Movie Review Juliet Naked

Juliet Naked (2018) 

Directed by Jesse Peretz

Written by Tamara Jenkins, Jim Taylor, Evgenia Peretz

Starring Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O'Dowd 

Release Date August 17th, 2018 

Published October 15th, 2018 

Juliet, Naked stars Rose Byrne as Annie, a museum director in a small suburb of London. Annie’s life is growing a bit stale. Her job is boring, her sister is a mess, and her boyfriend, Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), is obsessed with a rock star named Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) who disappeared into obscurity after making just one really successful record. For 25 years Duncan has collected and obsessed over scraps of information that he puts online at a website he made and dedicated to Tucker Crowe. 

At first, Duncan’s obsession was cute but after a few years of living together, Annie has grown tired of it and of Duncan. The plot kicks into gear when a mysterious package arrives at Annie and Duncan’s home. Annie finds it first and inside finds something called “Juliet, Naked.” Juliet was the name of Tucker Crowe’s only record and the ‘naked’ of this title refers to demo tracks of Tucker’s first record more than 25 years old. 

For an obsessed fan like Duncan, Juliet, Naked is like finding ancient religious scrolls or an authentic shroud of turin. It’s legitimately, to Duncan, an act of betrayal when Annie finds the CD and listens to it before he gets the chance. The betrayal deepens when Annie states that she finds the record insufferable and says so in a review that she posts on Duncan’s own website under an assumed name. 

Things take a turn for the surreal when the real Tucker Crowe reads Annie’s review and sends her an email telling her he agrees with her. Tucker has been a ghost for 25 years for a reason and part of it is how much he doesn’t like his own music. Tucker and Annie begin to correspond and as they grow closer, she and Duncan grow further apart until apart is all that they are able to be. With Duncan out of the way can Annie actually be in a relationship with the target of her ex’s obsession? 

Clever sounding premise aside, Juliet, Naked is one of the bigger disappointments of 2018 for me. I have been anticipating this movie since I heard about it. The film is based on a novel by Nick Hornby, my favorite writer whose books have inspired a couple of terrific movies, including an all time favorite of mine, High Fidelity starring John Cusack. I desperately wanted this movie to be great and sadly, it's only okay. 

What are the specific issues with Juliet, Naked? For starters, a complete lack of ambition. The movie is so elegiac, so lacking in vitality that it feels at times to be at a crawl. I don’t need this to have the pace of a Fast & Furious movie but the montage of Annie and Tucker’s email exchange is glacially paced even as it features very charming actors providing voiceovers for the scene. Even with Ethan Hawke and Rose Byrne, the scene is lifeless. 

And then there is the character of Tucker who is a complete disaster. Ethan Hawke plays Tucker as a sincere and forthright failure, a loser who has multiple kids by multiple mothers and lives off the residuals of his one big album, sleeping on a pull out bed at his ex’s farm so he can be close to his youngest son. That’s a lot of stuff to play as a character but Hawke doesn’t do much of anything with it. The film appears to rely solely on the charm of Hornby’s character to make Tucker interesting but somehow he appears stuck in the pages and not on the screen. 

The film reaches toward a moment of transcendence when Annie invites Duncan to come over and have dinner with her and Tucker at her home as a goodwill gesture. Duncan can hardly hold back on his fanboying and tells Tucker how much he loves his record and what it means to him. Tucker replies that he hates the record and the person he was when he made it. Duncan is wounded but defends himself and his love of Tucker’s record. It’s a good moment capped off by Duncan saying that art is not for the artist but for those who appreciate it before storming off. 

The film approaches something fascinating here about the relationship between artist and fan but director Jesse Peretz fumbles the moment slightly. Is Duncan a fool or are we meant to sympathize with his love of Tucker’s music? Is Tucker a jerk? Yeah, kind of. He’s kind of like those people who can’t graciously accept a compliment and instead come off as rude and unappreciative of genuine kindness. 

That could be a perfectly acceptable response on Tucker’s part but the way it plays in the moment makes both Duncan and Tucker look equal parts jerk and offender. We do find out why Tucker hates his own creation in the following scene but he really loses our sympathy in the previous scene and the rest feels like the character and the movie are making excuses for his rude behavior, excuses that don’t hold water. 

