Movie Review: The Core (2003)

Genre: Sci-Fi Disaster Thriller  
Director: Jon Amiel  

Starring: Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Alfre Woodard, Bruce Greenwood  
Running Time: 135 minutes  

Synopsis: College professor and geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) analyzes a series of unusual phenomena and concludes that the rotation of the Earth's core has been disrupted, which will result in imminent mass destruction. In a hurriedly planned mission, Josh is teamed with a crew including the arrogant Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), astronaut Beck (Hilary Swank), and brilliant inventor Braz (Delroy Lindo). They have to bore through the Earth in a specially designed vessel, and then detonate nuclear bombs to reactivate the core.

What Works Well: The opening act features a series of gripping-enough catastrophes, including pacemaker failures, disoriented birds, and an improvised space shuttle landing. The scenes featuring Dr. Keyes and Dr. Zimsky explaining their conclusions to military and political leaders are reasonably effective in establishing the premise.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rest of the film drowns in increasingly preposterous nonsense. While Sci-Fi need not be grounded in actual science, the on-the-fly silliness in this script classifies as junk. Lowlights include "unobtanium" material that can withstand enormous pressure, mission preparations that come together in three months, improvised calculations to solve complex problems in mere minutes, and a slapped-on evil plot that never gains traction. The all-too-serious attitude does not help, the special effects are patchy at best, the running time is unnecessarily prolonged, and too many scenes feature scale models of a caterpillar-like vessel navigating murky soup.

Key Quote:

Dr. Josh Keyes: So, we hotwire the nukes, as one does. We seed them through the core at locations that have to be accurate to the inch. We detonate them in a sequence that has to be accurate to the millisecond. Then we outrun the biggest nuclear shockwave in history.

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Movie Review: Midway (2019)

Genre: Historical War Action  

Director: Roland Emmerich  

Starring: Ed Skrein, Luke Evans, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson  

Running Time: 138 minutes  

Synopsis: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but fails to destroy American aircraft carriers. The United States enters the war and Japan's Admiral Yamamoto starts planning an attack on Midway Island to achieve dominance over the Pacific. The US intelligence team headed by Lieutenant Commander Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) intercepts enemy communications and starts to piece together the Japanese attack plan, allowing Admiral Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) to mobilize a defence. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle (Aaron Eckhart) leads an air raid on Tokyo to unsettle the enemy, while Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey (Dennis Quaid) and ace Navy pilots Dick Best (Ed Skrein) and Wade McClusky (Luke Evans) are involved in the escalating war in the Pacific. 

What Works Well: This is an unapologetically old-fashioned World War 2 action movie, faithful to historical fact and dedicated to celebrating heroism, sacrifice, and determination under fire. Despite an ambitious scope covering several major battles and culminating at Midway, writer Wes Tooke admirably maintains cohesion in melding strategic Yamamoto and Nimitz-level maneuverings with the front-line exploits of Best and McClusky, among many others, effectively capturing the critical strategic decisions and in-the-heat of the moment actions upon which history turned. Director Roland Emmerich delivers several stirring naval combat scenes, and maintains focus on individual sub-stories within the chaos of attack, defense, and counter-attack at sea. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The CGI effects are impressive but predictably over-done, and the out-of-uniform lives of the characters are essentially non-existent. The cast members do their job with minimum fuss, but quantity defeats quality and none are provided the opportunity to rise above basic representations.

Key Quote:

Edwin Layton (to Nimitz, in reference to Pearl Harbor): Sir, I'm the intelligence officer responsible for overseeing the greatest intelligence failure in American history.

