Movie Review: Troy

Troy (2004) 

Directed by Wolfgang Peterson

Written by David Benioff

Starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, Peter O'Toole

Release Date May 14th, 2004

Published May 13th, 2004 

In this day and age, when you say Homer everyone thinks Simpson. It wasn't always that way. Years ago, colleges turned out erudite intellectuals who quoted the great poet Homer from "The Iliad" or "The Odyssey.” Maybe those people still exist but today more people can quote Homer Simpson than Homer the poet and the new Wolfgang Peterson epic Troy is not likely to change that. This bombastic, outsized blockbuster has the appeal of Brad Pitt and the scope of an age old epic but it lacks the soul of the poet who's work it attempts to revive.

Brad Pitt stars as Achilles, the greatest warrior in history. Though Achilles claims to have no allegiances, he fights for the money of King Agamemnon (Brian Cox). With Achilles’ sword, Agamemnon has conquered several kingdoms and his reach dominates the Greek kingdoms surrounding the Aegean Sea. Save for that of King Priam of Sparta (Peter O'Toole).

It seems that Sparta is unattainable even for someone as powerful as Agamemnon. Even the great king's brother Menelaus (Brendon Gleeson) has acceded that Sparta can't be taken, even going so far as to broker peace with King Priam's sons Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom). The peace accord however is short lived when Paris takes a liking to Menelaus' wife Helen (Diane Kruger) and spirits her away to Sparta.

This development finally gives Agamemnon all the reason he needed to sack the last kingdom that stands in the way of his dominance. However, to take Sparta, a grand feat given Sparta's legendary impregnable walls, Agamemnon must once again call on Achilles to lead his armies. Achilles does not want to fight for Agamemnon no matter what the offer but does finally agree after a visit from his good friend Odysseus (Sean Bean) who promises something more valuable than riches, eternal glory.

That is the setup for massive CGI battles and a great deal of melodramatic speechifying. In all of the film’s nearly three-hour length there are pieces of three different full length movies edited together into Troy and only one of them would be any good. That is the story of Achilles who in the person of Brad Pitt is a charismatic and dangerous presence. Pitt's Achilles is powerful but conflicted and that makes him inherently dramatic. A film about Achilles would be terrific.

The story of Helen and Paris also has the potential as a stand-alone story. The story has love, passion and a great deal of drama. Cut up as it is here to make room for two other parallel stories, it loses impact. Helen is the reason that Sparta is about to be overrun in the greatest war of all time, therefore her importance to Paris needs more time to develop. Why would Paris risk his family and in fact an entire kingdom for her? We never really know. As it is in Troy, the love story comes off as the selfish petulance of a childish boy and his desperate crush.

The final story is the most poorly developed and that is the story of Eric Bana's Hector. It's not the fault of Bana who is a strong presence, nearly the equal of Pitt. Nearly. Hector's story is far more dramatic than what we see here. His conflicts with his father King Priam are given short shrift and Hector's only character traits are heroism. Hector is hardly ever conflicted, he has no great story arc. He begins as a hero and continues through the film as a hero beyond reproach.

In adapting Homer's epic poem, screenwriter David Benioff had to make a number of dramatic sacrifices including some I already mentioned and one that may be the most troublesome sacrifice of the film. In The Iliad, the Gods of Mount Olympus gave the conflict it's context, they provided motivation beyond the grandiose, nation chest-bumping that Agamemnon uses as motivation here. The meddling God's protected Achilles and gave his dramatic ending a bigger payoff.

There are two reasons for the excising of the God's from Troy. First, there just wasn't enough time to fit them in. The film is just too long to add any more characters, especially characters as outsized as the Gods. Secondly, and don't underestimate this one because this may be the real reason, the bad memories of Sir Laurence Olivier's screen chewing menace in Clash Of The Titans. Love or hate Clash, there is no denying the cheeseball nature of all of the scenes involving the Gods.

