Movie Review The Firm

The Firm (1993) 

Directed by Sydney Pollack 

Written by David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel 

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilfred Brimley, Holly Hunter, David Straithairn, Ed Harris

Release Date June 30th, 1993 

Published July 10th, 2023 

John Grisham was a phenomenon in 1993. He owned the bestseller lists with the rapid fire releases of his easy, breezy legal thrillers. Each story bubbled with melodramatic twists and turns that you legitimately did not want to put down. For a time, Grisham's thrillers were met with the kind of frenzy that has only since been matched by the likes of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, and She Who Shall Not Be Named. In 1993 alone two Grisham novels were adapted into blockbuster movies. 

While we have to wait until December for the joyous pleasure of The Pelican Brief, we first have The Firm, a potboiler of a legal drama surrounding the tumultuous tenure of a young lawyer and his job at a deeply corrupt law firm in Memphis, Tennessee. It's remarkable how easily Grisham's pulpy legalese translates to film without missing a beat. Grisham's style is remarkably detailed and yet wildly cinematic with easy to follow twists and turns that rarely get caught up in things that cannot be easily translated to another medium. It's no surprise that the author designed his thrillers with selling the movie rights in the back of his mind. 

The Firm takes on an extra dimension on the big screen as it is overseen by a masterful director. By this point, Sydney Pollack was winding down his legendary career but when he had good material he could be coaxed back behind the camera and we were lucky to have him class up the pulpy prose of Grisham, dressing it up with one of the most over-qualified casts in movie history. Seven cast-members either had or soon would have an Academy Award nomination, a true murderers row of performers brought to bear on what was already set to be a blockbuster courtesy of Grisham's own ludicrously large fanbase. 

Heading up this Yankee's circa 1932 lineup of performers, Tom Cruise stars in The Firm as Mitchell McDeere, a young lawyer fresh out of law school and highly in-demand. We watch early on as Mitch is courted everywhere from Los Angeles, to Boston, to Wall Street. Least likely among Mitch's many potential employers is a small firm out of Memphis, Tennessee. Bendini, Lambert, & Lock only has around forty lawyers on its roster, unlike the other firms which are teeming with associates. They only want Mitch among his prestigious graduating class and to say he's flattered is an understatement. 

Find my full length review linked here

Movie Review: Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (2006) 

Directed by Robert Towne 

Written by Robert Towne 

Starring  Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, Donald Sutherland, Idina Menzel 

Release Date March 17th, 2006

Published September 16th, 

Though one of the great screenwriters of the 70's; Robert Towne's directorial career is spotty at best. His Personal Best was groundbreaking in subject but banal in execution. Without Limits was well acted but laconic. And the less said about the Mel Gibson-Michele Pfeiffer thriller Tequila Sunrise the better. Back behind the camera for the first time in 8 years; Robert Towne's latest effort, the romance Ask The Dust, is likely his greatest failure yet.

A miscalculation of idea and performance, Ask The Dust is Towne indulging his love of Los Angeles and its history at the expense of telling an interesting story.

Colin Farrell stars in Ask The Dust as Arturo Bandini. Coming to LA in 1930, Bandini intended to write the definitive novel of that famed city. Unfortunately the city of Los Angeles in the 1930's is not as inspiring as he had hoped. The streets are dusty and dull, the people are either decrepit and living out their string or they're writers like Bandini trying to write the great American novel.

The lives of some Angelenos are less easily devised. Camilla (Salma Hayek), a waitress at a dive bar where our friend Bandini drops his last nickel on some bad coffee, claims to be an aspiring actress held back by her latino heritage. However, her real aspirations are far less obvious and eventually undone when she falls into a romance with the struggling writer.

The relationship between Bandini and Camilla is defined by conflict. Their first meeting, the bad coffee, Bandini insulted Camilla and poured his coffee all over the floor. Later, after Bandini gives a weak apology, the two share a romantic drive to the beach where Camilla implores Bandini to join her for some skinny dipping. She plays a cruel trick on him, pretending to drown, and the angry Bandini walks home the seven miles from the beach to his rundown hotel. Still the romance somehow persists.

