Movie Review: What Happens In Vegas (2008)

A miserable non-romantic comedy, What Happen In Vegas chokes on a contrived premise laced by a nasty streak of mean behaviour.

In New York City, meticulous planner and stock trader Joy (Cameron Diaz) is dumped by her boyfriend Mason (Jason Sudeikis). Separately, super slob Jack (Ashton Kutcher) is fired from his woodworking job by his own father (Treat Williams). Joy and Jack head to Las Vegas, where a booking mix-up results in them sharing first a hotel room, then a wild and drunken night of partying. They wake up married to each other.

The two realize they have nothing in common and actually cannot stand to be together. But before they separate he uses her quarter in a slot machine and wins $3 million. Back in New York, a judge (Dennis Miller) gives them six months to make their marriage work before he decides on the fate of the money. They spend most of that time making each other miserable between visits to marriage counsellor Dr. Twitchell (Queen Latifa).

Stretching for rom-com originality, What Happens In Vegas loses sight of its own purpose. Writer Dana Fox creates rough sketches of two unlikeable characters, labels them "perfectionist" and "boor", and throws them together. It's no surprise Joy and Jack share no chemistry, and director Tom Vaughan clutters most of the film with juvenile shenanigans as the unwilling couple try to wind each other up.

Other than a couple of laughs, most of the attempted jokes plumb the deep depths of cliche land, resorting to the most tired of toilet seat and dirty laundry gender conflicts. Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher go through the motions stuck in overacting mode, and never come close to convincing. The requisite relationship u-turn demanding they start to perhaps care for each other arrives late and is based on nothing.

The best friends supporting roles are occupied by Lake Bell and Rob Corddry, and they mostly fill the background with forgettable presence.

What Happens In Vegas should never have happened.

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Movie Review: The Babysitters (2007)

A social drama, The Babysitters conjures up a devious but truncated feminist take on the business of sex between married men and babysitters.

High school student Shirley (Katherine Waterston) is facing normal pressures of preparing for college applications and entrance exams. She also babysits the children of Michael (John Leguizamo) and Gail (Cynthia Nixon). Their marriage appears tense, which encourages Shirley's crush on Michael. One evening Shirley and Michael share a sexual encounter, which he ends by throwing a handsome amount of money at her.

Realizing she will never be more than a sexual plaything for Michael, the entrepreneurial Shirley monetizes married men's lust for babysitters, and starts recruiting other high school girls for a prostitution ring. Her best friend Melissa (Lauren Birkel) emerges as her strongest business ally, but word soon spreads and rival girls establish competing businesses, creating a strong undercurrent of conflict and tension at school.

An independent production written and directed by David Ross, The Babysitters latches onto a complicated idea but is not quite sure what to do with it. The concept of high school girls profiting from the uncontrolled philandering of married men by organizing for-profit prostitution cartels is intriguing, not least because it is fraught with the pitfalls of a three-way collision between capitalism, feminism and the oldest profession unfolding in quaint suburbia.

Ross avoids all hints of titillation by almost completely stripping the film of any emotion, and this becomes a double-edged sword. Michael is the only character to display some semblance of conflict, but John Leguizamo fights an uphill battle against a script uninterested in warmth or depth. The other men are almost uniformly portrayed as doofus husbands and fathers quick to trade money for sex and unable to control their most base urges.

Meanwhile Shirley knows when she is being used and strikes back with pure economics, but her anger at men's transactional perception of babysitter sex can only carry the narrative so far. Likewise the other girls adopt a strictly business stance and march into whoredom in an almost trance-like state, middle class women-to-be seizing an opportunity to fund a college education (or buy more makeup and glitter).

Without any genuine human connections to latch onto, The Babysitters crumbles into a cold and calculating battle between competing girls to control the market, and unfortunately none of it registers as relatable drama. The plot devolves into a series of nasty and borderline exploitive actions featuring drugs, alcohol and mechanical sex as a weapon, a combination of connivance and naivete predictably leading to messy disappointments for all.

