Movie Review Imitation Game

Imitation Game (2014) 

Directed by Morten Tyldum 

Written by Graham Moore 

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance

Release Date November 28th, 2014 

Published November 25th, 2014 

"Sometimes it is the very people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine."

The above line is a lovely bit of inspirational sentiment. I ask you to say it aloud to yourself. Now, imagine that line used by an actor in a movie as a bit of dialogue. It's clunky. Even in the sonorous tones of Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Imitation Game," the line sounds like someone banging a gong rather than speaking; it thuds loudly and is exposed as sentimental claptrap. 

Too much of writer/director Morton Tyldum's take on the life of legendary mathematician Alan Turing in "The Imitation Game" lands with the same kind of thud. This conventional biopic about a highly unconventional man spends a great deal of time playing at being a military thriller when it should have been a subversive, rebellious story of a complicated and tragic anti-hero. 

The failure of "The Imitation Game" cannot be laid at the feet of star Benedict Cumberbatch, who enlivens Alan Turing with great vigor and offbeat tics that are fitting with the picture of a man few people liked or understood. Cumberbatch could very well have given us the Turing biopic the world needs. "The Imitation Game" just simply is not it. 

The movie skirts Turing’s life. We see him as a World War II codebreaker, who personally earned the approval (NOT SURE BECAUSE I HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET) of Winston Churchill himself. We flash back to one of Turing's formative relationships as a closeted homosexual, and flash forward to Turing's arrest for indecency that eventually led to his alleged suicide.

There is a rich amount of story to tell here. Sadly, director Tyldum gets caught up in only the most audience-friendly aspect: World War II. 

Yes, what Turing did during the war is a remarkable and important piece of history. In short order, Turing created a machine that won World War II by cracking Germany's legendary Enigma machine. And he invented what would come to be the very first computer. Turing was the first to create a machine which, independently of human manipulation, solved equations and produced data. It's completely astounding. Yet, in "The Imitation Game," it is reduced to the function of a thriller plot involving double agents and MI6. 

The greatest injustice of "The Imitation Game" is saved for Turing's personal life. Turing was a homosexual in England when homosexuals were persecuted. In 1954 Turing was arrested for indecency after a male prostitute admitted to having been with Turing and attempted to rob Turing's home. Turing was forced to agree to chemical castration to avoid jail time. The subsequent treatment is said to have led to his depression and eventual suicide. 

Turing's death is a grotesque tragedy. But the film tosses it off in the final minutes with barely a comment. Why? My feeling is that the filmmakers and the studio lack conviction and fortitude. The thriller stuff, the World War II heroism and Sheldon Cooper-esque comedy about Turing's lack of social skills were an easier sell to a mass audience than the far bleaker but more interesting tragedy of Turing's death. 

In the end, "The Imitation Game" takes the easy way out. The filmmakers set up the most audience-friendly take on Turing, depicting his homosexuality and tragic death as inconvenient plot points on the way to the box office. What a shame. Here's hoping we get the Turing movie we deserve someday instead of this pale “Imitation.”

Movie Review Imagine Me and You

Imagine Me and You (2006) 

Directed by Ol Parker 

Written by Ol Parker

Starring Piper Perabo, Darren Boyd, Matthew Goode, Lena Headey

Release Date June 16th, 2006

Published June 24th, 2006

New Rule: Never watch a romantic movie after you have had your heart broken. You can't possibly be objective. Take for instance the new to DVD romantic comedy Imagine Me and You starring Piper Perabo. This pencil thin romance barely scratches the surface of it's characters and is certainly no visual wonder and yet I loved it. I loved it because like great comfort food even the most flawed romance can't help but instill good feelings.

Piper Perabo stars in Imagine Me and You as Rachel, an English girl on her wedding day. Like all brides she is beautiful and beaming in love. Her soon to be husband is Hector (Matthew Goode), Heck to his friends, a super nice guy, handsome, kind hearted and her best friend. According to the best man, Heck's best friend Cooper (Darren Boyd), Rachel and Heck have been married for years and are only now making it official.

