Movie Review: Traitor

Traitor (2008) 

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Written by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Starring Don Cheadle. Neal McDonough, Guy Pearce, Said Tagmaoui

Release Date August 27th, 2008

Published September 10th, 2008 

Traitor has a complicated premise that is difficult to describe without taking some of the suspense out of it. This may explain why Traitor arrived in theaters with little promotion and to confused and mostly indifferent potential audiences. Studio marketers simply could not turn the trick of enticing audiences without giving away the films most satisfying twists and turns. The marketing then comes down to star Don Cheadle and while he is a respected actor, the star of Talk To Me and Boogie Nights is still not a household name.

When Samir Horn (Cheadle) was a boy he watched his devout Muslim father killed in a car bombing. Taken from his home in Sudan to the United States by his mother, Samir was a brilliant student who joined the military, made special forces and then disappeared. After years off the grid from Chicago to various points in the middle east, Samir is captured in Yemen while building and selling bombs to a group of jihadists.

After befriending the terrorist leader Omar (Said Tagmaoui) Samir, is invited into the terrorists' inner circle and eventually is asked to take part in an major attack on US soil. On the heels of the terrorists are a pair of FBI agents, Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Max Archer (Neal McDonough), both of whom believe that Samir is the key to cracking the plot but for different reasons.

Directed and adapted for the screen by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Traitor is a smart suspense flick with the popcorn thrills necessary of good entertainment and the top notch performances of a high end drama. Though the plot grows convoluted as more and more of the story unfolds, Nachmanoff keeps audiences engaged by highlighting the performance of Don Cheadle who commands the screen with an actorly presence.

The cast of Traitor is the glue that holds it together. As the plot grows a little weedy near the end, Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce keep things in line with their incredibly engaging performances. Cheadle especially has a talent for getting an audience in rapt attention. See his performances in Boogie Nights and Hotel Rwanda, Cheadle is among the most fascinating and compelling actors working today. 

Pearce, though he has acted sparingly since his blistering debut in L.A Confidential, makes exceptional use of his weary eyes and measured monotone voice, tinged here with a slight southern accent, to give his words greater import. Scenes between Pearce and character actor extraordinaire Neal McDonough, crackle with energy even as the two are just laying plot groundwork.

Traitor is not without flaws, the terrorists are weak characters and some of the twists and turns don't pay off as well as they should. Nevertheless, Traitor hits enough of the right notes to be a compelling often exciting pop entertainment. Don Cheadle may never grow into a box office titan but his talent cannot be measured in box office dollars.

See Traitor for Cheadle and Pearce, performances worth the price of admission.

Movie Review I Know Who Killed Me

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Directed by Chris Sivertson

Written by Jeff Hammond

Starring Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty

Release Date July 27th, 2007

Published July 26th, 2007

It was the great John Waters, in a cameo on an episode of The Simpsons, that gave me my definition of camp. "It's Camp, the ludicrously tragic, the tragically ludicrous". It is that line that resonated deep within my mind as I watched the new Lindsey Lohan pseudo-thriller I Know Who Killed Me. There are few things in Hollywood at the moment more tragic than Ms. Lohan. And, there are few movies more ludicrous than I Know Who Killed Me, a wacky torture porn wannabe, too squeamish to commit to full on exploitation and too balls out goofy to be merely bad.

Aubrey Fleming  (Lindsay Lohan) has these really vivid dreams that she turns into stories for her creative writing class. They tell the story of a girl named Dakota whose life of crack houses and strip clubs provides a rich background for Aubrey's burgeoning storytelling talent. Aubrey's writing is taking her to Yale in the fall, or it would have; if not for one fateful night after a football game.

Aubrey was supposed to meet friends for a late night movie. When she didn't show, her friends got scared. They called the police; who called Aubrey's parents, Daniel (Neal McDonough) and Susan (Julia Ormond), who also did not know where she was. Weeks go by until a body is found along the highway, a leg and hand severed, but still alive.

