Movie Review Reservation Road

Reservation Road (2007) 

Directed by Terry George 

Written by John Burnham Schwartz, Terry George 

Starring Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 26th, 2007

Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo engage in a suffering contest in the hit and run drama Reservation. Directed by Oscar nominee Terry George, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Professor Ethan Learner whose son is killed in a hit and run accident. The driver of the blue SUV that drove away into the night after killing the 10 year old boy was Dwight Arnow, a lawyer who was simply driving his son home after a game at Fenway Park. Dwight is divorced and at the time of the accident was answering yet another cell phone call from his ex-wife wanting to know when their son would be brought home.

Leaving the scene of the accident and returning home, Dwight hides his damaged car in his garage. He heads to work the next day in an attempt to pretend nothing is wrong. Meanwhile, Ethan is dealing with the police and finding that there is little that he can do besides suffer. Growing ever more frustrated with the glacial pace of the investigation, Ethan decides to hire lawyers to keep the fire burning under the police. In an unlikely, ironic twist Ethan hires Dwight’s law firm and Dwight’s boss assigns the case to him. Now Dwight is in a perfect position to get away with his crime except that his client is more diligent and determined than most and it’s clear some sort of confrontation must ensue.

Directed by Terry George and adapted by George and author John Burnham Schwarz from Schwarz’s award winning novel, Reservation Road stretches credulity to continuously place Dwight and Ethan on a collision course. As the film begins we are treated to a moving drama about loss, guilt, sadness and despair. Unfortunately, as the story is stretched and twisted to place Dwight in Ethan’s employ and interconnect them in other unlikely ways, the film slowly evolves into a weak suspense thriller. Dark, soulful performances by Phoenix and Ruffalo are wasted as George and Schwartz succumb to the mainstream pressure to make this story something it is not.

Reservation Road should not be a suspense thriller. This is a movie about sadness and loss, fathers and sons, guilt and innocence and the random nature of life. Things that happen in an instance can change lives forever. These are extraordinary themes, more than enough ammunition for a great drama. Combined with a cast of Oscar nominees and winners, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino join Phoenix and Ruffalo, the themes of Reservation Road should be more than enough to fill a very good movie. Sadly, the crass, commercial pressures of the movie business act upon Reservation Road and turn this moving drama into something people can chomp popcorn to.

Step by step as the film turns away from its dramatic core, it becomes more and more ludicrous and overwrought and it is truly, truly ashamed. With a little more care and concern, Reservation Road could have been something extraordinary.

Movie Review: Wisegirls

Wise Girls (2002 

Directed by David Anspaugh 

Written by John Meadows

Starring Mira Sorvino, Mariah Carey, Melora Waters

Release Date January 13th, 2002

Published February 12th, 2002

With all due respect to those of you with a marketing degree, there is no greater scourge in modern Hollywood than marketing. Say what you will about a film's marketing having nothing to do with the film's quality, the fact is that commercials, trailers and posters shape a viewer's point of view when seeing a film. The new-to-video Lions Gate release WiseGirls is a perfect case in point.

Everything in it's marketing would lead you to believe that Wisegirls is a comedy starring Mariah Carey, when in fact the film is a drama and Carey is merely a supporting character to Mira Sorvino's lead. I went in expecting a lame comedy and another chance to rip Mariah Carey's acting skills. Instead, I got a somewhat gripping mob drama from a female perspective that, because of it's marketing, will turn away many potential viewers.

Sorvino stars as Meg Kennedy, a former med school student who has moved to Long Island to live with her ailing grandmother and run away from her tragic past. With the help of her grandmother's caretaker. Meg finds work in an Italian restaurant that is run by the mob. At first Meg has no clue who she is working for, but her new friend Raychel (Carey) is quick to clue her in after one of their special clients accidentally shoots himself and needs Meg's medical training to save his life. 

Meg's first inclination is to quit but once she is clued into how much money she can make and how she would be able to care for her ailing grandmother, she puts aside her moral objections and keeps the job. In the meantime she and Raychel and another waitress named Kate (Melora Walters) bond and become close friends. That bond is tested after Meg witnesses her new boss murdering a man who attacked her. The authorities begin to close in on the restaurant, with particular interest in the things Meg witnessed, which include the murder and the drugs being funneled through the restaurant's kitchen.