Meanwhile Bandini has another girl, though not one he really wants anything to do with. The other woman is Vera Rivkin a needy Jewish princess, who Bandini finds passed out in his hotel room. She offers him a sad story and begs for sex which he turns down. Later, however, Bandini, after another strikeout with Camilla, does fall into Vera's arms but is blunt in telling her that he was dreaming of Camilla. Vera's character and her fate are two of the more puzzling aspects of Ask The Dust.

There are any number of puzzling things about Ask The Dust. It's clear that Director Robert Towne is crafting a dusty paean to his beloved city of Los Angeles. With the help of Cinematographer Caleb Deshanel, Towne turns his South African location into a lovely image of 1930's California. At some point however, Towne became too enamored of his scenery and neglected his characters and their romance. Thus why we get stilted angry exchanges that turn quickly to passionate love making and back again with little rhythm and zero chemistry.

Colin Ferrell's performance in Ask The Dust is, at once, the most entertaining and confusing part of the film. On the one hand, Ferrell's offbeat delivery and flashes of Johnny Depp-like tics and mannerisms are quite humorous. Unfortunately, it's unclear whether or not we are supposed to be laughing. Ferrell as Bandini schizophrenically moves from shy to belligerent, from belligerent to sweet and from sweet to cocky without warning. Caught in the maze of Robert Towne's direction, Ferrell likely just did what was asked of him in each scene, regardless of whether the performance would coherently cut together later.

The one thing that really works in Ask The Dust is Caleb Deschanel's lush and beautiful cinematography. While Farrell and Hayek bicker and antagonize us and each other, we can at the very least distract ourselves by gazing at the gorgeous sandy vistas of early South Africa standing in for 30's Los Angeles. The dusty streets and blaze orange sunsets are the stuff of picture postcards, lovely images of warmth and comfort, completely at odds with the war of the roses characters.

Movies are not supposed to work to the audiences' preconceived notions of what we think the movie should be. Movies are the visions of the filmmakers with only a modicum of consideration of what the audience might want. That still doesn't quell my disappointment over not getting what I expected from Ask The Dust. I was hoping for a classical, passionate romance with two hot stars burning up the screen and the kind of literate, well read dialogue that you get with the best literary adaptations.

What I got with Ask The Dust was angry banter that works like a sad, unintentional parody of the Cary Grant-Irene Dunne romances of the 30's and 40's.

Robert Towne is a very talented writer but his direction in Ask The Dust is as lazy as the dusty, windblown, sun drenched streets of 1930's Los Angeles. The script relies heavily on the performances of Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek who, whether they were directed this way or not, come off like petulant children playing dramatic versions of the Bickersons. Blowing the dust off of cliches of 40's melodramas, they bicker like cats and dogs and fall in love anyway. The film is updated only for the sex which runs hot and cold, but mostly cold.

Movie Review Mission Impossible 2

Mission Impossible 2 (2000) 

Directed by John Woo

Written by Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames

Release Date May 24th, 2000 

Published May 20th, 2020 

The second installment of the Mission Impossible franchise is really where the series found its feet. After the first film, though financially successful, failed by forcing director Brian DePalma to make a standard, mainstream action movie, the makers of MI2 picked the right director to deliver a slick, stylish, fast paced action movie that didn’t have to do anything other than just be cool looking to succeed.

Director John Woo, the inventor of the cool style of action adventure cinema, was the perfect choice to direct Mission Impossible 2. Woo favors visual dynamism over story and that style over substance approach works for the mindless sort of fun that was missing from the first film which ached to be both taken seriously as a movie and be enjoyed as an action adventure movie, and nearly failed on both accounts.

We picked up the action of Mission Impossible 2 by introducing our ‘MacGuffin.’ For those that aren’t aware of classic movie tropes, the macguffin is a term coined by the legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to describe a plot device that all the characters in the movie are seeking. It can be any kind of nebulous concept as long as everyone is chasing it, that’s what propels the story along. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the most famous example of a MacGuffin, a thing everyone in the movie wanted for whatever reason the plot decided.