The girl looks exactly like Aubrey but when she comes to, she claims to be Dakota. As the cops press her for information on who cut off her hand and leg, Dakota maintains that she is not Aubrey and spins a fantastic tale of how her hand and leg simply shriveled up and fell off. This as she sleeps with Aubrey's boyfriend (Brian Geraghty) and searches for the killer in her own unique ways.

That is the spoiler free version of the plot of I Know Who Killed Me and as often happens with movies this bizarrely bad, my description is far more concise than anything in the movie. It took me two showings of I Know Who Killed Me just to come up with that description. Watching the film for the first time, with a critic friend of mine, I could not stop laughing long enough to try and put the pieces of this ludicrous trash epic together.

Directed by Chris Sivertson, I Know Who Killed Me has delusions of grandeur as an art film, a torture porn ala Hostel with a dash of M. Night Shyamalan and just a hint of Brian De Palma at his most over the top. None of it ever approaches coherence but it's never boring. Imagine all of that crammed into one picture and then blended with a group of performances so off key you almost hear dogs barking and you get just a sense of how truly, brilliantly awful I Know Who Killed Me is.

It is so rare in modern Hollywood to find true camp or kitsch. Modern films are so self aware, so self consciously willing to wink at audiences that camp becomes manufactured or forced. Rarely do you get the earnest achievement of true awfulness. A group of actors and filmmakers who have truly deluded themselves into believing that what they are doing is working.

More often you get movies like Snakes On A Plane where the kitsch became the marketing hook, thus subverting the camp into simple bad filmmaking. Either that or you get a movie like Redline or Because I Said So, movies that are just so horrendous that you can't even take joy in the badness. There is no commitment on the part of the actors who are too bored or dull-witted to care whether the movie they are in is any good.

In I Know Who Killed Me however, you can see the grand delusions of all involved. You can see from the care taken to craft out their visuals and the attempts to create a color motif (blues and reds dominate the screen in a self conscious battle for control) that director Chris Sivertson and his team were convinced they really had something here.

Not unlike the work of the great Ed Wood who believed earnestly in his own talent, the creators of I Know Who Killed Me evince utter cluelessness as to how brilliantly awful this trash epic truly is. It is that joy of creation, that misguided judgment, that makes I Know Who Killed Me a truly wonderful bit of camp. That, and of course, the schadenfreude of watching star Lindsey Lohan hit bottom on the big screen as she hits bottom in real life.

You can see in Ms. Lohan's performance a level of commitment that says she truly believed the things her characters were saying. More important though, from a camp perspective, you can see how desperately out of her depth she is trying to give life to the goofiness she is trying to play as serious drama and mystery. And worse yet, you can see how her real life drug problem may have contributed to how truly awful her performance is.

On the one hand, I don't want to take pleasure in Ms. Lohan's problems. On the other hand, she is young, rich, privileged and not dead, so I don't feel too bad. Plus, her real life tabloid problems give trashy subtext to an already trashy movie and increase the camp pleasure of I Know Who Killed Me to a degree where I could actually recommend it in an ironic way.

Poor Ms. Lohan, she's not a bad actress, just one who doesn't make good decisions. Watching I Know Who Killed Me; one cannot escape the idea that the poor girl is being taken advantage of. Watch the stripping scenes, Dakota is a 'dancer', and you cannot help but be more embarrassed for Ms. Lohan as opposed to being titillated by her gyrations. She simply looks lost and sad on the stage and it's unclear whether those emotions are intentional or just a sad realization of how low her career has sunk.

I cannot recommend I Know Who Killed Me, from a typical movie standard. However, I can tell you that if you are looking for an ironic laugh, you might wait for this DVD to come out, gather some friends and have fun at this film and Ms. Lohan's expense. It sounds a little mean, but it's undeniably funny.