If Duncan is a buffoon then let him be a buffoon. Juliet, Naked takes such pains to be evenhanded about these characters that it lacks any perspective whatsoever and leaves a wishy washy impression of all three central characters. Director Jesse Peretz took a similarly even handed approach to his comedy Our Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd to a similarly wishy washy effect. It’s as if he doesn’t want to offend anyone to a point of pointlessness and an aimless narrative. 

This is supposed to be Annie’s story and yet until the end of the movie, Annie is a mostly listless character. The world continually happens to Annie aside from when she posted her negative review of Tucker’s record. Everything that happens with her after that is dictated not by Annie but by everyone else. Rose Byrne is capable of carrying this story but the movie continually lets her down scene after listless scene. 

All of that said, Juliet, Naked is not a bad movie. It suffers from a conventionalism that is rampant in modern movies, an eagerness to not offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. Everybody is flawed and no one judges anyone and even when they do, they are justified in doing so. This is supposed to be akin to realism but in the sacrosanct world of romantic comedy, realism doesn’t translate. Pretty much all romance is hyper-realized or idealized because real romance is hard work and we don’t go to the movies for hard work. 

There is no hard work in Juliet, Naked. The filmmakers want both to be ‘realistic’ and exist in the idealized world or romantic comedy. The dissonance is maddening and leads to a movie that moves with little momentum, features idealized characters in a contrived narrative and yet the filmmakers want to play at being taken seriously because the problems these characters have, their flaws and how they work towards overcoming them have a whiff of the real. 

Perhaps it is possible to make a funny romantic comedy that is also based in something real and insightful but Juliet, Naked never bridges that divide. Instead, it’s a maddening, slow moving, not entirely terrible movie featuring some genuinely good actors and some genuinely good moments. There is a good movie here but it’s missing a director who knows how to get at what is good about it.

Movie Review Taking Lives

Taking Lives (2004) 

Directed by D.J Caruso 

Written by Jon Bokencamp 

Starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo'

Release Date March 19th, 2004

Published March 18th, 2004 

Director D.J Caruso is one of the most promising young directors in all of Hollywood. The Salton Sea with Val Kilmer is one of the most underrated films in years. Combining modern day Tarentino rhythms with classic Hollywood noir, Salton Sea was a rarity that combined smart writing, direction and acting. That success makes Caruso's new film, Taking Lives such a massive disappointment. Whereas Salton Sea was inventive, unique and intelligent, Taking Lives is mundane, predictable and clichéd.

Angelina Jolie stars a FBI agent Illeana Scott, an unusual criminal profiler who has no qualms about crawling in and lying down in an open grave or spending all of her free time staring at pictures of dead bodies. Illeana has traveled to Montreal at the request of a cop friend (Tcheky Karyo) to investigate a serial murderer. The killer’s M.O is to choke his victim, cut off the hands and smash the skull.

It's up to Illeana to draw up a profile of the psycho to help the Montreal cops, who include Paquette (Olivier Martinez) and Duval (Jean-Hughes Anglade), find some sort of rationale for finding the killer. They get a big break when the killer is interrupted during a murder by a guy walking home. The witness is James Costa (Ethan Hawke), a skittish young artist who claims to have never seen a dead body before. 

With Costa's help the cops draw up a sketch of the killer that they hope will lead to his capture. Another break comes when the mother of the alleged killer claims to have seen her son who she had thought was dead, an early victim of the killer. If it all sounds familiar, it is. There is nothing in Taking Lives that is the least bit original. It plays like an homage to Fincher's Seven (the credit sequence is an almost direct lift) but without Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker's ingenious pacing, mystery and artful grunge.

Caruso seems to think that if you show really graphic shots of dead bodies that people will think of Seven and give his film a pass. This is not Seven, this is formula Hollywood with typical thriller twists and turns. Typical character mistakes and an ending so boneheaded that it would be laughable if the actors involved weren't such professionals. David Fincher this is not. 