The wedded bliss seems unstoppable even after Rachel meets Luce (Lena Headey) and the two have a typical romantic comedy meet cute, Rachel dropped her wedding ring in the punch bowl and Luce fished it out for her. The chemistry between the ostensibly straight Rachel and the openly gay Luce is palpable but Rachel just got married.

Nevertheless Rachel is feeling something and attempts to make friends with Luce but soon the attraction becomes undeniable and someone is going to get hurt.

It's not all that complicated a story. Poor Heck was doomed from the start of the film. We know this going in so all that director Ol Parker, in his debut picture, can do is try and be funny along the way to prolonging the inevitable which naturally comes with a chase to the airport, don't they always.

The key to Imagine Me and You are the performers. Piper Perabo, employing a surprisingly good British accent, uses her unending likability to smooth over much of the ill will her rather flighty decision making might engender. Lena Headey is a strong presence that any straight woman might have a hard time resisting. She too is likable and pleasant enough that we forgive her for breaking up the cute married couple.

Matthew Goode is a star in the making. Watch him in one of last year's best films, Woody Allen's Match Point, and now here in Imagine Me and You and his charisma is undeniable. The inevitable Hugh Grant comparisons are made only because he is British. Goode is far more weighty and present than Grant who could not pull off the performances Goode has in his first two features. Combining wit, charm and a deep soul Goode's Heck is the only character we truly feel that we get to know in the picture, everyone else is likable but pulled along by the plot.

Even as the characters are thin representations of real people and the plot is terribly predictable and the script is filled with awful platitudes about love at first sight, love eternal and all that romantic stuff, I can't find fault with such a lovable picture.

Never watch a love story when your heart is broken. Remember that. You might watch a movie like Imagine Me and You and with judgment impaired recommend it to all of your friends and various strangers. Like a great piece of comforting candy or ice cream, I can't help but love this ridiculous little romance Imagine Me and You.

Movie Review Leap Year

Leap Year (2010) 

Directed by Anand Tucker

Written by Harry Elfont

Starring Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott 

Release Date January 8th, 2010 

Published January 8th, 2010

The women's liberation movement in the universe of film consists of empowering women economically; they all get fabulous jobs in fashion or real estate or owning uncommonly successful restaurants. The liberation stops however once they have found a man. Such is the case of the new romantic comedy Leap Year starring the plucky Amy Adams.

Adams stars in Leap Year as Anna whose job is setting up apartments for sale. She doesn't sell the apartments; she merely dresses them for sale and makes fabulous amounts of money doing it. In a rare twist, Anna has already met a man, Jeremy (Adam Scott), who shares her love of status symbols and just the right apartment.

Anna and Jeremy have been together four years and just before he leaves for Ireland on a business trip Anna gets in her head that he is finally going to propose to her, so convinced that she and a friend actually practice being surprised when he asks. No surprise to anyone who's seen the film's trailer, Jeremy doesn't ask and Anna is briefly devastated.

After Jeremy's left a plan is hatched, Anna will fly to Ireland just in time for Leap Day, February 29th, a day in Irish tradition when a woman can ask a man to marry her. Now, the liberated woman of today might ask why a holiday is needed for a woman to ask a man to marry her. The makers of Leap Year ladies are unconcerned with such questions.

The leap day thing is merely a device to propel Anna on a madcap dash to Dublin. First her plane is diverted to Scotland then she gets stranded in an Irish village called Dingle where she seeks a ride from one of the locals. The only driver available is also the local pub and hotelier, Declan (Matthew Goode).

Surprise, surprise, Anna and Declan immediately choose to dislike each other. She's a shrewish, entitled bitch and he's easygoing, handsome charmer with a secret reason for not trusting women. If your eyes weren't rolling through the back of your head as you read that you have more self control than I.

So, off they go on a trip across the Irish countryside arguing and uh-oh falling in love with all of the requisite dopey rom-com roadblocks checked off like a shopping list at a cliché outlet. No surprise then to learn, the script comes from the makers of Made of Honor and Josie and the Pussycats.