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Movie Review: Wander (2020)

Genre: Thriller  

Director: April Mullen  

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Tommy Lee Jones, Heather Graham  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: Emotionally traumatized by a personal tragedy that forced him to quit his police detective job, conspiracy theorist and private investigator Arthur Bretnik (Aaron Eckhart) lives in a trailer in the New Mexico desert, and hosts a midnight podcast with his friend Jimmy (Tommy Lee Jones). Arthur accepts a new private assignment to investigate the mysterious death of Zoe, a young woman who was killed in the small town of Wander. As he probes the perplexing behaviour of the town residents, Arthur becomes increasingly convinced that Zoe's case is part of a conspiracy linked to his own past.

What Works Well: The sparse setting in rural nowheresville is visually rich, and within the vast expanse of rustic openness, Aaron Eckhart is a weathered presence. His narration offers a deep dive into a traumatized psyche struggling to assemble routine actions into an approximation of life. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The second half rapidly disintegrates into muddled contradictions and time jumps where the conspiracy is barely outlined and every scene negates previous findings. Representing the disorientation in Arthur's head may be the point, but the outcome is narrative apathy and disenchantment at whatever next explanation is being proposed. Tommy Lee Jones does not try too hard, while Katheryn Winnick as Secret Agent Elsa and Heather Graham as Arthur's lawyer (?) Shelly are caught up in the context-challenged action.

Conclusion: Initially promising but ultimately too frazzled to survive the arid desolation.



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Movie Review: Love Happens (2009)

A superficial drama dealing with familial loss with elements of romance and light comedy, Love Happens is stuck in a vague space where dubious psychology meets inferior writing.

Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) is a Ph.D. self-help guru and the author of A-Okay!, a bestseller with tips on surviving grief following the loss of a loved one. Burke's wife was killed in a car crash and his experience prompted the book. In Seattle to run a week-long workshop, he connects with his manager Lane Marshall (Dan Fogler), who is close to finalizing a lucrative multimedia marketing deal to expand Burke's brand.

During the week Burke meets hotel florist Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), who runs a local flower shop with her assistant Marty (Judy Greer). He also bumps into his father-in-law (Martin Sheen), who encourages Burke to stop lying. As Burke helps seminar attendee and former contractor Walter (John Carroll Lynch) work through the anguish of losing his son, Burke and Eloise start dating, and she starts to understand Burke himself has unresolved issues related to his wife's death.

Basing a plot on the world of self-help seminars and pop-psychology is a rickety foundation for a movie. Director Brandon Camp and his co-writer Mike Thompson appear unconcerned, and Love Happens pushes ahead with large chunks of running time dedicated to Burke Ryan leading for-profit workshops where banal truisms and trite platitudes are used to help grief-stricken relatives get on with their lives.

To make matters worse, the film is stacked from end to end with blatant product placements, none worse than a group field trip to a hardware store purportedly to help a grieving contractor reconnect with his true purpose in life. Rarely has a film been burdened with a more obviously grating embedded commercial.

Somewhere within Love Happens a romance is supposed to blossom, but Camp has difficulty bringing it to the screen. No chemistry materializes between Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart, partly due to the blankness of the Eloise character, who appears to exist for the sole process of awakening Burke to his emotional blindspot. So instead of delivering any romantic sizzle the film goes off on a ghastly tangent involving stealing a pet parrot then freeing it into the wild, which is neither funny nor profound, just dumbfounding.

For all the film's weaknesses, the worst is saved to last, a most cringy on-stage soul-baring fiasco crashing against a hackneyed plot twist telegraphed an hour earlier. Love Happens, except when it doesn't.

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Movie Review: Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

A science fiction military action film, Battle: Los Angeles is overwhelmed by bad battleground CGI and rarely achieves a respectable level of action-driven entertainment.

At the Camp Pendleton military base near Los Angeles, Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is about to retire from the Marines, still emotionally scarred by losing some of his men in a recent deployment. His plans are interrupted when hostile aliens stage a massive invasion of Earth, with the heavily armed aggressors arriving on meteor-like vessels and landing off the coast of dozens of cities around the world.