It's hard to believe that it has been over four years since Angelina Jolie has made a good film. That was her Oscar winning turn in Girl Interrupted. Since that career highpoint, Jolie has fashioned an underwhelming career in big budget action movies, low wattage romances and a whole lot of unnecessary (though not unwelcome) nakedness. Her future still looks bright with Sky Captain and Alexander, but Taking Lives is yet another misstep in a career full of them.

Why an actor with such good radar as Ethan Hawke would choose to make this movie may be the biggest surprise of all. It's not that Ethan hasn't made a bad movie before but, generally speaking, he has a good eye for scripts and avoids formula Hollywood trash. Rounding out the cast of Taking Lives is Kiefer Sutherland in the Kiefer Sutherland role. Honestly Kiefer, fire your agent if he ever sends you a script like this again. How many times can Sutherland play oily creeps?

The film’s biggest disappointment is Caruso who wastes the talent. In transitioning from low budget to big budget, Caruso forgot the things that got him where he is. This film has none of the flare, inventiveness, or smarts of his first film. It's sad to watch Caruso simply translate a script to the screen with little to no style or substance. Taking Lives is one large step back for a director on the way up.

Movie Review: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) 

Directed by Marielle Heller

Written by Noah Harpster 

Starring Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Cooper 

Release Date November 22nd, 2019 

Published November 20th, 2019

The new Mr. Rogers movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, is a revelation. The story of an Esquire reporter, Lloyd, played by Matthew Rhys, who is assigned to profile Mr. Rogers for the magazine defies conventions in ways that are entirely unexpected and delightful. Director Marielle Heller has truly come into her own with this remarkable artful yet accessible movie that is not merely about the legendary PBS kids show host Mr. Rogers, but about all that he stood for and embodied. 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood opens with that oh so familiar theme song of the same name. Here, however, it is sung by Tom Hanks, who portrays Mr. Rogers in a role that artfully incorporates elements of fantasy and reality. The opening Mr. Rogers Neighborhood segment is a fantasy that has Mr. Rogers introducing us to his new friend, Lloyd, a deeply troubled soul who writes for Esquire Magazine and struggles with being a new father while being estranged from his own father, Jerry, played by Chris Cooper. 

Lloyd has alienated so many people in his career that, according to his editor, played with gravitas by Christine Lahti, no one wants to be interviewed by him anymore. Only one person of note has agreed to an interview with Lloyd and that person is Mr. Rogers. The nice guy kids show host puff piece is not Lloyd’s style but with no other option on the table, he agrees and travels to Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood in Pittsburgh for the interview. 

Things are somewhat off-kilter from the start in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and it is a risky proposition. Director Marielle Heller, fresh off of the Oscar nominated success of Can You Ever Forgive Me starring Melissa McCarthy, risks alienating the audience by immediately having Hanks’ Mr. Roger break the fourth wall and act as narrator of the movie, introducing the more straightforward, dramatic and familiar scenes. 

Heller then chooses to transition from scene to scene using the models right out of the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood set. It’s a style that evokes the esoteric direction of a Charlie Kaufman or Michel Gondry but in a decidedly more accessible fashion. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is stylistically bold yet lacking in pretension. That’s likely owed to the subject, Mr. Rogers himself was notably unpretentious, a quality that Tom Hanks captures in his performance. 

Another bold choice that Heller makes is casting Hanks and Mr. Rogers in what is essentially a supporting role. The heavy dramatic lifting here is done by Matthew Rhys as Lloyd. The Emmy Award winning co-star of the hit drama The Americans, Rhys has the burden of being both a character in and of himself and the audience avatar, the one who must bring us closer to Mr. Rogers and help us to understand what made him special. 

Rhys’ performance is brimming with life and complex emotions. His backstory is brilliantly layered into the storytelling and Rhys evokes his past trauma effortlessly with his expressive, sad eyes. The scenes of Lloyd interviewing Mr. Rogers are challenging and fascinating. There is a threat that Mr. Rogers might come off as too all-knowing and benevolent as he gently yet inquisitively probes Lloyd’s obvious emotional wounds. Rhys and Hanks are remarkable for how well they ground these charged conversations in a way that feels authentic to the movie and to the memory of Mr. Rogers. 