We all know how this will end, anyone who’s seen the trailer for Leap Year knows how it will end. It's a romantic comedy and experience tells us that it is the journey and not the destination when it comes to the modern rom-com. Sadly, the journey in Leap Year is mostly tedious.

I say mostly tedious because along the way, though all the predictable beats are there, somehow a few grace notes sneak in. A script polish by Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy likely brought the scene where Anna and Declan clash at a wedding and then share a romantic walk in Dublin before she meets up with Jeremy.

These few good scenes however cannot make up for the inept series of clichés that precede them. Add to that the anti-feminist vibe of the whole thing. In the end, after all of the predictable crap plays out Anna throws everything away, the job she loved, the things she worked hard for just so that she can live the life of a doting wife. Yes, she's in love but why does that require her to give up all that she was.

Leap Year is yet another movie that falls back on supposed traditional values, the lazy notion that true fulfillment for a woman can only come in a traditional marriage, their hopes and dreams be damned.  . Don't be mistaken, choosing to be a wife and mother is as feminist as getting into the rat race but when a character is presented like Anna as having her own life and job, a genuine career that she appears to love and be quite good at, that the movie simply has her chuck aside for the desperate pursuit of traditional marriage, is this movie lazily reinforcing traditional stereotypical and anti-feminist values. 

I don't think the makers of Leap Year set out to undermine the notion of a working woman. Rather, I think Leap Year is a dimwitted comedy that lazily falls back on traditional gender roles because it's easier than trying to create fully fleshed out characters with lives of their own who have to choose to make compromises and sacrifices if they want to have a family and a marriage. Leap Year has no time for complexity or even a modicum of depth. And since the film also fails at being funny, there is little else to think about than how the movie lazily reinforces stereotypes. 

I realize that I am not supposed to care. I get that the filmmakers don't want to talk about this but the ignorance of these facts is a plague that infects far too many modern so-called romances. Leap Year is just the latest symptom of said plague.

Movie Review Official Secrets

Official Secrets (2019)

Directed by Gavin Hood

Written by Gavin Hood 

Starring Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Rhys Ifans

Release Date October 18th, 2019

Published October 18th, 2019 

Official Secrets is the kind of sturdy, unassailable drama that director Gavin Hood is good at making. Dispassionate and a little dull, longing for colorful characters to liven up the presentation, but filled with factual interpretation that is true to the subject and dramatized well enough to hold your attention and earn most of the feelings intended by the story being told. Call it the church of being just good enough. 

Official Secrets, a title I struggle to remember even as it is a title that fits well in the context of the story, stars Keira Knightley in the true story of Katherine Gunn,  a worker bee at a British intelligence agency in the midst of the most recent Iraq conflict. The American government is pushing hard for war and Tony Blair has become George W Bush’s go-to ally for getting the pro-war message out. Everyday, the case for war is growing and it will take a revolutionary act of defiance to slow it down. 

That was the act of Katherine Gunn, an act of revolutionary defiance. Gunn stole a memo from her work interpreting and transcribing intelligence drama for the GSA. In the memo was proof that the Americans were spying on members of allied countries in hopes of pressuring those countries to vote in favor of going to war against Saddam Hussein. Releasing this explosive memo to the public would be an embarrassment to British leadership and turn the British public further against the war. 

With the help of a war protesting friend, the memo goes from Katherine, through to a reporter at the Observer newspaper, Martin Bright who, with the help of his editor, Peter Beaumont (Matthew Goode) and a fellow reporter working in America, Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans), manages to confirm the information and print it in the newspaper. You assume from here that this is an inspiring story of a whistleblower but Official Secrets doesn’t seek to inspire as much as it strives to tell what really happened. 

The reality was that it took weeks before the memo was published and enough time passed that Katherine began to think it would never be printed and she was okay with that. Rather than being single mindedly obsessed with getting the truth out, Katherine is frightened and resigned to the fate of the world going to war even as she knows it should not be happening. When the memo is published, Katherine becomes exposed and rather than being inspired to the fight, she is dragged into defending herself before finally buying into her own cause. 