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Movie Review: In The Fade (2017)

A hard-hitting and rain-soaked justice and revenge drama, In The Fade examines the impact of a terrorist atrocity on one woman who loses everything.

In Hamburg, Germany, Katja Şekerci (Diane Kruger) drops off her son Rocco at the office of her husband Nuri, located in a Kurdish neighbourhood. A bomb planted in a bicycle subsequent kills both Nuri and Rocco, destroying Katja's life and pushing her into drug use and suicidal depression. The police investigation focuses on Nuri's chequered past: he served prison time for drug dealing, and suspicions linger he was back involved in criminal activity.

But Katja, who spotted the woman who parked the bike, believes the bomb was planted by anti-immigrant neo-Nazi terrorists. She is eventually proven right when couple Edda and André Möller are arrested. Katja and her attorney Danilo Fava (Denis Moschitto) will have to endure a difficult trial in the quest for justice.

The impact of anti-immigration extremist acts is the subject of In The Fade, and while the quest for justice theme is familiar, writer and director Fatih Akin aims his punches straight at the gut. The film is uncompromising in presenting the physical and emotional devastation caused by a terrorist bombing, and in a crisp 106 minutes brings the victims and survivors, often perceived as numeric statistics, to the centre of the story.

Here Katja cannot even see the remains of husband Nuri and son Rocco: there are none, the two victims reduced to small burnt fragments. And the police investigation initially victimizes her husband again, seeking evidence of criminal activity to test a gangland murder scenario.

Under grey skies and frequent intense rain, Katja resorts to drug use, sinks into a depression and seriously ponders suicide. For her the bomb's shockwave continues long after the initial explosion, amplified by mounting fury and a deep seated desire for personal vengeance.

With Katja in the courtroom, the medical examiner testifies about Rocco's cause-of-death injuries in methodical detail, and her dry monotonal scientific words sear the soul. Meanwhile the neo-Nazi suspects and their smug lawyer need only drill enough holes in the prosecution's case to introduce reasonable doubt, and Akin adopts a less is more approach towards the antagonists. Their calculated coolness and ruthless stares are sufficient to convey the vacuous ignorance and virulent hate at the base of perverted ethnic superiority philosophies.

But the trial will need to deliver some sense of a fair outcome, otherwise Katja's torment, buffeted by nostalgic memories of happier times, will continue. Akin accompanies his central character to the bittersweet end, where longing, revenge and longing for revenge come together in a perfectly imperfect resolution.

Diane Kruger delivers a haunting and career-best performance at the centre of In The Fade. She is raw, fearless and exposed, a woman as emotionally broken as her family is physically destroyed. Long after the headlines, ravaged survivors have to soldier on towards finding their own sense of peace.

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Movie Review: Cedar Rapids (2011)

An independent small-scale comedy, Cedar Rapids creates a clever premise with potentially interesting characters, but then quickly runs out of ideas.

Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is a naive but well-meaning insurance agent who has never left his small Wisconsin hometown of Brown Valley. He enjoys sexual encounters with his former school teacher Macy (Sigourney Weaver), although he is much more serious about the relationship than she is. Tim's boss Bill (Stephen Root) is adamant the agency maintain the coveted "Two Diamond" rating awarded by the regional insurance association.

When star agent Roger unexpectedly expires, Bill dispatches Tim to the industry conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a mission to impress association president Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). On his first ever trip to anywhere, Tim meets a trio of seasoned insurance agents: the kind Ronald (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), boorish Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), and frisky Joan (Anne Heche). They expose him to conference-style fun, but Tim soon discovers some hard truths.

The world of nondescript conferences in nowheresville towns where salespeople congregate provides potentially rich soil for humour. Screenwriter Phil Johnston, director Miguel Arteta, and co-producer Alexander Payne conjure up a good foundation for laughs, with most of the film taking place at the mundane cookie-cutter hotel.

But once the place and people are introduced, Cedar Rapids quickly stalls. Tim's naive disposition is too easy a target, and he quickly succumbs to alcohol and pot, leading to all the usual and predictable misadventures. Uncomfortable nude encounters, skinny dipping, drunken sexual liaisons, and wild parties with prostitutes ensue, the film ticking off a checklist straight from the horny teenager comedies of the 1980s.