Lloyd is exactly the kind of person who needs the kinds of lessons that Mr. Rogers taught on his show. These are lessons of compassion, forgiveness and understanding that Lloyd missed out on as a child due to his myriad traumas. Having to learn these lessons as an adult via becoming a parent with his wife Andrea, played by Susan Kelechi Watson, and by the re-emergence of his estranged father, Jerry,  finds Lloyd emotionally ill-equipped and Mr. Rogers offers unexpected guidance. 

What an absolutely lovely way to tell this story. Director Heller and screenwriters Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, could have taken the easy way out, cast Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers and call it a day. Instead, they chose daring and artful devices to reveal the way Mr. Rogers affected so many lives in so many ways and do it in a fashion that takes his lessons from the simplicity of childhood to the complexity of adulthood. 

Now that I have seen it, I can’t imagine it being dramatized any other way. I had feared that 2018’s Mr. Rogers Neighborhood documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, would render A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood redundant. Instead, what we have is an even greater tribute to the legacy of Mr. Rogers, a film that masterfully evokes Mr. Rogers’ best qualities while not making Rogers out to be a saint or a metaphorical martyr for some notion of family values. 

Beautifully captured, boldly emotional and deeply affecting, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ranks as one of the most moving filmgoing experiences of my life and one of my favorite films of 2019, a year that is truly coming alive with incredible movies. 

Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code (2006) 

Directed by Ron Howard 

Written by Akiva Goldsman 

Starring Tom Hanks, Jean Reno, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan

Release Date May 19th, 2006 

Published May 18th, 2006 

Having read Dan Brown's worldwide best seller The Da Vinci Code my expectations for the film version were quite low. Despite his admittedly intriguing premise involving the bloodline of Jesus Christ, the holy grail, and secret societies, Dan Brown's writing style is a tedious mixture of portentous dialogue and sub-Crichton chase scenes.

Thankfully the movie version of The Da Vinci Code is blessed with talent creative enough to salvage the usable elements of Brown's intriguing premise and prop up his weak points to watchable levels. Director Ron Howard, Academy Award winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and star Tom Hanks are such professionals that even Dan Brown's tiresome, predictable clichés become relatively captivating mysteries.

Tom Hanks stars in the Da Vinci Code as Professor Robert Langdon. A Symbology expert, Professor Langdon is in Paris promoting his book when he is picked up by the Paris police. Taken to the world famous Louvre museum, Robert's help is sought in the investigation of the death of the museum's curator Jaques Saurniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle).

Langdon was to have a meeting with Saurniere while in Paris but as he tells police investigator Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), Saurniere never showed. What Langdon does not know is that Fache already has a suspect in the case, Langdon himself. The body found in the grand gallery amongst some of the world's greatest artistic treasures is surrounded by pagan symbols and clues, that Robert believes he is there to help interpret.

Coming to Robert's aide is a police code breaker, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou). Having observed the evidence at headquarters, Sophie has determined that Fache has settled on Langdon being guilty. She's also figured out that Langdon is very much innocent based on the same evidence. 

Saurniere happens to be Sophie's estranged grandfather. The symbols he left behind, in his own blood as he slowly died, were meant for her but she needs Professor Langdon's help in solving all of the riddles grandpa left behind. This includes a secret passed down through the ages that Saurniere has kept and was in the past the provenance of people such as Victor Hugo, Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci.

With Sophie's help Langdon escapes the Louvre, with some helpful artifacts from Saurniere and clues from Da Vinci himself. They must follow the clues if they are going to prove Robert's innocence and discover the amazing secret Jaques Saurniere died to protect, a secret that could lead them to the legendary Holy Grail. 

They will also need the help of an old friend of Robert's, conspiracy theorist Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen). An expert in all things related to the holy grail, Sir Leigh lets Robert and Sophie in on the scope and scale of the mystery they are trying to solve and the tremendous danger that secret threatens to unleash.