The Macguffin in MI2 is a virus and a cure known as Chimera and Bellerophon. A doctor friend of our hero, IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has created both the worst virus in history and its cure and is attempting to escape with them both as the movie opens. Unfortunately, the doctor falls into the hands of a turncoat IMF Agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), impersonating Ethan. Ambrose murders the doctor and absconds with the MacGuffin and the chase is on.

To find Ambrose, Ethan must enlist Ambrose’s former flame, a thief named Nyah (Thandie Newton). It will be her job to get back into Ambrose’s life and get Ethan and his team, including his old buddy Luther (Ving Rhames) and a newcomer Aussie pilot named Billy (Jon Polson), close enough to retrieve the virus and cure before Ambrose can sell them to the highest bidder or unleash them on the world out of spite for the IMF.

The plot of Mission Impossible 2 isn’t important, we’re here for the cinema of cool, the cinema of John Woo and the style over substance master does not disappoint. Slow-motion cameras capture spectacular chases and stylish cinematography brings out the sexy fight over the affections of Newton’s Nyah between Ethan and Ambrose. Sure, saving the world and all is important or whatever, but looking good is the point of MI2 and everyone and everything looks incredible.

Every Mission Impossible is known for the stunt that nearly got Tom Cruise crippled or killed and MI2 is no different. Our first glimpse of Ethan Hunt in MI2 is him free-climbing a craggy rock in the middle of the Utah desert with no one around for miles. Naturally, Cruise insisted on doing the stunt himself and watching him narrowly cling to the side of a nearly flat cliff face is honestly still as breathtaking today as it was in 2000 when the film was released.

Screenwriter Robert Towne, back from having over-written the first Mission Impossible film crafted the screenplay with a much leaner and clearer narrative. Towne claims that he had to fit a pair of stunts into the movie even before the plot of the film had been devised and had to write the scenes into the movie as he created the screenplay. This, naturally, includes Ethan’s introductory scene and a scene near the end involving a motorcycle fight.

The motorcycle ballet at the end of Mission Impossible 2 is wildly silly and implausible but wonderfully so. Director Woo delivers the scene in his classic, slick-slo-mo style and it works for the slick, empty spectacle of MI2. Also great is the closing fight scene between Cruise and Scott where Cruise’s lithe physicality is framed beautifully within Woo’s perfectly seamless and crisp scene-setting that, of course, includes his trademark fight-scene doves.

Tom Cruise appears a great deal more comfortable in this empty-headed sequel. The first film featured him being cocky yet calculated and when you could see Ethan’s wheels turning it often slowed the film to a halt with overwrought flashbacks and other such nonsense. Thankfully, MI2 does not burden the actor or character with too much to think about and just gets on with the business at hand, super cool fight and chase scenes.

Mission Impossible 2 is as shallow as a drying puddle but it looks and feels spectacular. It’s like a great looking car that gets no gas mileage, completely impractical for use, but it looks amazing. Every frame of Mission Impossible 2 is a gorgeous fantasy of the action spy genre. The awesome locations, the world travelogue cinematography and the spectacular action makes the movie insanely watchable if not all that rewarding for your attention-span.

Movie Review Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible (1996) 

Directed by Brian De Palma 

Written by David Koepp, Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emilio Estevez, Emmanuelle Beart, Kristen Scott Thomas

Release Date May 22nd, 1996

Published May 20th, 2016 

Mission Impossible doesn’t really hold up. I hate to say it because I really enjoy most of the franchise but the 1996 movie doesn’t hold up 22 years later. Watching Mission Impossible with modern eyes, the flaws stand out from Cruise’s desperate performance, Jon Voight’s lazy performance and the underwritten female characters stand apart from the lesser good things about the movie.

Ethan Hunt is an agent of the Impossible Mission Force, a branch of the CIA that specializes in the kind of espionage of the most impossible nature. Hunt works under veteran agent Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) alongside a team that includes Jack (Emilio Estevez), Sarah (Kristen Scott Thomas), and Claire (Emmanuelle Beart). Claire is Jim’s wife though quickly sees that she and Ethan appear to have eyes for each other.