Ed Helms as Tim is essentially a blank canvass allowing events to be drawn on him. It is left to the veteran conference attendees to enliven the film, and thanks to a strong cast enough energy is injected to provide bursts of entertainment. John C. Reilly gives Ziegler a few good layers to peel away, while Anne Heche is the married-too-early mom who uses the conference as the one annual opportunity to live a different life. Isiah Whitlock Jr. is less well defined, while Alia Shawkat as the local whore with a heart of gold has nowhere to take her character.

Most of the laughs come from Reilly going all out with the churlish mannerisms of Ziegler as loud, rude and with a ready insult for any situation. He is a common but unwelcome conference presence, lingering like the sickly chlorine smell of the hotel's indoor swimming pool.

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Movie Review: The Return Of Doctor X (1939)

A science fiction suspense thriller, The Return Of Doctor X is a stiff low-budget mystery featuring bloodthirsty murders and corpses that refuse to remain dead.

Newspaperman Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris) scores an interview with theatre star Angela Merrova (Lya Lys). He is shocked to find her stabbed to death in her hotel room, but even more astounded when the next day her corpse disappears, and then Merrova shows up alive, if a little pasty. Garrett turns to his friend and blood expert Dr. Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) for some amateur sleuthing.

Suspicion soon centers on Mike's mentor Dr. Francis Flegg (John Litel) and his creepy, pale assistant Marshall Quesne (Humphrey Bogart). Flegg is experimenting with blood transfusions and the development of synthetic blood. Soon another murder is committed, and then Mike's new girlfriend nurse Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane) is threatened.

The Return Of Doctor X is a curiosity due to the presence of a pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart in one of his least favourite roles. He plays a dead-eyed ex-physician with memorable makeup and hair, in a role better suited to Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. The film is also the first to be directed by Vincent Sherman.

As a B-movie clocking in at 62 minutes, The Return Of Doctor X is not a total loss. The potential benefits of blood transfusions and synthetic blood as a life-saving scientific advancement are among the topics discussed. The Lee Katz script also features some wry humour, Garrett maintaining his sense of investigative fun despite losing his job and finding himself at the centre of multiple murder scenes.

But otherwise this is a standard monster-in-human-form cheapo production, heavily inspired by Frankenstein but with plastic characters, rushed delivery, and a plot designed for bargain thrills rather than any logic. The three lead performances from Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan and John Litel belong in local amateur theatre productions, while the character of Joan Vance hangs around on the margins for the sole purpose of becoming a final act damsel in distress.

Bogart looks suitably ghastly and aghast at having to endure the rampant nonsense. His roles had already started to improve with appearances in classy productions like Dark Victory (also from 1939). Within a couple of years High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon would make him a star, consigning Dr. X to embarassing footnote status.

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Movie Review: Action In Arabia (1944)

A low budget World War Two adventure, Action In Arabia has enough ideas to maintain interest, but not enough budget nor talent to deliver on its ambition.

American newspaperman Michael Gordon (George Sanders) and fellow reporter Chalmers (Robert Anderson) arrive in Damascus, a hotbed of World War Two intrigue and espionage. At the airport Chalmers is smitten by Mounirah al-Rashid (Lenore Aubert), the daughter of an influential tribal chief. She is greeting shadowy French spy Leroux (André Charlot). Chalmers decides to snoop around Leroux's business and receives a fatal knife in the back for his troubles.

Meanwhile Gordon bumps into hotelier and Nazi sympathizer Eric Latimer (Alan Napier), American agent Matthew Reed (Robert Armstrong), professional information merchant Josef Danesco (Gene Lockhart) and the alluring Yvonne (Virginia Bruce). They all insist he leave town immediately, but Gordon senses something big is about to happen, with both sides of the war eager to win al-Rashid's backing.