Nantz is pressed back into service as part of a platoon under the command of Lieutenant Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), tasked with saving civilians trapped at a Santa Monica police station. The civilians include veterinarian Michele (Bridget Moynahan) and local man Joe (Michael Peña), who is with his young son. However, the aliens prove much more powerful than initially thought. Nantz and Martinez are joined by air force Technical Sergeant  Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) and together they have to find a way to save the civilians and uncover a weakness in their enemy.

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, Battle: Los Angeles is a noisy, often frantic affair. While the premise is about a global invasion and humans fighting for the very survival of the species, the film zooms in to the squadron level, and focuses on a few men engaged in running street battles through mostly destroyed Los Angeles area neighbourhoods.

Battle: Los Angeles most resembles the much better Black Hawk Down, with the Somalis replaced by aliens. And just as Black Hawk Down had limited interest in defining who the enemy was, Battle: Los Angeles doubles down on the concept of the enemy as just an abstract thing to be destroyed. Here the aliens are blurry CGI creations, mostly seen from a distance. The lack of any narrative content explaining the other side of the conflict frequently reduces the film to the level of a dumb first person shooter video game.

Liebesman demonstrates no control over battlefield visuals, often overwhelming the screen with CGI-created projectiles flying in all directions, giving the impression that a bunch of pimple-faced excitable teenagers were given the task of adding noise and fury to the screen and kept on adding more because more must be better. The jerky camera work does not help. Similarly, the attempts to humanize the squad members all fail. The Marines surrounding Nantz remain interchangeable grunts drawn from the basic repertoire of World War Two movies from the 1940s.

The film is not a total loss: as the action moves into the final 30 minutes acts of heroism, comradeship and sacrifice finally begin to cut through the clutter, and Battle: Los Angeles picks up some emotional steam, helped by a committed and fully square-jawed Aaron Eckhart performance. His grim determination may be enough to save the planet, but not quite the movie.

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Movie Review: No Reservations (2007)

A romance set in the world of chefs, No Reservations features plenty of quail and saffron sauce but the portions are meager.

In New York City, Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a highly-strung perfectionist chef running her own kitchen at a classy restaurant owned by Paula (Patricia Clarkson). Kate is very much single, obsessive about recipes, runs her life according to a strict set of rules, and her sessions with a therapist (Bob Balaban) are not helping.

Tragedy strikes when Kate's sister perishes in a car crash, and Kate is tasked with looking after her young niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin). At the same time Paula hires opera-loving Nick (Aaron Eckhart) as a new sous-chef, disrupting Kate's kitchen dynamics. Kate has to deal with sudden parental responsibilities, look after Zoe's fragile emotions and learn to deal with Nick's expansive style and his romantic overtures.

Directed by Scott Hicks, No Reservations is as bland and predictable as a boring meal at an unfashionable suburban family restaurant. Despite decent production values, a scenic New York City, plenty of talk about exotic food and endless visuals featuring sumptuous dinners under preparation in Kate's kitchen, when it comes to the actual story, the film falls flat.

The film is devoid of humour and any serious drama, so this is neither a romantic comedy nor a tragedy of any sort. No Reservations features a peripheral romance between Kate and Nick, but Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart fail to generate much chemistry. Eckhart is particularly challenged to portray a romantic leading man in a role more suitable for the likes of Owen Wilson. Zeta-Jones swings too far towards the harried professional aspects of Kate's life, and forgets to let her hair down and slip into something more playful to spark the romance.

The film finds a marginally more appealing focus in Zoe's story, the young girl creating a sudden new domestic focus for Kate, and allowing Nick to display his empathy through acts of kindness towards the child.

The answer to the question of whether Kate will make space for some randomness and disorganization in her life is never in doubt. No Reservations purposefully heads to its predictable conclusion, Kate and Nick almost mechanically navigating around the typical obstacles and misunderstanding thrown at their burgeoning relationship. The film talks the high cuisine talk, but delivers entertainment as fresh as last week's fish.