Director Wolfgang Peterson is a technician as a director. As his budgets have grown his love of technological filmmaking has overcome his sense of story and character. I say that as a criticism but I must also state that as a technician he is a terrific director. Technology however is not what is most appealing about a film. As George Lucas has shown, you can have all of the technology in the world and still not make a movie that engages. Dazzle the eye all day but if you can't reach the heart or mind, you have no movie. Brad Pitt engages both with his tremendous performance but little else in Troy rises to his level. 

Movie Review Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds (2009) 

Directed by Quentin Tarentino 

Written by Quentin Tarentino 

Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Til Schweiger, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, Michael Fassbender

Release Date August 21st, 2009 

Published August 20th, 2009 

Quentin Tarentino is now 5 for 5 in making masterpieces. The writer-director has nailed it out of the park with each movie he has made and his latest, Inglorious Basterds, is arguably his best work yet. Wildly violent, irreverent and strangely humorous, Inglorious Basterds reimagines World War 2 history with the kind of blood and guts guile that only Tarentino could muster.

Inglourious Basterds tells a story on two tracks. In one story a Jewish woman, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), escapes the murder of her family and seeks vengeance on the Nazis. In the other story a group of American Jewish soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi controlled Paris under orders to kill and maim as many Nazi soldiers as they can. Boy, do they ever.

The Basterds, as they call themselves, are a bloodthirsty lot. Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) the Basterds seek scalps, literally they scalp Nazis. Raine came to be known as 'the apache'. Another member of the Bastards becomes the fearful 'Bear Jew'. He's played by horror director Eli Roth who brings the same vicious streak demonstrated in his Hostel film series to a role that has him beating Nazis to death with a baseball bat. I have always suspected that Roth enjoyed his brutality, Inglorious Basterds provides the visual evidence.

Another of the Bastards is too brutal for a nickname. He is Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) a former German soldier who, despite not even being Jewish, began beheading Nazis for fun. Stiglitz is such a badass that the movie pauses to pay tribute to him with a montage narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

The two stories of Inglorious Basterds collide when Shoshanna, now living in Paris under an assumed name and running a movie theater, gets her opportunity for vengeance with, of all things, the premiere of a German propaganda film at her theater. She plans to burn the place down with all of the Nazis inside. Meanwhile, the Basterds also plan on being at the movie premiere, especially after hearing that the Fuhrer himself will be attending.

The plot of Inglorious Basterds also makes room for a British Film Critic turned soldier (Michael Fassbender), and a German movie star (Diane Kruger) turned spy who help the Bastards get into the movie premiere. Trust me when I tell you that you will be surprised at the fates of each of these exceptionally well drawn characters.

Of course, a Quentin Tarentino movie is as much about a strong plot as it is about style and Inglorious Basterds is no different. Though the tone is a muddled mix of dark violence and darker comedy, Inglorious Basterds is, in classic Tarentino style, also a talky, literate, cinematic homage to all the movies QT loves. Stylish in the strangest ways, there are moments in Inglorious Basterds that approach elegance, especially scenes set in that gorgeous Parisian movie theater.

Brad Pitt is the headliner of one knockout cast. In one of the least glamorous roles since his redneck debut in Thelma & Louise, Pitt shows the ease and charm of a huge movie star and the grit of a classically Tarentino hero. Combining a dark sense of humor with the witty candor of Tarentino, Pitt surprises at every turn and is the glue of the movie.

But, Brad Pitt is far from the only standout. Christoph Waltz is Oscar Worthy as the Nazi known as the Jew Hunter. Daniel Bruhl also strikes all the right notes as a humble Nazi war hero turned propaganda movie star, and newcomer Melanie Laurent is a real scene stealer as Shoshanna whose revenge on the Nazis is a real cinematic treat.