An RKO production produced at the height of the war, Action In Arabia reaches for a Casablanca-style vibe but falls well short. The script by Philip MacDonald and Herbert J. Biberman is rich with potentially compelling characters harbouring competing secrets and pursuing clashing agendas. And notwithstanding a few too many camels, the RKO backlot disguise as a Middle Eastern locale is decent.

But otherwise, the execution, exposition and narrative flow expose limited resources all around the camera. At 75 minutes the film features too much scheming and not enough time, and despite George Sanders' best efforts to convince, his white suit remains stubbornly spotless as he ventures in and out of teaming bazaars and greasy planes, tangling with sweaty assassins along the way.

Meanwhile, the seemingly pivotal character of al-Rashid is introduced about 10 minutes from the end, and barely gets any lines of dialogue. Another conniving tribal chief is even less defined, and overall the plot and conspiracy elements are botched. The romance and infatuation interludes featuring the exotic Mounirah and Yvonne are laughably juvenile.

Least convincing are rudimentary surveillance and action scenes, director Leonide Moguy unable to construct anything resembling rational sequencing, editing or tension. At one point Gordon takes off in a small plane in the middle of the desert with no clue in which direction to fly, but is anyway soon spotting all the important tribal movements and encampments down below (actually footage filmed for a whole other unreleased movie).

Action In Arabia cannot be faulted for aspiration, but is ultimately betrayed by insurmountable inadequacies.

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Movie Review: The Irishman (2019)

A sprawling gangland epic, The Irishman weaves a multi-decade story of violence and corruption among mobsters and unions.

At a nursing home, the elderly Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) reminisces about his life, starting in the 1950s when he was an army veteran working as a truck driver in the Philadelphia area. He meets influential mob boss Russell "Russ" Bufalino (Joe Pesci), an associate of respected mobster Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel). Starting out as a chauffeur and graduating to assassin, Frank proves himself loyal to Russ. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) runs the powerful Teamsters union, and authorizes pension fund investments in mafia-backed projects.

When Hoffa's position is threatened by rival Tony "Pro" (Stephen Graham), Russell dispatches Frank to prop him up, and the two men become close friends. The appointment of Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General causes Hoffa no shortage of trouble, and he eventually lands in jail. Upon his release in the early 1970s Hoffa insists on wrestling back control of the union, but his behaviour starts to antagonize powerful mob figures, placing Frank in an awkward position.

Reaching deep into the heart and soul of the epic gangster film, Martin Scorsese rolls back the decades and assembles a grand ode to the genre. The Irishman carries echoes of The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America and Scorsese's own Goodfellas and Casino, but also makes its own mark as a more sombre, contemplative effort. Style, pizzazz and moments of violence underpin the drama without overwhelming it, the emphasis instead placed on men perpetuating an era and then looking back upon it.

Given free rein by Netflix to nurture and create his vision, Scorsese adapts the 2004 non-fiction book I Heard You Paint Houses (a mob reference to blood-splattered walls) by Charles Brandt, chronicling Frank Sheeran's startling life-long association with the mafia and Hoffa. The film runs for 209 minutes covering events from the 1950s to the early 2000s, but thanks to the stellar cast, a powerful Steven Zaillian script and nimble editing, The Irishman earns its length and never drags.

Scorsese's focus is on strong male characters grappling with necessary relationships, friendships and betrayals over the years. Crusty and cut-throat as they are, the men nevertheless forge bonds of respect, reciprocity and loyalty within their crime ridden world. Frank nurtures twin affinities with Russ and Hoffa and over the years becomes an essential communication bridge, the one person trusted by both the mobsters and union boss. His status transforms from enviable to tenuous as personal and business interests diverge.

The conflicted emotions buffeting Frank's life provide the film with a rich central character, and Robert De Niro delivers one of his best late-career performances to convey the complexity of a man comfortable with killing but yet craving and valuing meaningful interpersonal bonds. De Niro and Scorsese use the film's eloquent denouement to fully round out Frank as an old man using his remaining time for reflection, pockets of regret competing with pride.