A digression, the chemistry between Cruise and Beart has heat from time to time but the great disappointment of the movie is how little is done to exploit that chemistry. Brian DePalma is one of the great sleaze directors of all time and for him to allow the Ethan-Claire relationship to be so innocent to the point of being cookie-cutter, ala dozens of similar movie relationships, indicates how little this is really a Brian DePalma movie.

On a mission in Prague attempting to prevent a Russian spy from stealing a list of the real identities of IMF agents worldwide, everyone on Hunt’s team is murdered and he is framed for their deaths. On the run, Ethan is surprised and notably suspicious, to find Claire had survived despite having been in a car that later exploded. Nevertheless, he trusts her to be part of his mission to find the person who framed him. 

Mission Impossible was directed by Brian DePalma who appears to have been hired for his name value and not his style. Mission Impossible contains almost none of the classic DePalma style of sexy, weird, chaos. Sure, some of DePalma’s output is deeply problematic through the lens of history but you can’t argue that he was boring except when he directed Mission Impossible.

Compared to movies like Snake Eyes or Carrie, the action tropes of Mission Impossible are dull.

It’s hard not to assume that Mission Impossible is boring because of Tom Cruise. I say this as a fan of Tom Cruise. I am genuinely someone who believes Cruise is a fine actor. However, the deep, almost fetishistic control Cruise has over his onscreen persona can keep him from being fun. The actor assiduously avoids anything controversial, he plays it safe especially here in the wake of his first real failure, his much mocked performance in Interview with the Vampire.

Mission Impossible is such a rigidly paced action movie that even that classic Tom Cruise twinkle in the eye and million dollar smile are toned down and held back in favor of a stoic, dare I say, charisma dimmed performance. I get that Ethan Hunt is supposed to be a rigid, book hero but we go to the movies to see stars and big personalities and while his willingness to let the action do the talking is nice, I’d rather he have some personality while he’s action-ing.

It’s especially egregious because I expect so much more from both Cruise and Brian DePalma. DePalma has an eye for idiosyncrasy and had he been allowed to find the idiosyncrasies of Ethan Hunt and exploit them and had there been anything even remotely controversial about the character, perhaps the movie would hold up over time. Instead, looking back at the original, it’s a wonder this franchise is still around.

Thankfully, the franchise picks up the personality in the other movies, especially when they allow John Woo to make the film franchise his own. Here however, Brian DePalma is wasted and the film is shocking by the numbers. Cruise is sweaty and desperate throughout, rarely allowing Ethan to have a personality beyond his remarkable competence and impressive physicality. Kristen Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez are killed off and Emmanuelle Beart is left with far too much of the dramatic heavy lifting.

The one thing that stands out as genuinely inspired in Mission Impossible ‘96 is the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as the big bad. The veteran actress is the one person in the film who is genuinely having fun. Redgrave sinks her teeth into the role and in her brief screen time the film is as fun as she is. The rest of the movie however, is just dour. Jon Voight especially is miscast as Jim Phelps.

Oddly the only even remotely controversial thing about Mission Impossible, and mind you I am not asking for the film to be outre in a violent or transgressive way, just have some personality. The only controversy the film courted was in the portrayal of Jim Phelps. Phelps was one of the main characters of the beloved TV series Mission Impossible and the twists and turns of his plot angered fans who held a love for Peter Graves’ stoic, reliable performance.

Even the famed train sequence that closes Mission Impossible appears less impressive though the frame of history. In wrestling terms, Mission Impossible is what is called a Spot Fest, a match centered on the biggest moves the competitors are capable of. The series focuses heavily on topping one big action spot after another and what’s happened in the more modern sequels has rendered the helicopter spot from the original film not unlike the Hulk Hogan leg-drop, a move that was once iconic and now seems rather silly next to a 5 Star Frog Splash.

If only Mission Impossible had half the personality of a wrestling match, perhaps it wouldn’t be so unremarkable.