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Movie Review: London Has Fallen (2016)

A mindless action thriller, London Has Fallen is a disappointing sequel, going far beyond suspension of disbelief and into ridiculous territory.

American intelligence services destroy the desert hideout of international arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul) with a drone strike. Two years later the British Prime Minister dies suddenly. All the world's leader make plans to attend the funeral in London, including US President Ben Asher (Aaron Eckhart). His Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett) is nervous about the lack of security planning time, and agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is entrusted with keeping the President safe. With his wife Leah (Radha Mitchell) pregnant, Banning is contemplating resigning from active duty but accepts the London assignment.

Just before the funeral is set to start at St. Paul's Cathedral, a large number of heavily armed terrorists  disguised as police officers launch coordinated attacks throughout London, causing mass casualties. Banning is barely able to extract Asher from the main attack zone, and the two go on the run. The attack is funded by Barkawi, seeking revenge for the death of his family members. With London swarming with terrorists, Banning has to keep the President alive long enough for friendly backup forces to arrive.

While 2013's Olympus Has Fallen was a laudable riff on Die Hard, London Has Fallen chucks out all that was good about the original, and leaves only brain dead action behind. After just 15 minutes of rudimentary set-up, director Babak Najafi unleashes the noise and fury of a London overrun by terrorists, and the film does not take a breath for the remainder of its 99 minutes.

There is a fine line between a far-fetched premise and just a lazy idea. Olympus was a far-fetched premise very well executed. London lands with a thud on the wrong side of that boundary. The script requires a massive number of police officers -- even Buckingham Palace guards! -- to be secretly replaced with an army of bad guys armed to the teeth with machine guns and grenades in the run up to London's biggest ever security operation, without anyone noticing.

And after the initial attack things get worse, with hordes of terrorists on motorcycles, in cars and with stinger missiles having free run of the city, and no genuine enforcement types of any stripe even attempting any sort of intervention. Of course the same terrorist leaders who carefully planned this secret but massive operation consisting of thousands of undetected attackers will now be stupid enough to be defeated by a single secret service agent.

Despite all its faults and some cheap special effects, London Has Fallen occasionally captures the freewheeling spirit of a third-person shooter console game, Najafi at least staging his numerous action scenes with some panache. And in Gerard Butler he has an actor willing to grit his teeth and get on with all the killing necessary to save his President, while almost giving the impression that he is taking it all seriously.

In addition to Eckhart and Basset, the supporting cast also includes Morgan Freeman in another throwaway performance as the Vice President, while Melissa Leo and Robert Forster are utterly wasted in tiny roles.

London may have fallen, but the quality of this franchise fell faster and deeper.

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Movie Review: Erin Brockovich (2000)

Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich is a stirring drama about two struggles: one woman fights to redefine herself, and one suffering community takes on a big corporate polluter.

In the Los Angeles area, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is twice divorced and trying to raise three kids on her own. Desperate to find employment, she finally lands a filing clerk position at the ramshackle office of lawyer Edward Masry (Albert Finney) after he fails to secure compensation for her in a car accident case. At Masry's office Erin stumbles onto files related to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the small community of Hinkley. PG&E is attempting to quietly purchase the houses of many residents who appear to be suffering from various serious health ailments.

Erin takes it upon herself to personally investigate the case, and meets Donna Jensen (Marg Helgenberger) and her family to better understand their plight. She spends days digging up records at the local water authority office, and pieces together a soil and water contamination cover-up involving the dangerous chemical hexavalent chromium. Erin's personal, down-to-earth approach allows her to connect with more than 600 potential victims as the ramifications of the case grow into hundreds of millions of dollars, but all the hours at work are taking a toll on Erin's children and her latest boyfriend, next-door biker George (Aaron Eckhart).

Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich is a classic David versus Goliath story multiplied by two. Erin bulldozing her way into a respectable career against all odds plays out next to her efforts to win compensation for a tiny community from a behemoth corporation. Soderbergh makes both stories work in an engaging narrative that balances the deeply personal aspects of Erin's story with a high-stakes investigative drama about environmental maleficence.