Russ Bufalino emerges as the most compelling secondary character, Joe Pesci coming out of retirement to exude the quiet disposition of power. Jimmy Hoffa is more broadly drawn as a scrappy boss who perceives the Teamsters union as his own business. Hoffa has no individual identity without being at the helm, and as a result Al Pacino is constrained into a loud, shouty and repetitive performance.

The three lead actors play their characters across the decades, and superimposed digital technology is used to de-age their faces for the early years. It's a semi-successful experiment: the images appear seamless, but the combination of young faces and clearly old bodies and postures is incongruous.

Despite the mammoth length, Scorsese shortchanges the men's families. The women and children remain unfortunate afterthoughts, occasionally dipping into the narrative to pull on the strings of contrition before dropping right out again.

But The Irishman does not disguise its intentions as an intimate portrait of a few hard men painted on a huge canvass of time. Their business was crime and manipulation, their roles fulfilled according to the underworld code where cooperation yields wealth just as stubborn impedance means death.

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Movie Review: Parasite (2019)

A social drama with biting humour and canny twists, Parasite provides piercing commentary on internecine class warfare disguised as upward mobility.

In Seoul, the poor Kim family lives in a cramped semi-basement. Father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) is good natured but has stopped looking for work. His enterprising low-key son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) finds employment as an English tutor for Da-hye (Jeong Ji-so), the daughter of wealthy tech tycoon Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun). The Parks live in an impressive modern house designed by a renowned architect. Ki-woo quickly realizes he can take advantage of Da-hye's naive but well meaning mother Yeon-gyo (Cho Yeo-jeong).

He contrives an opportunity for his feisty sister Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) to tutor Da-hye's younger brother Da-song, and soon Ki-taek and his wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) are also employed by the Parks after the Kims plot the ouster of the chauffeur and housekeeper. Just when the fortunes of the Kim family are looking up, the dismissed housekeeper Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun) reappears and reveals a shocking secret. The Kims are suddenly confronted by the prospect of losing everything they worked for.

The intrinsic, almost irresistible drive to move up in the world and the price to be paid in exchange for elevated social status receive a grilling in Parasite. Director and co-writer Bong Joon-ho composes a narrative of two families living in the same city but on different planets, rubbing against each other with superficial delicacy hiding incalculable estrangement. The outcome is an enthralling stress test with escalating degrees of discomfort.

Parasite is as much about two families as it is about two places. The Kims' household is partially subterranean and kept economically afloat by leeching WiFi from neighbours and opening the windows to allow street fumigation to dispose of the resident cockroaches. The local drunk urinates in front of their window, and sewer water flooding the streets flows into the apartment, leaving the top of the toilet seat as the final place of refuge.

In contrast the Parks live in a spacious architectural jewel of concrete, steel, open space, contemporary furniture and wondrous landscaping. At the first opportunity the Kim family take over the living room and transform it into a trashy dump of crumbs and wrappers, a celebration that turns into a ceremonial beginning of the end. The Kims are destined to meet a most unexpected guest, leading to a disruption of another domestic arrangement, this one brimming with potential for danger.

The story's construction requires some logic leaps, as the ingenuity demonstrated by the Kims to infiltrate the Park household is inconsistent with their initial economic stature. But otherwise Bong assembles an intricate and fleet-footed train wreck featuring a cunning plan running afoul of its own victims and laced with wicked humour.

A majestic music score nurtures running themes about the dangers of crossing lines and the inescapable stench attached to the lower classes as Bong builds to a jarring, almost Tarantinoesque climax. The rush to success leaves a trail of unsuspecting casualties, and karma can be particularly jagged in luxurious surroundings filled with sharp edges.

With one monster unleashed and social barriers penetrated on multiple fronts, all expectations of decorum are comprehensively violated.

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Movie Review: A Single Shot (2013)

A suspense drama, A Single Shot explores themes of guilt and despair as one flawed man's life is forever changed by a moment of carelessness.

John Moon (Sam Rockwell) lives alone in a mobile home, deep in the woods. While poaching a deer he inadvertently shoots and kills a young woman. He hides her body then stumbles upon an abandoned ramshackle encampment where he finds and keeps a box full of seemingly stolen cash.