Movie Review The Hitcher

The Hitcher (2007) 

Directed by Dave Meyers 

Written by Eric Bernt, Eric Red, Jake Wade Wall 

Starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Neal McDonough, 

Release Date January 19th, 2007 

Published January 19th, 2007 

Just referring to a film as a remake causes the eyes to  roll up. Especially horror remakes. The remake of 1986's The Hitcher I'm sure made many an eye roll as mine did. Seeing the name of Michael Bay as producer gives little reassurance. Bay was responsible for both of the awful Texas Chainsaw Massacre reimaginings as well as the forgettable Amityville Horror remake in 2005. By some miracle however, this remake of The Hitcher works. Director Dave Meyers delivers a tightly focused edge of your seat, horror thriller that features a star making performance from Sophia Bush.

On a trip to spring break Grace (Sophia Bush) and her boyfriend Jim (Jim Knighton) pass a man on a rainy stretch of New Mexico highway. He was standing almost in the middle of the road and was nearly hit but did not move. They chose to leave him there but unfortunately, the hitcher, John Ryder (Sean Bean) caught up with them at a gas station down the road.

Feeling guilty, Jim offers John Ryder a ride to a hotel just down the road. Thus begins a tale of terror that the young couple could never have imagined. Ryder is a psychopath who has killed up and down the highways of America. Grace and Jim are lucky to escape him the first time. However, like a classic horror movie villain, John Ryder is not easy to get rid of.

The Hitcher is a remake of a 1986 horror flick that starred then teen sensation C. Thomas Howell as a good samaritan and Rutger Hauer as his menacing passenger. Hauer's hitcher seemed untouchable as one of the genre's great villains. In the remake, the role falls to character actor and Lord of the Rings star Sean Bean. As John Ryder Bean definitely embodies menacing determination but he's no match for Hauer's Walken-esque killer.

Sophia Bush and John Knighton; on the other hand; more than surpass Howell's whiny teenager. Whily and brave, their Grace and Jim are surprisingly smart, self aware, characters who make rash but correct decisions. One of the reasons this remake works so well is because Bush and Knighton are allowed intelligence. The decisions they make are decisions anyone would make given such outlandish conditions.

What director Dave Meyers, a music video veteran making his feature debut, does so very well in The Hitcher is establish his own logic and stick to it. The situations in The Hitcher are not unlike most horror movies, the difference is that The Hitcher establishes its own level of reality and remains existing within the rules of that reality. That allows us in the audience to suspend disbelief and get into the nervy, exciting tension of this story.

If I have an issue with The Hitcher it is with the slim, almost non-existent motivation of the title character. John Ryder is simply a killer who would have killed Grace and Jim whether they stopped the first time they saw him or after they finally did decide to help him. His motivation is simple bloodlust which I found unsatisfying. The Hitcher seems like it could make this killer more complicated and interesting. As it is, he is menacing but thin.

Sophia Bush is best known for the teen drama One Tree Hill on the CW network; but she is soon to be a very big star. The sexy star of The Hitcher is said to be the lead candidate to take over the coveted role of Wonder Woman when that film series starts up. Based on her tough minded work in The Hitcher, they could not make a better choice. Bush is sexy and vulnerable with a strong backbone and determination. Her work near the end of The Hitcher evokes a touch of Jamie Lee Curtis and a dash of Sigourney Weaver.

The Hitcher gets extra points for featuring actor Neal McDonough in a supporting role. McDonough is one of the more underappreciated character actors in the business. He broke out in the short lived series Boomtown on NBC and from there has been stellar in small roles in Flags of Our Fathers and Minority Report. As a tough as nails sheriff in The Hitcher, McDonough is the perfect measure of small town hard ass and pragmatism. He doesn't believe the horror being unleashed but he is one of the few with the toughness to deal with it.

Director Dave Meyers got his start in music videos but unlike most video directors who make the move to features, Meyers is not tied to that video style of quick edits, bright colors and shaky cameras. Meyers' direction of The Hitcher is smart and stylish in the classic thriller fashion. Using tight close ups, Meyers closes the frame around his actors and creates tension with his camera.

Best of all, he makes sparing use of the typical horror movie jump scene, that scene where things pop up out of nowhere as the music spikes. It's the cheapest kind of scare and Meyers is smart to avoid it, for the most part.