Keep in mind, of course, that the real killer of Jaques Saurniere is still out there. Silas (Paul Bettany) an imposing, self flagellating monk of the order of Opus Dei murdered Saurniere to get to the secret himself on behalf of a shady bishop (Alfred Molina). Working in secret for the Vatican, the bishop intends to destroy the holy grail if he gets his hands on it.

But just what is the holy grail? That is a mystery I will leave for you to discover by watching the movie. For storytelling purposes it's simply the McGuffin, that thing as described by Hitchcock, that drives a mystery movie plot. Be it a mysterious brief case, some sort of world killing virus or in this case the holy grail. It's that thing that every character in this kind of film seeks and that some characters will kill for. It's the motivation for chase scenes, gun fights and love stories.

This makes The Da Vinci Code a rather typical movie mystery. The film does indeed have more than a few chases, a few bullets fired and the makings of a minor love story. The Da Vinci Code is a conventional thriller except that it's driving force happens to be rather controversial.

Writer Dan Brown spins an outlandish tale that calls into question the divinity of Jesus Christ and spins a fantastical story of a Vatican cover up, the holy grail, and a secret society call the priory of scion whose membership reads like history's hall of fame.

It's a terrific story that in his book Brown drowns out with droning dialogue and a highly predictable murder mystery. The challenge to the filmmakers was to remain faithful enough to satisfy the millions who managed to fight through the books clichés while patching Brown's many plot holes.

Writer Akiva Goldsman does what he can to repair the books worst aspect, the dialogue. Cleaning up Brown's dense, halting prose, Goldsman cuts to the quick. This at times leaves people who haven't read the book in the dark but keeps the film from having to be four hours long to explain all of the various details. At 2 hours and 30 minutes, the film is long and filled with a lot of dialogue but we can thank Goldsman for getting the films many jargon filled conversations moving.

Also thank Ron Howard for keeping things moving as well. Only pausing when he absolutely has to, Howard keeps the film humming along with chase scenes, narrow escapes and tantalizing historic scenery from Paris to London. There was no way that even talents like Howard and Goldman could plug the many holes in the convoluted Da Vinci Code plot but they are blessed with a dream cast who allow us to relax and forget about many of those rather large holes.

Tom Hanks with his friendly, aw shucks charm is always an inviting screen presence. He's become an old reliable friend on screen and no matter how implausible the plot may be you want to follow along just to hang out with our buddy Tom Hanks.

Ian McKellen may not be our pal like Tom but playing a charming English eccentric, McKellen is perfectly at home and highly entertaining. His Sir Leigh Teabing has some of the more lengthy and difficult dialogue in the film but who better than the classically stage trained englishman to deliver even the most tedious monologues. His grand accent alone is enough to lull you into believing the fantastic lies he spins.

The Da Vinci Code is no groundbreaking adventure in the way Indiana Jones was but it's not the stultifying borefest that was National Treasure. It falls somewhere in the entertaining but forgettable middle ground of those two similar adventures. Good enough for me to recommend to fans of mystery, fans of the book and especially fans of our old pal Tom Hanks.

Movie Review: Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me if You Can (2002) 

Directed by Steven Spielberg 

Written by Jeff Nathanson 

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen

Release Date December 25th, 2002 

Published December 24th, 2002 

Less than a week ago, Leonardo DiCaprio entered theaters with Gangs of New York, his first truly adult performance. He returns in his new film portraying a kid again. In Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, DiCaprio is famed teenage con man Frank Abagnale Jr, the youngest man ever to make the FBI's most wanted list. Though DiCaprio is playing a teenager in this film, it is yet another grown up performance that announces DiCaprio as an actor of great depth.

The true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. is one made for the big screen. Before the age of 19, Abagnale had been an airline pilot, a lawyer, and a doctor. He was also a master check forger. The story is told in flashback as FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) arrives at a French prison to retrieve Abagnale who had served two years in the prison for the same crimes he was charged with in the States. We flashback to young Frank and his picturesque family life. Frank's father, Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), and his mother (Natalie Baye) seem to be happy. Unfortunately his father's business is going under and the IRS is beating down their door. The stress is breaking up the marriage. This leads Frank Jr. to hit the road and begin his life of crime.

