Movie Review Not Easily Broken

Not Easily Broken (2009) 

Directed by Bill Duke 

Written by Brian Bird

Starring Morris Chestnut, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Hart, Wood Harris, Jennifer Lewis 

Release Date January 9th, 2009 

Published January 9th, 2009 

I think we can all be forgiven for mistaking Not Easily Broken for yet another Tyler Perry production. A serious minded drama about a middle class African American couple with marital problems who often turn to religion for answers. All you need is Madea head snapping her way through some life lessons and you have a typical Tyler Perry product.

If that sounds like a negative critique it's not meant as such. The fact is, Perry has grown as an artist over his relatively short feature film career and with his good heart and great intentions, any film would be lucky for the comparison. The makers of Not Easily Broken can be thankful for the comparison. Though the film is not as thoughtful and compelling as Perry's Why Did I Get Married? It has similar goals and ideals and comes close to the quality.

Not Easily Broken stars Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson as Dave and Clarice, a married couple on the verge of divorce. After nearly 15 years of marriage the spark is gone and the couple spends most of their time arguing. Clarice can't stand that Dave spends so much of his time coaching a little league team in the inner city. He says he might be more inclined to stay home if he had a son of his own.

Clarice is making great money in real estate and feels that having a child would derail her career ambitions. The dispute is made worse when a car accident leaves Clarice with a shattered leg that will require a lot of time and therapy. The injury invites Clarise's overbearing mother, Mary (Jennifer Lewis) to move in to care for her daughter and further drive the wedge between husband and wife.

Mary has never liked Dave. Then again, as we learn throughout, she's never really liked any man since her husband ran out on her. To make matters more complicated, Dave develops an off work relationship with Clarice's physical therapist, a white woman named Julie (Maeve Quinlan) that could develop into something more than flirtation.

Julie has a son that Dave takes an interest in much to the chagrin of Clarice and the suspicion of even his closest friend, Brock (Eddie Cibrian), who has his eyes on the single mom.

Whether Dave and Clarise can save their marriage or if he might be better off with Julie is not so much the subject of Not Easily Broken as it is a plot point, albeit a dramatic plot point. What is of more interest to director Bill Duke is observing the little ways in which people who love each other can find ways to hurt each other.

Whether it's husband and wife, mother and son in  law, mother and daughter or just friend and friend, the people we care about are often the people who can hurt us the most. Duke observes this idea well even as it gives the movie a little bit of distance from a narrative drive that would make it more compelling.

In that way it's quite similar to Chris Rock's similarly themed I Think I Love My Wife. Both films are driven by the observation of behavior rather than in telling stories that are truly compelling in a classical movie fashion. There is nothing wrong with that approach except that it can leave many audiences expecting a plot that moves them along from one scene to the next wondering when something is actually going  to happen.

As this movie is based on a novel by the Reverend T.D Jakes, things do often come back to religion and director Bill Duke could not have chosen a more authoritative voice for the church than actor Albert Hall. In his brief scenes as the pastor who presided over Dave and Clarice's wedding and later as their counselor and confessor, Hall conveys wisdom and power with his words without being overbearing or relying on religious homily. It's a common sense approach that happens to be backed up by the moral force of religion.

Not Easily Broken is not a typical movie. The plot moves glacially and is more interested in the mini-moment than in moving audiences toward expected conclusions. The conclusions come eventually but they take a while. This will bore some audiences. However, if you're like me, you may be compelled by the little observations. You have to fill in a few of the blanks yourself to make the time pass and the film cheats a few times to score emotional points, but Not Easily Broken, for me, is a moving, well intentioned work of care and honesty.

Movie Review: 'Creed 2'

Creed 2 (2018) 

Directed by Stephen Caple Jr 

Written by Juel Taylor, Sylvester Stallone 

Starring Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Dolph Lundgren 

Release Date November 21st, 2018 

Published November 20th 2018

Sylvester Stallone is perhaps the most frustrating actor on the planet. Much like Adam Sandler, we know how talented Stallone is, but we can never understand why they so often do not use that talent. Movies like Creed and Creed 2 are my thesis statements for how Stallone is and has been a remarkable talent throughout his career. It could just be that the character of Rocky Balboa gives Stallone a kick in the pants but I believe he’s just a great performer who chose to chase paychecks at the expense of his talent. 