Quentin Tarentino tames a wildly irreverent story by directing the violence, dark humor and endless talk as one giant symphony. His graceful movements from violence to verbiage are almost elegant in their ease and flow. Where some would argue that Tarentino's chapter to chapter style in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies could be choppy and disjointed, that same style rolls effortlessly in Inglorious Basterds. Wildly violent and yet smooth in its way, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarentino at his auteurist best. Few directors have a style all their own, Tarentino is one the few and arguably the best working today.

Movie Review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) 

Directed by David Fincher 

Written by Eric Roth 

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Mahershala Ali, Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche

Release Date December 25th, 2008

Published December 23rd, 2008

It is extraordinary what technology can do in the movies these days. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 45 year old Brad Pitt ages from a little old man to a youth ripe teenager before our eyes. It's stunning really and yet still remote. That is the nature of modern special effects. For all the genius and wonder, technology will never be able to replace one person relating to another on the most human levels.

Brad Pitt does what he can with the role that is given him in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's unfortunate that beyond the technology, there isn't a whole lot there. In 1918 a baby boy was born and seemed as if he should have died. He was aged, infirmed. He had cataracts and arthritis. He was abandoned by his father on the doorstep of an old folks home where the kindly nurse Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) took him in. He wasn't supposed to live through the night.

Several years later Benjamin is a little boy with all of the wonder of youth but he looked like a man in his 60's. When Benjamin was 13 years old he met Daisy Fuller. She was a few years younger but her keen intuition told her that Benjamin was somehow no different than herself. They became friends and every weekend, when Daisy came to visit her grandmother, they would play together.

When he turned 17 Benjamin took a job on a tugboat under Captain Mike (Jared Harris). Benjamin went all over the globe. In Russia he had his first kiss. He went on to war and eventually back to New Orleans. He and Daisy would reconnect and their love story is the centerpiece of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The most curious thing about Benjamin Button is that nothing much interesting happens to him. Yes, he went around the world but we don't see much of his travels. We see him in Russia but most of those scenes are spent in a hotel lobby. He went to war and was part of a notably sad incident but if you are waiting to see it play out as an aspect of his life and you will be left waiting awhile.

As written, the character of Benjamin Button is a blank screen in front of which colorful characters pass and are soon forgotten. Brad Pitt's contribution is his handsome visage which begins weathered under heavy makeup and CGI and slowly becomes more perfect and handsome. I know some will not require much more of Mr. Pitt but I did. This is a character filled with possibility and Mr. Pitt doesn't seem to explore the space. He remains a blank screen, only becoming active in a few scenes where he and Cate Blanchett send each other smoldering gazes. They are smoking hot together but again, I needed something more.

Cate Blanchett on the other hand smolders and suffers and delivers the one truly in depth performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Under extensive amounts of makeup, Blanchett and Julia Ormond as her daughter slowly recall the story of Benjamin from his diary. Blanchett is then seen as a young ballerina with porcelain skin that would shame Edward Cullen in sunlight. Blanchett is radiant and carrying almost all of the film's dramatic burden she damn near makes the movie work. Sadly, Pitt's blank slate and a script by Eric Roth that turns Benjamin into an old man version of Forrest Gump, leaves Ms. Blanchett dancing all by herself.

Director David Fincher is an artist beyond reproach. The way he melds the CGI and the real world is astonishing. Even more impressive are the scenes he creates with little help from the computers. A scene where Ms. Blanchett is seen dancing on an empty stage while attempting to entice Benjamin into their first trust is unbelievably beautiful. It's a scene that will be part of my memory for the rest of my life, even as the movie as a whole will fade relatively quickly.

There are breathtaking images in Benjamin Button which lay the uninvolving story all the more bare. I went in hoping to get some insight into a very unique character and left knowing what I knew about Benjamin Button when I came in. He is a boy who ages backwards. That alone is notable but how does it really affect him? What is his inner life like? The screenwriters never figured that out. What's left are a series of images and colorful supporting players and little to no insight into the man whose name is in the title.