Frank writes a series of bad checks before the banks finally cut him off. Then, inspiration strikes in the form of an airplane pilot. Seeing the respect and admiration people showed for airline pilots, Frank sets about becoming a pilot (or at least looking the part.) After conning officials at Pan Am into giving him a uniform and enough background information to be able to talk a good game, Frank sets about being a pilot. Using his uniform and sheer bravado, Frank starts forging checks from Pan Am. The uniform gave him instant credibility and Frank's ability to charm the female bank tellers meant never even having to produce an ID to have a check cashed in any bank in the country.

With the FBI onto his pilot scheme, Frank settles in Atlanta where a chance encounter with a sweet little nurse named Brenda (Amy Adams) leads Frank to become a doctor. He fakes a degree from Harvard Medical School and watches Dr. Kildare. Suddenly, he's working the night shift as the head on call doctor in the emergency room. Thankfully, being in charge of a group of doctors means that Frank is never left to tend to a patient. Frank's relationship with Brenda leads to yet another close call with the feds, and has Frank headed for Europe.

Despite his adept criminal mind and quick wit, Frank is still a kid and still a sloppy criminal and the FBI is quickly on his path. In one amazing encounter, Frank actually comes face to face with the FBI agents on his tail and crafts an amazing lie to make his escape by posing as a secret service agent. The scene relies on a great deal of convenient timing and luck, but then I'm sure the real Frank Abagnale was the beneficiary of convenient timing and luck throughout his criminal run.

Indeed, Frank Abagnale's story is true. He was the youngest man ever to make the FBI's infamous most wanted list. He did cash forged checks over a three year span that totaled over 4 million dollars and he did impersonate a doctor, an airline pilot, and a lawyer and even for a short time a French teacher in his own high school. His first taste of how to run a good con, he made it a full week as a French substitute without actually speaking any French.

Why did Frank Abagnale do all of this? The likely answer is because he thought he could get a way with it. Spielberg however can't help tossing in a little pop psychology as a partial explanation. The film posits that the break up of his parents' marriage and his desire to reunite them by buying their problems away caused Frank to become a criminal. That and his father's hatred for the government kept Frank on the run. 

DiCaprio however never communicates a tortured victim, but rather, an excitable teen who lacks a good solid hobby. If there had been extreme sports in Frank's day, he may have just risked his life on stupid stunts. In place of that, his need for a constant rush leads him to crime. FBI agent Hanratty becomes his unwilling accomplice, providing Frank with the reason to keep running. What fun is being a great con artist or a great anything for that matter, if no one is around to appreciate it?

Spielberg is a preeminent story teller and in Frank Abagnale he has a great story. Unfortunately, Frank is too good of a guy for there to be any great drama. The film makes great use of the audience as Frank's co-conspirators. With his charm and wit, DiCaprio has the audience cheering for him to get away and you can't help but laugh at the way Frank toys with the people who attempt to deny him. However, the audience never really understands the gravity of his situation. Stealing four million dollars is a serious thing; it's grand theft. Yet, Frank is so likable and the narrative is so forgiving to him one would think it was okay for him to get away.

In many ways, Catch Me If You Can reminded me of a far better film, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both films are about troubled youth con men. Both guys are loners who are desperate for attention and both draw the sympathy of the audience; however, Ripley is far more dramatic than Abagnale. His longings and crimes add weight to the character that Abagnale lacks. Catch Me If You Can is far more flashy than Ripley is and, for that reason, the drama is lacking. Frank never seems to be in any real danger.

Both DiCaprio and Hanks are strong but Catch Me If You Can still seems weightless. It isn't a comedy but it's not nearly dramatic enough to be taken seriously. Yes, this is a true story. But something tells me the real story is a little more dramatic than the featherweight screen version. All of that said, Catch Me if You Can is wildly entertaining and with Spielberg, Hanks, and DiCaprio, you have a trio incapable of making a bad movie together. Catch Me if You Can may not live up to all of your expectations but it is nevertheless entertaining. 

