Movie Review: Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) 

Directed by Susanne Bier 

Written by Allen Loeb 

Starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Omar Benson Miller, Allison Lohman

Release Date October 19th. 2007 

Published November 5th, 2007 

The Oscar curse is over for Halle Berry. After subjecting herself and us to the horrors of mainstream flotsam like Catwoman, Perfect Stranger and Gothika, following her well deserved Oscar for Monster's Ball, Halle Berry is back in stride in Things We Lost In The Fire. This difficult drama, co-starring Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro, brings Halle Berry back from the brink with a character every bit as memorable and deeply affecting as her Monster's Ball award winner.

Steven Burke (David Duchovny) was loved by his family and loyal to his friends. He was the kind of guy who would go out of his way for you, friend or stranger. When he died, he left a hole that would be impossible to fill. Steven's death is the dramatic drive of Things We Lost In The Fire which stars Halle Berry as Steven's wife Audrey and Benicio Del Toro as his troubled best friend Jerry.

Playing out in flashbacks and flash forwards we see Steven as the Mr. nice guy that he was, we see his funeral and its aftermath. The style sounds distracting but under the skilled eye of director Suzanne Bier we are never lost or confused. Bier uses this style to great advantage, setting up dramatic points and paying them off with powerful, cathartic moments.

Benicio Del Toro's Jerry is a heroin addict and yet Steven remained his friend. Taking time week after week to drop in on Jerry, Steven is saint-like in devotion to his old friend. When he dies, Jerry is the last to know and his arrival at the funeral in his rumpled over sized suit and dark circled eyes, is greeted with great discomfort.

Despite her obvious discomfort, Audrey is driven to take up her husband's cause and check in on Jerry. When she see's him honestly attempting to get sober; she does what she thinks Steven would have done and invites him to stay in their garage, easily converted to a small apartment. The conceit sounds strained, she has two kids and brings a virtual stranger and drug addict to live in her home? It's a stretch but Berry and Del Toro make us believe it.

Suzanne Bier is from Germany and she brings a distinctly European conceit to Things We Lost In The Fire. Focusing on her actors to tell the story, rather than employing an arching narrative, Bier gets inside these characters through the eyes of her actors. Tight close ups, right on the eyes truly give us a sense of these characters' pained souls.

Things We Lost In The Fire can be oppressively sad at times. This is a very downcast film. It's about loss and pain and heartache. On the other hand it's also about remembrance, recovery and catharsis. Allison Lohman plays Kelly in the film, a member of Jerry's narcotics anonymous group and she has a moment in Things We Lost In The Fire that is beautifully bold and probing. It's about remembering, it's about forgiveness and it leads to more powerful moments of catharsis.

John Carroll Lynch, so good in David Fincher's Zodiac earlier this year, is a real scene stealer as Steven and Audrey's neighbor, Howard, who adopts Jerry as his new best friend. Desperately unhappily married  Howard is kind of pathetic but in a cheery sort of way. He first meets Jerry at Steven's funeral and after Jerry moves into the garage, Howard insinuates himself into Jerry's daily life, eventually offering to help him get a job.

Like the tremendous star turns of Del Toro and Berry, these supporting turns are nearly flawless in their execution and in the way that director Suzanne Bier reveals them.

Things We Lost In The Fire has a few minor issues. The structure can be a little jarring and there is one scene, late in the film, between Del Toro and Berry involving her asking him about drugs, that is truly wrongheaded, nevertheless this is an exceptional film. The acting is phenomenal. The direction is of near perfect pitch and though it is admittedly grim in tone, the cathartic moments more than make up for the sadness.

Hey, sometimes a good cry isn't such a bad thing.

Movie Review Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Get Rich or Die Trying (2005) 

Directed by Jim Sheridan 

Written by Terrence Winter 

Starring 50 Cent, Terrence Howard, Joy Bryant, Bill Duke, Viola Davis 

Release Date November 9th, 2005

Published November 8th, 2005 

Right off the bat I should say that I am not a big fan of rapper 50 Cent. I enjoyed his breakthrough hit "In Da Club" despite it's subsequent ubiquity in every nightclub in the country. His follow ups have been in ever declining quality since. I have a great deal of respect for his rise from a drug dealer on the streets to a millionaire superstar and the tenacity and determination it must have taken to survive being shot nine times.

With that said, his film debut Get Rich Or Die Tryin' reminds me of his most recent CD's. Irrelevant, mainstream ego polishing that only intends to burnish the image of an already rich and successful superstar. If the film were more entertaining you could forgive that, but as it is Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is simply an exercise in vanity and finance.