That’s pretty much as it happened in reality as well. Katherine Gunn became a revolutionary almost by accident. She wanted to stop the war but she was plagued by doubts and was even willing to forget about the whole thing and go on with her life while the war that she knew was illegal and unjust raged on. Katherine is a hero but a complex one and Keira Knightley does well to play that conflict and allow that to drive the narrative nearly as much as exposing the war as a fraud. 

Of course, this movie doesn’t do us much good now. Movies like Official Secrets feel obsolete in the wake of all that has happened, including the Iraq War, Afghanistan and the conflicts we appear to be readying for around the globe today courtesy of a President seemingly spoiling for a fight. It’s great to have a historic document like Official Secrets but the film doesn’t escape from the futility of the history that inspired it. 

You have a duty to stand against tyranny is a good message but not one that Official Secrets makes all that memorably or forcefully. 

Movie Review: Chasing Liberty

Chasing Liberty (2004) 

Directed by Andy Cadiff 

Written by Derek Guiley 

Starring Mandy Moore, Matthew Goode, Jeremy Piven, Annabella Sciorra, Mark Harmon

Release Date January January 9th, 2004

Published January 8th, 2004 

In my review of Mandy Moore's film debut A Walk To Remember, I employed the hack-y cliché “don't quit your day job” in reference to Ms. Moore's excruciatingly-bland performance. At that time, it was a justifiable, if horribly cynical, criticism of her performance. But that is no excuse for using such a cliché. Since then, Moore has made me eat those words (sort of.) Her pleasant turn in the pop-sensible teen drama How To Deal showed marked improvement over A Walk To Remember. Now, in her latest starring effort as the President's daughter in Chasing Liberty, Moore shows even more improvement as a charming, sweet leading lady.

Liberty is the secret service code name of Anna Foster who has spent her formative years in the largest possible spotlight. Anna is the 18-year-old daughter of a two-term President (Mark Harmon). When we meet Anna, she is about to head out on her first date ever. The date is a miserable failure that ends with Secret Service guns drawn on the boyfriend who mistakenly attempted a surprise gift. That's it for the boyfriend. Luckily, Anna has a trip with dad coming up that could provide an opportunity for fun, if she can shake the Secret Service.

On a state visit to Prague, Anna plans to meet up with a friend and head for Berlin for something called Love Fest. Dad doesn't want her to go but relents when she agrees to having a pair of top agents, Jeremy Piven and Annabella Sciorra, follow her. That plan falls apart though when dad breaks his promise and Anna is swarmed by agents while at a concert. To lose them, Anna gets the help of Ben (Matthew Good) who whisks her away on his scooter. What Anna doesn't know is that Ben is a Secret Service agent.

Thus begins a whirlwind romantic trip across Europe as Anna thinks she is evading the Secret Service while Ben fends off her advances while trying to keep up with her. Moore and Good have little chemistry and with all the next-big-thing talk about Good, I was surprised how wooden and dull he is. Moore, on the other hand, is effervescent. Comparisons to a young Doris Day are not unwarranted. She is sunny and sweet and has lost that cloying innocence that sacked her performance in A Walk To Remember.

Chasing Liberty is not a great film. It's full of typical romantic comedy clichés and those romantic dialogue bits that always pay off at the end. The typical eye-rolling moments of realization and forgiveness that you've seen a million times are not improved upon here. What makes the film nearly passable is Moore, who has found that kind of star quality that many actresses never find. Whenever she is onscreen, I couldn't help but smile. She is aided by a funny subplot involving Piven and Sciorra's Secret Service agents who fall in love while watching the first daughter fall in love.

Maybe it's my romantic idealism, but I have always wanted to backpack across Europe with a beautiful stranger and fall in love while scamming for places to sleep for a night or thumbing a ride on the back of a farm truck on it way to some tiny village that hasn't aged since the 1800s. Chasing Liberty captures some of that romantic idealism, especially in Moore's wonderfully likable performance.