Director Dave Meyers shows terrific chops in turning a horror retread into a surprisingly suspenseful horror experience. The Hitcher should have been just another January programmer; but because of Meyers and the tough sexy performance of rising star Sophia Bush, The Hitcher is a stunner of edge of your seat excitement. Not a perfect horror film; but damn sure an entertaining one.

Movie Review: Walking Tall

Walking Tall (2004) 

Directed by Kevin Bray 

Written by David Klass, Channing Gibson, David Levien, Brian Koppelman

Starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Neal McDonaugh, Kristen Wilson 

Release Date April 2nd, 2004 

Published April 3rd, 2004 

It's an unspoken truth amongst WWE fans that the greatest star in the sport, the People’s champ, The Rock, is finished with the wrestling biz. The most electrifying man in sports entertainment is taking a route that no wrestler has taken before, full acceptance in the world outside of wrestling.

Oh sure, Hulk Hogan became a pop culture icon in the eighties but realistically Hogan never had the mainstream acceptance the Rock is currently receiving. Whereas Hogan was a cartoon and a sideshow attraction, Rock is a full on phenomenon amongst Hollywood producers looking to replace their aging action heroes. His latest action vehicle is a remake of the hillbilly ass kicking revenge fantasy Walking Tall.

Army vet Chris Vaughn (Rock) is returning to the small Oregon town where he grew after 8 years in the Special Forces. Just off the harbor transport Chris walks into a town he no longer recognizes. There are porn shops where the hardware store used to be. A sleazy casino has taken over as the town's main source of income, replacing the lumber mill where Chris's father had worked.

The biggest change of all however is the drugs. As Chris walks through town he sees a mother leaving children unattended while she buys drugs and teenagers discreetly exchanging cash and drugs on each street corner. Chris is shocked and appalled and 

Things have changed even for Chris's old friends. Chris's best friend Ray (Johnny Knoxville) has recently kicked a serious drug problem. Another close friend, Jay (Neil McDonough), always a spoiled rich boy, is the guy who bought and shut down the mill and now runs the eyesore casino. After Chris's nephew ODs on crystal meth, it also becomes clear that Jay is running the local drug trade. Ray wants to make it up to Chris, especially after his goons beat Chris nearly to death, by bringing him in to work in the casino. When Chris says no it begins a war for the soul of the town.

The original Walking Tall from 1974 featured Joe Don Baker and was the supposedly true story of small town sheriff Buford Pusser who fought lawbreakers in his little redneck town armed only with a two by four. In this "reimagining", if I may use our lamest new buzzword, the hero’s name has changed but the mission is the same and so is the weapon. Like a backwoods Dirty Harry, the hero of Walking Tall delivers the kind of vigilante justice that might not be politically correct but is vicariously thrilling.

The Rock is a much more physically intimidating presence than Joe Don Baker and thankfully not saddled with the name Buford. He has the kind of charisma and charm of which Joe Don could never even dream of having. This is a slightly more subdued Rock than the comic performance of last year’s The Rundown but it is just as effective. It’s his appealing personality that makes up for his lack of dramatic weight.

Rock is aided greatly by Johnny Knoxville who can be quite annoying but here finds a good comic sidekick vibe that never gets in the way of The Rock's ass kicking.

A fellow critic and I exchanged emails recently comparing Walking Tall to the 80's redneck fighting movie Roadhouse and the comparison is a fair one. Both films take place in an alternate reality where all cops are crooks, where bullets never hit anyone important, where a fair fight is at least three on one and our hero is infallible. The difference between the films is that The Rock looks more than credible beating on two or even three guys at once while Patrick Swayze was about as intimidating as a guy with a dance background could ever be.

There is something about vigilante justice that many of us find appealing. Justice where little things like civil rights and lawyers never get in the way of the bad guy getting what he has coming to him. Having that justice dealt out by a guy as appealing and charismatic as the Rock is a bonus. This guy is a star and while his acting range is limited to monosyllabic action roles, he makes the most of each those roles and I can't wait to see him in another one.