The character of Erin is a huge part of the film's charm. Clobbered by life ever since she won a local beauty pageant, Erin has reached the stage of fighting back, and loudly. Unloading with profanity-laced tirades whenever she senses her rights being wronged, Erin is at once irrepressible, approachable and thorny. Insisting at all times on big hair, small skirts, uncomfortably high heels and either tight or transparent cleavage-revealing tops, the one thing she now refuses to do is fade away. Her scrappy attitude, persistence and street smarts make for a potent combination.

Julia Roberts brings Erin to life in an Academy Award winning performance. Roberts is not about one highlight scene or revealing profound depths of character. Rather, over the two hours of running time her portrayal focuses on capturing a real and uncompromising woman with all her faults, fears, strengths, and spirit. She dominates the film and never dips into sentimentality or victimhood.

Albert Finney provides the perfect foil as the veteran lawyer Edward Masry. Finney allows Masry to be Erin's opposing force, absorbing plenty of her flack and firing back with no shortage of his own understated venom. The two gradually work their way to becoming a formidable duo, her energy and his experience gelling into a powerful team.

The investigation into the soil and water contamination mystery remains admirably grounded in facts and legal process. Erin's truth-seeking efforts consist of unglamorous digging through files in government offices coupled with finding then talking to the victims to learn their affecting stories of disease and suffering. Gradually insiders and informers also step forward to provide key puzzle pieces. Soderbergh constructs the process of connecting the dots with a welcome pragmatism and avoids needless theatrics.

In keeping with the film's focus on reality, most of the tension comes from Erin trying to hold her personal life together as the case consumes every waking hour. Her relationship with her children suffers, and boyfriend George is reduced to an unhappy babysitter. Balancing kids, career and partner becomes a daring juggling act.

Erin Brockovich is a compelling drama about the individual and the collective, engaged in a common fight for recognition and respect.

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Movie Review: Sully (2016)

A dramatization of the 2009 miraculous landing of a civilian airliner on the Hudson River, Sully delves into the aftermath at the personal level, as the captain is thrust into a maelstrom of attention from an astounded world and befuddled officials.

It's January 2009 in New York City. Veteran airline Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and First Officer Jeffery Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) are dealing with the chaotic immediate aftermath of the "Miracle on the Hudson", where Sully landed an Airbus A320 on the Hudson River after losing both engines due to a bird strike soon after takeoff from LaGuardia airport. All 155 passengers and crew on-board were saved relatively unharmed, plucked from the aircaft wings by boats that rushed to the rescue within minutes.

While Sully is being feted as a hero and the media is in full frenzy mode, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launches an investigation. There are whispers that one of the engines was maybe still functional, and that Sully could have made it safely back to LaGuardia instead of attempting a dangerous water landing. Meanwhile back home Sully's wife Lorraine (Laura Linney) can only communicate with Sully over the phone and is dealing with the media camped on her driveway. Sully starts to question whether he did the right thing, as the enormity of his achievement sinks in and the investigation escalates with some surprising simulation results.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and based on Sullenberger's book, Sully is a compact 96 minute story-behind-the-story drama focusing on the personal impact of an astonishing event that made global headlines. The safe water landing on the Hudson is stranger than fiction, so Eastwood and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki wisely focus on the emotional burden that comes with an unexpected and overwhelming achievement.

The landing itself is recreated with care and presented with marvelous timing, key moments interspersed with the unfolding post-event confusion. Without delving into melodrama, Eastwood finds the awe-inspiring power of quiet heroism as Sully, the passengers and the rescuers come together and play their unscripted parts to make unintended history on the Hudson River.

Beyond the events on the river, the film tackles themes related to what makes a hero, and society's facile rush to attach simple labels to complex situations. Sully is keenly aware that a lifetime of flying experience came together in a few seconds in the air, his instincts kicking in to do the right things in the right order at the right time. But his self-awareness is such that he equally recognizes the thin line between success and failure.