Movie Review: The Terminal

The Terminal (2004) 

Directed by Steven Spielberg 

Written by Sacha Gervasi, Jeff Nathanson 

Starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana

Release Date June 18th, 2004 

Published June 17th, 2004 

I thought it was an urban legend. My brother and I were discussing the new Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks flick The Terminal when he told me the story of Merhan Karimi Nasseri. Mr. Nasseri has spent the past 15 years in the international terminal of Charles De Gaulle Airport in France after his bag was stolen with all of his identification.

The Iranian born Mr. Nasseri has lived off the kindness of the airport staff for 15 years, has inspired 2 documentaries and a French film called Tombes Du Ciel or Lost In Transit starring the legendary Jean Rochefort. Now Mr. Nasseri is a getting a big time American treatment from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Sadly, this trifle of a film is exposed for it’s light as featheriness by the dramatic true story on which it is loosely based.

In The Terminal, Tom Hanks is Viktor Navorsky who has come to New York City from his Eastern block home of Krakozhia. Unfortunately while Mr. Navorsky was flying to America, Krakozhia plunged into civil war and the government dissipated. Now in America, Mr. Navorsky is a man without a country, his Visa is invalid because the U.S government can’t recognize a ruling power in Krakozhia. Until the war ends and a new government is established, Viktor must remain in the airport terminal.

Breaking the bad news to Viktor is the not so kindly head of the airport’s Homeland Security Office Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci). It is Frank who could find away to really help Viktor but instead strands him with bureaucratic red tape and then takes a sadistic interest in preventing Viktor from making the most of his desperate situation.

Stuck in the International terminal, that looks more like a mall than an airport thanks to the numerous real brand name stores, Viktor waits and involves himself in the lives of the airport staff. There is Diego Luna as a food delivery worker who trades Viktor free food in exchange for Viktor’s help in romancing an INS Agent played by Zoë Saldana. Although Viktor knows he can’t leave, he visits the INS office every day to have his passport declined.

Chi McBride is a baggage handler with a soft spot for late night card games. He sees Viktor as a soft mark for poker games but soon becomes a real friend. And then there is the janitor, an Indian man played by Kumar Pallana, a lovable oddball with a secret past. Pallana provides the biggest laughs of the film and none of them at his expense.

Finally, there is Catherine Zeta Jones as Amelia, a flight attendant who takes a shine to Viktor but can’t get involved because she is hopelessly involved with a married man played briefly by Michael Nouri. While she tries to resist the urge to be with the married man, Amelia and Viktor come close to romance until the plot conspires to split them.

Despite the film’s dramatic underpinnings, everything is kept very light and airy. In fact, it’s so light that it floats off the screen and almost immediately from your memory. Tom Hanks, arguably our most talented actor, here plays a sort of lovable puppy of a character whose moral fiber is so unquestionable, he is too good to be true. There is nothing wrong with a character that is virtuous but Viktor is Touched By An Angel good. Maybe that explains why Stanley Tucci's officious bureaucrat hates him so much anyone this perfect would eventually get on your nerves. Still, Tucci is too evil to be true until the plot calls for him to look the other way.

Too good to be true describes most of The Terminal which suffers from a script full of contrivances. Viktor quickly learns English, lucks into the food deal with Diego, lucks into a job working construction in the terminal and in typical forced romantic comedy fashion, he has a meet-cute with Amelia that becomes a running gag.

I have been quite hard on The Terminal to this point so I should point out that their are a number of good things about the film. Steven Spielberg's direction is typically strong in its structure and look. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminsky relishes the freedom given him by a set that was built specifically for the film and for his camera to be positioned as he pleased.

The film’s biggest star may in fact be the set created by production designer Alex McDowell. Rather than trying to wrangle shooting time in a real airport terminal, McDowell and his team of designers built a terminal inside of a Los Angeles airport hangar. The flawless design is a seamless recreation of any major airport terminal in the country right down to the uncomfortable benches, the ungodly level of branding, and astoundingly high prices.

However, without a well-told story to decorate the terrific set, the movie isn't worth anymore than it's production design. The Terminal is likable and sweet, and occasionally quite funny, but it is also inconsistent, simpleminded, and lighter than air. Tom Hanks is his typically likable self and Mr. Spielberg's direction is of his usual quality. It's unfortunate that the script by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson is far below the quality of their work.