WiseGirls is a rather surprising movie in it's first hour and twenty minutes. The film builds three very believable lead characters thanks to the strong performances of Sorvino, Waters and, I can't believe I'm saying this, Mariah Carey. Yes, its true, Mariah doesn't suck in WiseGirls. In fact, supporting character work seems to suit her. Her performance is relaxed and engaging, she makes Raychel a girl we all think we've met before.

It is Sorvino's performance that nearly pushes WiseGirls into being a good movie. Sorvino does a sensational job of earning the audiences sympathy. There's help from the script by John Meadows that allows her character to evolve in ways that are logical, if somewhat misguided. Sorvino's Meg shows the slippery slope that many of us could find ourselves on if we don't keep good company. Admit it, we all have that drug dealer friend that we only hang with in public for fear of being there when the cops bust him. The fact is that, much like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, we all have some connection to crime, organized or otherwise, and this film shows what happens when you allow those relationships to go to far.

Many reviews of this film have referred to the film's stereotypical mobster characters played by Arthur J. Nascarella and Christian Maelan amongst others. I honestly didn't think the stereotypes were as pronounced as most reviewers thought. The problem was the actors who seemed to be just going through the motions of their characters.

The biggest problem with WiseGirls is a serious one, it's ending. This film has possibly the worst ending of any film released in the last year. The ending is a total cop out and ruins any emotional crescendo that had risen into a strong cathartic moment. The ending ruined the movie for me.

That said, if you stop watching with maybe five or ten minutes left, you might walk away with a pleasant view of WiseGirls. But stay for those final moments, and you will be very disappointed.

Movie Review The Grey Zone

The Grey Zone (2002) 

Directed by Tim Blake Nelson

Written by Tim Blake Nelson

Starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne 

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 15th, 2002 

It's amazing, the amount of stories there are left to tell about World War 2. So many perspectives: Survivors, saviors, agressors and evildoers, each with their own story to tell.

No stories are as poignant as those of the survivors of the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List went inside the worst of the German concentration camps and now Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone takes the point of view of a German camp in Poland. Although The Grey Zone isn't the masterpiece that Schindler's List was, it is a moving and shockingly visceral film experience.

Of the many untold stories of the Holocaust one of the most heartbreaking is that of Jewish people who, to prolong their own lives, worked for the German soldiers preparing other Jews to die in the gas chamber. The Grey Zone takes us inside one of these groups called Sonderkommandos, considered by the German army to be among the most coldly efficient. However no matter how well they do their job fooling other jews into thinking they are just taking a mass shower and not being gassed to death, the members of this group are aware that no one in their position has ever lasted longer than four months and time is nearly up.

Amongst this group of self preservationists are a group of familiar faces including David Arrquette and Daniel Benzali. Working with them from another camp is an industrious Polish Jew played by Steve Buscemi who trades strategic information with this group as they plan an uprising. Another subplot involves a group of women including Mira Sorvino and Natasha Lyonne, working in a German munitions plant and stealing gun powder to use as part of the uprising.

The film seems to be a shocking story of the planning of an uprise while doing anything to survive, but it takes a far more human turn when a young girl survives the gas chamber and the Sonderkommandos risk the uprising to save her.

The film is based on a book by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli called Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eye Witness Account. Dr. Nyiszli, a Jewish doctor who stayed alive by agreeing to work with the evil Dr. Josef Mengele performing horrific experiments on jewish children. Dr. Nyiszli was at Auschwitz and was under the direct supervision of a commander named Muhsfeldt (Harvey Keitel). Muhsfeldt attempted to use the doctor to spy on the Sonderkommandos, whom he suspects of plotting something, though he isn't certain what. The doctor doesn't agree to spy, but offers by Muhsfeldt to save his wife and daughter may have led him to give more information than he may have wanted.

The Grey Zone offers no judgement of the Sonderkommandos and indeed it is difficult to take them to task for what they did. I would venture to say that the results of their treachery were punishment enough. They did what they could to survive and the uprising they planned and executed, blowing up a pair of German crematoriums, saved lives. These men and woman weren't saints but they were human, far more human than their captors, no matter what they were responsible for.

Director Tim Blake Nelson makes it two excellent films in a row. His sophomore turn behind the camera, the slickly-produced modern take on Shakespeare's Othello called "O", was a poetic and strikingly sad movie. It is however not nearly as sad or hard hitting as The Grey Zone, which is as gritty and frightening as it is sad. Even an actor of David Arquette's calibur can't ruin this powerful and emotional film.