Movie Review: The Lookout

The Lookout (2007) 

Directed by Scott Frank

Written by Scott Frank

Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher

Release Date March 30th, 2007 

Published March 29th, 2007 

Scott Frank made his name adapting the work of Elmore Leonard for the big screen. In fact, no other writer in the business has been able to so well capture Leonard's unique rhythm and humor as well as Scott Frank has. His scripts for Get Shorty and Out of Sight were smart and sophisticated Hollywood concoctions with perfectly executed mousetrap plots. Now working on his first outing as a writer-director,The Lookout, Frank brings the same smart sophisticated approach; minus the Elmore Leonard-isms but just as entertaining.

Chris Pratt had life by the tail. As a teenage hockey star he had a college scholarship all lined up. He had a beautiful girlfriend and a rich family to make certain that a life of ease awaited him. That life was shattered in one fateful moment. Driving drunk with his girlfriend and two friends on a desolate country road, Chris gets into a horrendous car accident. His friends were killed, his girlfriend lost a leg. As for Chris he lost his mind.

Not in the colloquial sense, but rather literally. Chris lost some of his brain and the ability to remember even his most recent activities. No more hockey. No more girlfriend and even his rich family has receded. Chris is left with his pain and a scar on his forehead. Now working nights cleaning a bank branch and living in a tiny apartment with a blind man (Jeff Daniels) for a roommate, Chris lives day to day off the little notes he must write himself in order to remember anything.

On one particularly frustrating night Chris doesn't go home. Instead he goes to a small town bar where he meets a sweet young girl named Luvlee (Isla Fisher) who thankfully doesn't seem to know who he is. Her friend Gary however, immediately recognizes Chris, they went to High School together. Gary shows Chris a little kindness and friendship and soon Chris has a whole new circle of friends. Unfortunately, Chris's new friends have ulterior motives. Gary and his gang are looking to rob a bank and with Chris's access to a local bank he's the perfect patsy.

That is the surface plot of The Lookout but the substance comes in the performance of rising star Joseph Gordon Levitt. An underappreciated young talent from his days on TV's bizarro alien comedy Third Rock From The Sun, Levitt has made an astonishing transition to indie films with three mind blowing performances. In Mysterious Skin he went into the heart of a teenage gay hustler with heartbreaking results.

In 2006 he starred in the popular indie noir Brick, a film that took a classic forties mystery plot into the halls of a modern high school. Now comes his most full bodied adult performance in The Lookout. Here Levitt plays wounded with such precision and heart rending truth that you can't help but be drawn into his world. As his new friends begin to take advantage of him your rooting interest is so invested that you move to the edge of your seat for the rest of the film.

Director Scott Frank amps up the tension by crafting a tight narrative with no fat, no extranneous elements. What is on the screen in The Lookout is only what is necessary to create this tense, clockwork plot. This no frills approach works to never let the air out of the room. Every scene has a near perfect level of tense pressure

The obvious comparison for The lookout is another tense, exciting short term memory based thriller, 2000's Memento. Both films examine unique characters through the prism of their limitations and finds the truth of their natures. Memento is the more artistically accomplished film but The Lookout is definitely the equal of Memento in terms of entertainment value.

A taut, pulse pounding thriller,The Lookout is smarter than most films of this abused genre. The thriller, much like the romantic comedy and the horror movie, has in recent years, given in to very simple, recognizable formula. Thrillers play out typical, easy to digest plots where one overwhelmed character takes on bad guys and uses standard thriller practices to overcome rote, prototypical villains.

Some filmmakers augment the typicality of the thriller with sleeze. Scott Frank in The Lookout overcomes the expectations of the genre by being smarter and more cunning than most. Combining a talented cast with a subversive plot and just the right amount of violence, The Lookout is set apart from other thrillers by moxie and brains.

The Lookout is one of the best films of 2007. A smart, savvy thriller that benefits greatly from the rising talent of star Joseph Gordon Levitt, a young actor with Oscar gold, no doubt in his future. Were there justice in the world of Hollywood, Levitt would be considered for his work in The Lookout. Sadly, there is no justice and thus the film is almost already forgotten by the Hollywood machine.

Still, there is me and you and everyone we know and we can and should pass this movie on to everyone. Great films like The Lookout are never appreciated in their time, don't let this one wait too long before you come to appreciate it.