Hoping to patch up his marriage to Jess (Kelly Reilly), John follows the advice of his frequently drunk friend Simon (Jeffrey Wright) and reaches out to lawyer Pitt (William H. Macy), who is eager to ask questions more awkward than his wardrobe. Jess is not interested in a reconciliation and appears to be hanging out with the wrong types. John's loneliness and sense of guilt are further stressed when he finds himself under threat from creepy criminals Obadiah (Joe Anderson) and Waylon (Jason Isaacs), who want their cash back.

A backcountry drama, A Single Shot luxuriates in barely comprehensible accents and a hostile environment where tough terrain, uncompromising townfolk and seedy ex-cons co-mingle uneasily. The raw material threatens a potentially cold and calculating human-centred thriller, but director David M. Rosenthal is unable to harness the available elements into a satisfying whole.

The culprit is a weak script written by Matthew F. Jones as an adaptation of his own book. While John Moon is a compelling enough central character and Sam Rockwell brings him to life in an appropriately moody performance, most of the film's events are suspect. Moon is subjected to a campaign of intimidation that makes no sense upon just rudimentary examination, and the bad guys in the form of Obadiah and Waylon look the part but are otherwise devoid of context.

The third act defaults to plenty of violence and blood-letting, although Rosenthal does find a poignant resolution which almost salvages the entire film. After John stumbles into an opportunity to make symmetrical amends with an act of agonizing heroism, the burden of guilt nevertheless conspires to have the final say.

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Movie Review: Unsane (2018)

A suspense drama, Unsane is an intimate psychological thriller with horror elements cleverly exploiting the fatigue of an over-stressed mind.

Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) is alone in a new city, holding down a bank data analyst job but still traumatized by her experience of having been stalked for the previous two years. She checks in with a psychiatrist at the Highland Creek mental wellness institution and inadvertently signs papers admitting herself for 24 hours. Unable to leave, Sawyer lashes out, but her acts of rebellion only prolong her stay to seven days.

Things gets much worse when she encounters her stalker David (Joshua Leonard) working at the facility as an attendant under an assumed name, although she cannot be sure what is real. She also meets fellow patients Violet (Juno Temple) and Nate (Jay Pharoah). Occasionally drugged, frequently restrained and feeling threatened by David, Sawyer uses Nate's smuggled cell phone to call her mother Angela (Amy Irving) for help. But freeing herself from the clutches of both David and the profit-driven institution will not be easy.

A study of paranoia either real and perceived, Unsane playfully prolongs the question of whether Sawyer is experiencing actual or brain-manufactured traumas. Director Steven Soderbergh experiments by shooting the film entirely on an iPhone7 Plus and in a blocky 1.56:1 aspect ratio. With a miniscule production budget of $1.5 million, Unsane is a surprisingly potent drama penetrating Sawyer's tormented mind and the business of bogus treatments fueled by insurance money.

The tight focus on Sawyer and her mental condition is effective. Soderbergh literally and physically closes the walls of the world around her and confines the movie to the institute once she is admitted. She is in a surreal world where all the patients are sure they don't belong, and at least some of them are probably right. As for Sawyer's compounded nightmare of finding her stalker operating in her new prison, the story depends either on her delusions, a relatively wild coincidence, or layers of conspiracy too dense to contemplate.

In addition to the struggle of mental patients to find advocates, Soderbergh pursues the evils of a private health system run amok, placing profit ahead of patients while hiding behind oily corporatespeak and well-rehearsed sales pitches. None of which helps Sawyer get better before, during or after her stay at Highland Creek. She needs rescuing, as does the system pretending to treat her.

The entire film rests on Claire Foy's shoulders, and she delivers a delectable performance of knowing vulnerability laced with sarcastic determination. Joshua Leonard is suitably creepy as her stalker.

Unsane's final act rushes towards more stock horror elements as nuance is left behind, violence is unleashed and the blood flows. Whatever Sawyer's specific condition, the world around her is unhinged and likely to remain so.

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