Movie Review Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals (2003) 

Directed by Ronald F. Maxwell 

Written by Ronald F. Maxwell 

Starring Robert Duvall, Stephen Lang, Jeff Daniels, Mira Sorvino, Frankie Faison

Release Date February 21st, 2003 

Published February 20th, 2003 

The Civil War isn't quite the blockbuster story that popcorn-loving audiences seek out in search of escapist fare. So I must credit Ted Turner and the makers of Gods & Generals for attempting such a bold, non-commercial effort. That said, at well over three hours in length and with a decidedly pro-South approach, Gods & Generals is not only non-commercial, it's non-watchable.

A dramatic retelling of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Gods & Generals stars Stephen Lang as Southern Colonel Stonewall Jackson and Robert Duvall as General Robert E. Lee. On the Northern side it's Jeff Daniels reprising his role from Gettysburg as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, though since Fredericksburg is chronologically before Gettysburg, Chamberlain has just joined the Maine contingent of the Northern army on his way to becoming a Colonel. Duvall inherited the role of Robert E. Lee from Martin Sheen who held the role in Gettysburg. 

Of course I'm getting well ahead of myself. Gods & Generals details the beginning of a three part film series that again actually began with it's middle segment, Gettysburg, in 1993. This first installment is about how Virginia was drawn into the war on the side of the South. Representatives of President Lincoln offered General Robert E. Lee the command of all Northern armies to fight the secessionist South. Feeling sympathy for the South's states rights stance Lee declined and began to organize a Virginia regiment to fight on the side of the South. A Virginia Military Institute professor, Thomas Jackson, whose students are quick to join in, also joins Lee. Jackson joins up telling friends that his priorities are God, family, Virginia and country.

Looking for a quick end to the war, President Lincoln is prepared to fight Lee's Virginia troops and the supporting armies from the South in Fredericksburg, with the feeling that without Virginia, the South would fall quickly. Sensing a moral imperative to the end of slavery and reuniting of the country, a philosophy professor from Maine named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain joined the Northern army over the objection of his wife Fanny (Mira Sorvino, in a cameo role). Chamberlain is joined by his less idealistic brother Thomas (C. Thomas Howell), who doesn't believe in the cause as much as he believes in helping his brother.

Those are the recognizable characters, but like the classic Hollywood epics of the 1930's and 40's, there really is a cast of thousands. Thousands of actors and committed Civil War re-enactors came together under the direction of Ronald F. Maxwell, who also directed Gettysburg, to recreate The Battle of Fredericksburg with nearly flawless detail. From strategy to historic legend, right down to the costuming, Gods & Generals is as faithful as a movie could be to it's subject matter.

The accuracy and precision involved in the recreation of the battle is truly commendable. Unfortunately, all that surrounds it is snooze inducing. Speech after speech after speech drone on and on and on. When Lang, Duvall or Daniels isn't on screen, it's nearly impossible to tell the Northern and Southern armies apart, even as the recreation of the battle is extraordinarily detailed . In the awesome confusion of muskets and cannon fire, telling them apart becomes an entirely futile and exhausting effort and audiences are left out of the film until after the battle when the major characters are back upfront explaining who won the day and why.

That confusion however isn't the film’s biggest problem. The biggest problem is the script, which paints the army from Virginia as the noblest army ever to walk on to a battlefield. To watch Gods & Generals as pure history would lead one to believe that Stonewall Jackson was a combination of Superman and Ghandi. That's not to criticize Stephen Lang, who has a few very effective scenes. It would be difficult for any actor to portray Stonewall Jackson as the second coming of Christ but he does the best he can with the role. We can argue forever, and historians have, why the Civil War was fought, but in the end neither side could live up to the way they are portrayed in the script, written by the director Ronald Maxwell.

The film’s length at just under 7,200 hours is deathly. Actually it was just under 4 hours but it feels a lot longer. Though the battle scenes may hold your attention, the scenes that don't include massive explosions are tremendously dull and filled with pious speeches from characters that Maxwell seems to want to put up for sainthood. I don't mind long movies, I own the nearly five hour versions of Lord Of The Rings and Apocalypse Now Redux, but Gods & Generals has some obvious segments that even junior editors could easily clip out without hurting the film’s narrative in the least. One less interminable speech by Stonewall Jackson about God's judgment and the film would be half as long. 

What Gods and Generals needs more than anything iss an editor, a good one. An editor who could reign in the visionary director and hip him to the necessity for brevity in modern cinema. Gods and Generals would play better as a television movie, broken up over two or three days. There, the commitment to accuracy could be appreciated more while not taxing the backside of everyone watching it.