The film does stretch to find pseudo-villains, and unfairly maligns NTSB officials into confrontational and adversarial roles. This is Eastwood unfortunately seeking the black hats in a story that did not need them, in the process taking away from the strength of the event itself and its already immense psychological aftermath.

Tom Hanks finds another perfect fit in the role of Chesley Sullenberger, a well-respected man able to rise above a situation that can easily crush the psyche. Hanks brings forth Sully's reserved dignity, never descending into any level of cheap engagement, and remaining grounded as he grapples with self-reflection. Aaron Eckhart has to decide whether the river landing or a bushy mustache represents the greater threat, but nevertheless provides solid support.

Sully never stops questioning his own actions, while sharing the credit with Skiles, the flight attendants, the passengers who remained mostly calm, and the rescuers who rushed to the scene. While the captain played the most prominent role, ultimately it took the efforts and actions of a group to create a real life miracle on a freezing cold January day.

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Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking (2005)

A workplace dramatic comedy, Thank You For Smoking examines the distasteful careers of those who lobby for industries that knowingly kill people. With biting satire, the story of a cigarette industry spokesperson cleverly humanizes the monsters behind the seemingly heartless statements.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is the charismatic public face for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, an industry-funded advocacy group pumping out dubious science and responding to attacks on big tobacco. Nick is really good at his job, and becomes a well-known and publicly reviled figure, to the point of receiving death threats. His regular lunch companions include Polly (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay (David Koechner), who hold similar jobs for the alcohol and firearms industries respectively.

Nick's nemeses includes Senator Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy), who is leading the charge for more graphic warnings on cigarette packages. With sales figures falling, Nick impresses his boss "BR" (J.K. Simmons) and tobacco tycoon "the Captain" (Robert Duvall) by suggesting that the industry pay for high profile movie stars to start smoking again in big-budget productions. This leads to a surreal meeting with Hollywood uber talent representative Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe).

Nick is divorced, but is nevertheless trying to be good dad to his inquisitive son Joey (Cameron Bright), who joins Nick on some of his business travels. On one trip they visit the actor Lorne Lutch (Sam Elliott), better known as the iconic Marlboro Man, but who is now dying of cancer. Meanwhile investigative journalist Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) wants to profile Nick, and they start a scorching sexual relationship over a series of interviews. Just when everything appears to be going swimmingly well for Nick, his career is suddenly disrupted on all fronts.

The first major feature written and directed by Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking takes a clever look at the distasteful edges of a free civil society. Through the character of Nick, the film explores the themes of freedom of choice, fatherhood in the face of notoriety, and a capitalistic, hypocritical society where politicians and industrialists wage battle. Everything and everyone has a price, cheese can be compared to cigarettes, the dream machine of Hollywood is a giant advertising space, and science is the first casualty amidst the sleaze, spin, and scandal.

Produced on a modest budget, Thank You For Smoking is sly, witty, and compact at 92 minutes. Reitman packs the film with quick vignettes from Nick's life, the film unfolding with a mischievous attitude to match Nick's unapologetic stance. Nick's task is not about proving that cigarettes don't kill; rather, it's about obfuscating his way through the next argument so that the relevant facts are buried in an avalanche of spin.

The film succeeds in turning Nick into not quite a hero, but rather a necessary presence, a product of a system that refuses to curtail freedom and allows every accused the right to buy the best defence. That a smart, handsome and charismatic man is attracted to the job is then simply a matter of matching talent to the professional requirement, no different than a slick lawyer standing up for a seemingly blatantly guilty defendant in court.