Movie Review Larry Crowne

Larry Crowne (2011) 

Directed by Tom Hanks 

Written by Tom Hanks, Nia Vardalos 

Starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Taraji P Henson

Release Date July 1st, 2011 

Published June 30th, 2011 

"Larry Crowne" is a disappointment on multiple levels. First, and most important, is how truly awful a movie "Larry Crowne" is. Boring, banal, pointless and at times bordering on amateurish. Then there is the fact that the film stars two of the biggest stars of the past 25 years of film, Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks.

And finally, there is the fact that Tom Hanks co-wrote and directed this failure of sub-sitcom humor and cloying romance. Tom Hanks had shown so much promise as the director of the charming period rock n' roll movie "That Thing You Do." To see him deliver something as charm-free and banal as "Larry Crowne" is just sad.

Tom Hanks stars in the title role of Larry Crowne. Larry is maybe the nicest, sweetest guy you would ever want Tom Hanks to play; he's Forrest Gump minus most of the mental handicaps. Larry was in the Navy for more than 20 years but when asked about it he's quick with a humble smile and an admittance that he was just a cook. Awww.

Larry's wife divorced him several years ago, before they could have kids but after they had bought their suburban dream home. Since then, Larry has thrown himself into his work, taking great pride in being an eight time employee of the month at U-Mart, a Wal-Mart/Target Superstore clone.

Unfortunately for Larry, he never went to college. At UMart you can only move up to management if you have a degree and without one, Larry can't move up so he must move on. Fired from his beloved retail job, Larry finds the job market unwelcoming. Lucky for him, his neighbor has an idea, Community College.

If Larry can get a degree maybe he can get his job back or an even better job. Is the movie over? No, it has only begun as Larry returns to school and immediately acquires a new best friend, a perfect pixie named Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who immediately sets about changing Larry's life around; new clothes, new haircut, new friends and boom, slightly new Larry. She's a manic pixie dream-best friend. 

Meanwhile, in another movie, Julia Roberts plays a slightly alcoholic Community College professor who happens to have Larry Crowne in one of her classes. From time to time the camera ditches Larry to follow the professor into her sad life with her porn addicted, unemployed husband, Dean (Bryan Cranston).

Oh if only she could get a little Larry time; his cuddliness and good humor would without a doubt brighten her day and solve all of troubles. Oops. I maybe should have offered a spoiler alert there. Then again, did you think "Larry Crowne" was going to star Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and they weren't going to be matched up?

The fact is, romantic comedies aren't about suspenseful plotting, they're about setting believable, interesting, roadblocks between potential love mates and watching them humorously negotiate said roadblocks on their way to a chirpy happy ending. Rom-coms are about the journey and in the case of "Larry Crowne," it's not a great journey.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts demonstrate a stunning lack of chemistry in "Larry Crowne." In fact, Hanks has a great deal more chemistry with young Gugu Mbatha-Raw than with Julia Roberts. That however, would be a different, possibly more interesting movie. That movie would at least have the tension of a cross-racial May-December romance.

"Larry Crowne," on the other hand, has no tension whatsoever. As Roger Ebert points out perfectly in his review, Larry Crowne begins as a good guy and progresses through the movie as a good guy before ending as a good guy. There is no arc to "Larry Crowne." We know where the movie is going and it gets there with a minimum of humor and zero tension, as if complicating the plot might make the audience uncomfortable.

Oh, but there is the porn addict husband, right? He's a source of tension isn't he? He's played by Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston. That must be contentious? But it's not, the script deals the husband out of the story with such simplicity as to have simply forgotten he was even there.

It's shocking and sad just how bad "Larry Crowne" is. I am a huge Tom Hanks fan but I cannot deny just how banal the whole thing is. The humor is amateurish, the romance is lifeless and perfunctory and the movie just sort of stands around smiling pleasantly and hoping that all of the Tom Petty songs on the soundtrack, there are like a dozen of them, will be entertaining enough to distract from the dullness of what little story there is.