In Get Rich or Die Tryin' 50 Cent plays a composite character version of his real self, Marcus aka Black Caesar, his rap nickname. Marcus grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, the son of a drug dealing single mother who was murdered when he was 12 years old in a turf war. Young Marcus soon joins the family business slinging cocaine on street corners, eventually earning himself a place in a drug syndicate headed up by Levar (Bill Duke) and his second in command, Majestic (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), both of whom knew his mother.

Given his own territory and crew, including his childhood friends Antwan (Ashley Waters) and Keryl (Omar Benson Miller) and a newcomer named Justice (Tory Kittles), Marcus quickly becomes a big earner and a bigger target. Marcus is the target of not only cops but other gangs and even members of his own syndicate. A rivalry with Colombian dealers is a particularly dangerous situation that nearly takes the life of one of the members of his crew.

Eventually, as happens to most small time dealers, Marcus gets picked up by the cops and goes to prison. While in the joint he meets Bama (Terrence Howard), who saves his life during a knife fight. Bama encourages Marcus's life's dream to become a rapper and when the two are released Bama becomes the manager of Marcus' new career. This new career path includes leaving behind the syndicate much to the chagrin of Majestic who becomes a dangerous enemy.

Along the way, before he went to prison, Marcus falls for the beautiful Charlene (Joy Bryant). The two had been close friends as kids before she was sent away to live with relatives at a young age. Marcus sees Charlene on the street one day and the attraction is fully renewed. The two soon have a child on the way, yet another reason for Marcus to want to put his dangerous past behind him.

Directed by the venerable Irish director Jim Sheridan, Get Rich Or Die Tryin' tells Marcus' story from his first person perspective. The movie is about Marcus and is only vaguely an allegory for the struggle of the average inner city kid. Sheridan has some big ideas he wants to express and points he wants to make about poverty and struggle but his subject is only vaguely interesting.

The life of Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson has certainly been dramatic: his mother's death, his becoming a drug dealer at the age of 12, his having been shot nine times and surviving to become a world wide superstar. That is dramatic stuff.  So why is the movie so subdued and slightly mundane? The fault lies with Jackson.  His performance is passive to the point of non-involvement. For a world renowned superstar Jackson is surprisingly lacking in charisma even when on the microphone rapping.

Jackson is hurt further by acting opposite the excellent Terrence Howard. Not only does Howard outshine Jackson in this film about Jackson's own life but Howard's performance earlier this year in Hustle and Flow showed him to be an even more exciting rapper than Jackson.

Director Jim Sheridan was attracted to the idea of telling this story because he found parallels between the crime and poverty of inner city America and the blood drenched streets of his Irish youth at the height of religious and political warfare involving the Irish Republican Army. The comparison is relatively fair in terms of the violence and death involved in the lives of both but will the audience for Get Rich Or Die Tryin' care or even be aware of the comparison?

The most appealing part of Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is the soundtrack made up entirely of 50 Cent's music from his CD of the same title-- above average work for 50 Cent's most recent career efforts. However, there is not nearly as much time spent recording raps as there are scenes of the marble mouthed rapper's garbled gangster dialogue. 50 Cent's voice may be a plus in his rap career but it does nothing for his acting career. What music there is is okay but not great and nothing to match 50 Cent's breakthrough single.

Comparisons to Eminem's rap bio-pic 8 Mile are inevitable and I agree with the consensus that 8 Mile is the better of the two. But Get Rich Or Die Tryin' pales in other comparisons as well. In terms of movies about rap and hip hop, the music of Hustle and Flow blows away anything in Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. As far as movies about the struggles of the inner city gangster, 2004's Never Die Alone is better in terms of gritty urban violence and Boyz In The Hood remains the most lasting and impactful story of inner city struggle.

The fact is that the story of Get Rich Or Die Tryin would never be told if it were not the life story of a multi-platinum rap superstar. The story is relatively mundane when put alongside films of similar inner city settings. The violence in Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is anti-climactic and aside from Marcus' being shot nine times, the violence has little if any emotional impact. In interviews about reenacting having been shot nine times 50 Cent has said that the scene was not hard emotionally and he acts it as if it weren't that difficult.

Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is supposedly controversial for its violence, but the only thing interesting about the violence in this film is the indifference of the characters toward that violence. I would like to believe that the blase attitude the characters take toward violence is a function of the characters having become inured to it from having grown up with it their entire lives. However, my impression was that that the attitude was more a result of 50 Cent's cyborg-like performance. No fear, excitement or pain registers on 50 Cent's face no matter what happens to him, even having nine bullets pumped into him.

For a more unique view of 50 Cent's life and an unauthorized one at that, take a look at the new documentary 50 Cent: Refuse 2 Die from New Line Home Video. The doc claims to tell the real story of 50 Cent, his family, and his rise to the top of the rap game. I can't speak to the accuracy of Refuse 2 Die but I can tell you that it is more interesting than the fictionalized, sentimentalized version of 50 Cent's life depicted in Get Rich Or Die Tryin'.