Reitman also offers up Nick as a victim. As the face of a reviled industry, Nick not only has to deal with maniacs out to harm him, but his son also suffers the misfortune of having a nationally despised father. Nick is not deterred, and insists on exposing young Joey to the world of lobbying and advocacy. Joey gets to see the behind the scenes world where a dying man gets to choose between a briefcase full of money and freedom of speech, and where movie agents control how many smoke rings will be puffed on screen, and for what price.

Aaron Eckhart picks up the film and runs with it, enjoying one of the most prominent roles of his screen career and maximizing the impish side of his persona to create a man who is likeable in spite of himself. All the supporting cast members get into the swing of events and deliver rollicking support, with Elliott, Simmons, Duvall, Holmes and Macy enjoying their moments despite relatively limited screen time.

Every operator, no matter how slick, has a weakness, and Nick is about to discover his vulnerability in the most publicly humiliating way. He magnetism breeds overconfidence, and he will face his greatest crisis just when his industry needs him the most. However, in a society built on selling without conscience, there will always be welcome space for the modern fast talking, quick thinking confidence man.

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Movie Review: The Pledge (2001)

A thoughtful psychological crime drama, The Pledge plays with a patient mood while grappling with a brutal murder and the search for the mysterious predator.

In Reno, Nevada, police detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is retiring. On his last working day, the brutalized body of a young blonde girl named Ginny is discovered in a snowy field. Jerry pledges to the victims' mother (Patricia Clarkson) that no matter what, he will bring the murderer to justice. Toby (Benicio del Toro), a dimwitted vagabond aboriginal, is arrested and detective Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart) extracts a confession from him, declaring the case closed.

Jerry doubts that Toby is the killer, and after retirement he continues his informal investigation, interviewing Ginny's grandmother Annalise (Vanessa Redgrave); the victim's best friend at school; and the father (Mickey Rourke) of another young blonde girl who met the same fate as Ginny. He gains a vague picture of the killer's car model and colour, and a murky connection between the crimes and porcupines.

Jerry purchases a gas station along the main highway in the rural area where he believes the next murder may happen. As the months pass, he befriends single mom Lori (Robin Wright Penn), who has a young blonde daughter Chrissy (Pauline Roberts) about the same age as the previous victims. Gradually, Jerry starts to encounter men who could be suspects. But Jerry is also hearing voices in his head, and may be starting to lose his grip on reality.

Directed by Sean Penn, The Pledge is an adaptation of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt book. This is a film that takes a deep breath from the surrounding landscape, and focusses on characters, atmosphere and emotion. There is little action that takes place on screen, but plenty that goes on in the thoughts, fears, and hopes of Jerry Black as he tries to fulfill the promise he made to the distraught mother of a young victim.

Penn's pacing is deliberate, but nevertheless engrossing. Within the forgotten back road setting where time is slow, towns are small, cars are old and technology is outdated, the film is packed with tiny unsettling moments, indications that all is not well, neither in the rural community stalked by a vicious child killer, nor in Jerry's mind. Jerry could be suffering from old-age, post-retirement emotional turmoil, the stress of his pledge, or something else altogether more serious. Penn provides hints, but never any clear resolutions. What is for sure is that some danger is lurking and closing in, and Jerry is welcoming, almost eager to face his nemesis. Whether or not he is ready is another question.

While The Pledge unfolds on its own terms towards a rich and rumpled conclusion, it does suffer from almost too much silence, as the details of Jerry's deliberate actions are sacrificed in search of style and a brooding aesthetic.

Jack Nicholson provides a thankfully subdued performance, staying well within himself despite the mounting stress. Jerry Black is a stoic, calculating character, well past the days of running after suspects and now more interested in laying an elaborate trap and waiting for the right time to pounce. Nicholson conveys a man under self-imposed pressure, with his judgement increasingly clouded. He may or may not be using Lori and Chrissy as a lure; he likely does not quite know anymore whether his need for a family is in conflict with the burning desire to solve a crime.

