judge that his patient is too insane to execute. The two stories don't dovetail early on, but if you are observant it won't take long to figure out the connection.

I'm not going to give anything away because I don't have to, the trailer does enough. Thankfully, Michael Cooney's script is so crafty and interesting that it saves the film from itself. He takes elements of Agatha Christie, Hitchcock and classic horror and mixes it with subtle nods to Freud and even Sartre. Along those lines, an early scene of a book in Cusack's limo is a wonderful inside joke you won't get until after the movie is over.

Cusack is the most effective of the doomed cast, none of whom seems the most likely to survive. Amanda Peet turns in another effective performance that takes advantage of her sexy presence and innate ability to earn audience sympathy. Ray Liotta, another of my favorite actors, seems dialed down a little from his intense performance in Narc and that is likely because his character is the most underwritten of the group.

If only the trailer hadn't given so much away, Identity could have been a really fun shocker that would have people talking for weeks after seeing it. Unfortunately, the film overplayed its hand and its biggest surprise was ruined for me before the second act. As it is, it's a cleverly written and well-directed Saturday night rental. But oh, what might have been.

Movie Review The Ice Harvest

The Ice Harvest (2005) 

Directed by Harold Ramis 

Written by Richard Russo, Robert Benton 

Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt 

Release Date November 23rd, 2005 

Published November 22nd, 2005 

Director Harold Ramis is best known for lighthearted comedy with an edgy intellect. His best work, 1993's Groundhog's Day, is such a true gem of a film that its polish has only shined brighter in the years subsequent to its release. Most credit for that film goes to Bill Murray's complex curmudgeonly existential performance. But, behind that performance was Ramis' sly, sneaky direction that played games with the audience that many did not discover until years later.

Even in lesser efforts like Analyze This and Analyze That, Ramis has at least delivered moments of pithy intellect and sly commentary. Ramis' latest effort Ice Harvest is nothing like anything he's directed before. A black hearted comic noir so thick with dark irony and detached violence one wonders if a late night cocktail of Pulp Fiction and Fargo somehow festered in Harold Ramis' dreams.

John Cusack stars in Ice Harvest as Charlie Arglist, a low level midwestern mob lawyer whose job seems to be holding down bar stools in mob controlled strip clubs. Charlie had never shown an ounce of ambition until a mobster named Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) convinced him to lift two million dollars in mob money from a local bank.

Getting the money was easy, now Charlie simply has to get out of Wichita. Unfortunately that will have to wait until morning as the entire town is nearly shut down due to an ice storm. Vic also has a few loose ends to tie up before they can go, including his soon to be ex-wife and a mobster, Roy (Mike Starr), who has discovered Vic and Charlie's scam.

Charlie is not simply waiting out the storm either. He is hiding from Roy while being seduced by Renata (Connie Neilsen), the manager of one the many strip clubs Charlie frequents, who is well aware of the money Vic and Charlie stole and has an eye on joining them in their getaway. Before Charlie can close that deal however, there is the matter of his best friend, Pete (Oliver Platt), who has chosen this night to get record-breakingly drunk and only Charlie can help him get home.

Pete happens to be married to Charlie's ex-wife which leads to an awkwardly humorous scene where Pete confronts his wife's growing dissatisfaction with their marriage in the midst of Christmas dinner at her parents house as Charlie stands by saying goodbye to his young daughter and unhappy son who he never sees. Platt is very funny in the scene but his plot really has little or any relation to the rest of the movie.

The rest of the film is full of double and triple crosses, bodies pile up high and all the while director Harold Ramis and writers Richard Russo and Robert Benton can't decide if they are making a dark comedy or a modern noir. Cusack's performance is, for the most part, dark comedy. Charlie assesses every plot development with a cowardly paranoia and suspicion that makes him the butt of every joke and the comic victim of every other character in the film.

In fact most of the cast is playing dark comedy. Thornton plays it cool for the most part but then there is the scene, featured prominently in the films trailer, where he has stuffed Roy in a trunk and comically beats it with a golf club which is straight slapstick. This is followed by a funny exchange in the car on the way to dump the body as Roy, in the box, attempts to save his life by convincing Charlie that Vic is going to kill him too and run off with all the money. The scene is funny but nothing after it is and much of what comes before it is unamusing as well.

As Cusack, Thornton, Platt and Starr are all playing dark comic riffs, Ramis is directing a bleak, mean spirited and violent Coen brothers' style anti-thriller with Neilsen's femme fatale and Randy Quaid's mob boss clearly not in on the rest of the cast's joke. The film shifts uncomfortably from ugly violence to black comedy, never able to incorporate the two in a way that makes both work.

Ice Harvest is shot as confusingly as it is plotted. Certain scenes have the bleak grays and blacks and dark colors of a noir mystery right down the rascotro lighting. Other scenes feature the bright colors and slick styling of any major mainstream comedy. A scene of Charlie standing in the empty frozen tundra of a Kansas highway is straight noir but the scenes between Cusack and Oliver Platt are from a dysfunctional holiday comedy filled with brightly decorated Christmas items. The shooting further muddies the line between the film's noir and dark comic intentions.

John Cusack does find a way to make his hapless loser Charlie work in terms of winning the audience to his side. Even as Charlie engages in some of the bad behavior in the film he retains an air of detached observation. With every dark development Charlie rarely gets riled up, he merely rubs his eyes in frustration and gets down to the distasteful business of surviving this one extraordinarily difficult night.

Oliver Platt's performance is equally as winning as Cusack's. The two actors spark a terrific chemistry in the few scenes they have together. Despite his oafish and even rude actions, Platt's sad sack Pete is very sympathetic in his sad drunken way. Had the film been able to straighten out the problems with its tone Platt and Cusack's performances alone could have made Ice Harvest a worthy effort.

It's not that dark comedy and modern noir are mutually exclusive genres.  It's just a difficult balancing act to make the two elements work together. Fargo, for example, works on both levels because of its exceptional cast and the assured direction of the Coen brothers. Ice Harvest director Harold Ramis is unable to find the balance between the comic performances of his cast and the dark action script.

Ramis wants to escape his reputation as a director of light comedy and indulge his dark side but his comic instincts are uncontrollable and express themselves in the direction of his actors. Ramis clearly wants to indulge his dark side in Ice Harvest but he cannot quiet his crowd pleasing instincts. After years of light, entertaining comedies, Ramis is very in tune to giving the audience the simple pleasures that most seek. Ice Harvest is not a film as a whole that can or should give audiences what they want.

The film's happy ending underscores my point. Watching Charlie escape with the money, and with his pal Pete, I could feel the gears turning as Ramis attempted to please the audience with a pseudo-happy ending. But what did Charlie do to deserve a happy ending? Granted that both Cusack and Platt are very good together and earn our sympathy, their plot is from an entirely different movie. Charlie still did a lot of unforgivable things and punishing him in a darkly ironic way would have been a more appropriate ending.

With a cast this talented Ice Harvest should be far more entertaining than it is. The failure lies with Ramis who, whether unwilling or unable, cannot find a way to mix his comic instincts with this black-hearted script. The result is a mixed bag of darkly humorous moments and awkward modern noir violence. John Cusack delivers a dead-on performance but the film lets him down and more importantly it lets the audience down.