Creed 2 is not Rocky’s story but damned if Stallone doesn’t once again steal the show from his young counterpart Michael B. Jordan, a talented young actor in his own right. Rocky is how the first Creed came to be and Rocky remains the driving force of the franchise even as he’s only a supporting player. Stallone invests deeply in Rocky and his performance lifts the film well past any sports movie cliches and into a realm of excellence. 

Creed 2 begins with our hero Adonis Creed at his most successful. Adonis is in the ring fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship with Rocky in his corner. Creed is focused and determined and while he’s not dominating his opponent, he’s outclassing him with his technique and just like that, Adonis Creed is the champ. Most sports movies build to this point but Creed has other lessons to impart and thus the title fight is only the beginning. 

Somewhere in the Ukraine, in bombed out gyms on the edge of bombed out towns we see a familiar old face. Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) is at ringside with his monster of a son Viktor Drago (Florian Monteanu) in the ring hurting people. In the crowd is a promoter named Buddy Marcelle (Russell Hornsby) who has gone all the way to the Ukraine because he could smell money. The idea of Creed versus Drago is one few shyster promoters could pass up. 

For the uninitiated, Ivan Drago is the fighter who killed Apollo Creed in the boxing ring in 1986, as depicted in Rocky 4. Sensing a media sensation, Marcelle returns to Philadelphia with the Drago’s in tow intending to get a big payday by antagonizing Adonis Creed into a fight. The ruse works despite Rocky refusing to be in Adonis’ corner for the bout and the title will be defended. What happens next you should see for yourself when you see Creed. 

There are elements here that don’t quite work so let’s get those out of the way quickly. The character of Buddy Marcelle is a giant waste of time. I like actor Russell Hornsby but the way he’s filmed in the movie places a weight and importance on him that isn’t part of the movie. Director Steven Caple Jr makes Marcelle appear important with portentous cuts to him watching Creed’s title fight and him watching Drago in the Ukraine. 

Marcelle has one scene with Adonis Creed in which he taunts Creed with why he thinks Adonis has to take the fight and then he’s pretty much done for the movie. He’s entirely worthless. At a certain point in the movie, Ivan Drago becomes the guy pushing for the fight to happen and Marcelle is a shadow of a character. Why was such importance placed on him? He was kind of a plot bridge but the movie could happen entirely without him. 

Thankfully, that’s my main gripe with Creed 2. One unnecessary and poorly crafted character doesn’t ruin the movie. It just stuck in my brain a little and bugged me. The rest of Creed 2 is far better constructed. The film settles on questions of fathers and sons, of pride and vanity. Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis is playing out the insecurities of his character via boxing and ego. It’s a wonderfully well motivated performance of complex and involving emotions. 

Michael B. Jordan is as strong as you expect him to be, considering what a great run he’s on having soared into super-stardom in Black Panther earlier this year. What I found unexpected was the performance of Sylvester Stallone who is better than ever as Rocky. This war horse character has aged brilliantly and Creed 2 gives us a sense of the entire scope of Rocky’s life in just a few short scenes. 

Adonis fights Drago twice in Creed 2 and Rocky makes both fights even more compelling with how he is portrayed. Rocky watching the first fight is heart rending and him getting Creed ready for the second fight is exciting and powerful to the point where the outcome of the fight doesn’t matter. By then the lessons have been learned and the fight is a glorious exclamation point on, arguably, the best training sequence in any boxing movie ever. 

No joke, I thought the young man sitting next to me was going to go jump into a fight immediately after the movie just from being so pumped up by this killer sequence. This series of scenes set to a powerful hip hop and orchestral score is completely awesome. I kind of wanted to fight after this sequence. The sweat and the pain of this sequence are awesomely visceral and compelling to the point that the fight is almost a nice way to settle down for the final act of the movie. 

Creed 2 is not quite as artful as the original but, to be fair, that film had a genuine auteur in Ryan Coogler behind the camera. Steven Caple Jr has a ways to go but he’s off to a really great start here. Creed is a wildly entertaining movie, good enough to escape the stink of the sports movie genre, if not strong enough to be a truly great movie. The film has minor flaws but the big takeaways are Stallone is incredible when he wants to be and the Creed movies may have legs for another outing. 

I wish Sylvester Stallone had spent more time in his career actually acting. As Creed and Creed 2 show when he wants to, he can turn on the craft. It’s not just the nostalgia for the character of Rocky at play, though that is some of it. The reality is that Stallone can turn the acting on and off when he wants to, when he’s motivated to be great, he can be transcendentally good and that’s what we see in Creed and in this sequel.