In support, almost every one-scene role is brought to life by a prominent actor. In addition to Clarkson, del Toro, Eckhart, Wright Penn, Rourke and Redgrave, Helen Mirren makes an appearance as a psychiatrist, Harry Dean Stanton is the original owner of the gas station purchased by Jerry, and Sam Shepard is a police detective.

The Pledge weaves a spell and luxuriates in its foggy density, as much a crime mystery as a thought-provoking sojourn to the place where promises become obsessions.

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The Movies Of Aaron Eckhart

All movies starring Aaron Eckhart and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Any Given Sunday (1999)

Erin Brockovich (2000)

The Pledge (2001)

The Core (2003)

The Missing (2003)

Paycheck (2003)

Thank You For Smoking (2005)

The Black Dahlia (2006)

No Reservations (2007)

Love Happens (2009)

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

London Has Fallen (2016)

Sully (2016)

Midway (2019)

Wander (2020)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Black Dahlia (2006)

A laborious neo-noir film, The Black Dahlia aims for a mysterious, smoke-heavy mood but is severely undermined by inferior performances, lack of chemistry and an incomprehensible plot.

Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are two Los Angeles police officers in the mid-1940s. Both are former boxers who never quite made it to the top, and the police department squeezes some publicity and public support by staging a bout between them. They subsequently become partners and friends, both enjoying the company of Lee's girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson). But for unclear reasons, Lee starts to get agitated when he learns that criminal Bobby DeWitt, a bank robber and Kay's former boyfriend, is about to be released from prison.

Los Angeles is gripped by the brutal murder of starlet Elizabeth Ann Short (Mia Kirshner), whose body is found carved in half, the blood drained from her torso, her organs missing, and her face mutilated. Short was involved in making underground porn films, and Bucky tracks down Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), one of her co-stars. Madeleine comes from a rich and influential family, and she becomes Bucky's lover in exchange for keeping her name out of the news. As he tries to uncover the murderer, Bucky eventually meets Madeleine's strange parents Emmett (John Kavanagh) and Ramona (Fiona Shaw), but the DeWitt case suddenly explodes and consumes Lee's life.

Based on the book by James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia aims to duplicate the success achieved by the 1997 adaptation of Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. But while director Brian De Palma does succeed in creating a grim, corrupt and depressed environment crawling with characters motivated by pure self-interest, that's as far as The Black Dahlia goes. After a tedious and ultimately meaningless intro focused on the irrelevant boxing showdown, the plot careens off a cliff and into swampy territory where everyone has an incredible secret to hide, and every surprise has to one-up the one that preceded it.

By the time The Black Dahlia reveals all its convoluted plot twists, every possible sordid sauce in the pantry has been consumed. The femme fatale, the porn movies, the blackmail plot, the deranged woman, the corrupt cop, the missing cash, the gruesome murder, the illegitimate child, hints of a threesome, and stronger hints of incest. But in a case of quantity overwhelming quality, the film jumps from one jumbled reveal to another with hardly any emotional impact, the plot clumsily bent out of shape rather than enhanced by the shocks.

The impenetrable narrative is further weighed down by a sub-par and uncharismatic cast, lacking chemistry and delivering lacklustre performances. Josh Hartnett is stiffer than a plank, speaking with a despondent mumble, his narration aiming for a dark vibe but sounding like bubbles from the bottom of the swimming pool. Aaron Eckhart goes a bit nuts early on, jumping from acting to overacting, for reasons that the movie chooses to hide for one of the many later twists. And Scarlett Johansson has too many stop-and-stare moments, her hesitant communication conveying uncertainty about the material rather than genuine immersion.

Hilary Swank does a bit better, getting into the spirit of the accumulating absurdities, her performance a combination of sultry seductiveness and a twinkle in the eye. Mia Kirshner is seen only on films within the film, mostly being auditioned for her porn flicks, and ironically she radiates more life and charisma than the other, living characters.

Too dense for its own good, The Black Dahlia tries to get by on an abundance of style but ultimately folds itself into a black hole.

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