Movie Review: Defending Your Life (1991)

A fantasy romance, comedy and drama, Defending Your Life offers a few original after-life ideas but fails to properly exploit the premise.

Los Angeles-based marketing executive Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) dies in a car crash on his 39th birthday. He is transported to the idyllic campus setting of Judgment City where his life's actions will be evaluated to determine if he deserves to progress or be sent back for another round on Earth. He meets his lawyer Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) and prosecutor Lena Foster (Lee Grant), and learns that nine days of his life will be used as evidence to judge his maturity as measured by acting without fear.

As his case is progressing Daniel meets Julia (Meryl Streep), recently deceased by accidental drowning. They enjoy the perks of Judgment City together, including unlimited food with no weight gain, and quickly fall in love. But it is soon clear Julia has lived impeccably and will be progressing, while Daniel still has a lot to learn about living life to the fullest and will likely be consigned back to the drudgery of another terrestrial life.

Finding an interesting seam between religious dogma and existentialism, Defending Your Life creates a secular afterlife governed by the universe, offering progress towards the joys of larger brain utilization for promising candidates. The only punishment for underachievement is a do-over, and Daniel Miller learns he is, in fact, on his 20th go-round, and still has work to do.

But having gone to the trouble of creating an intriguing premise, writer and director Brooks undersells the concept and tacks on a very earth-like rom-com with all the associated cringiness. Life's accomplishments are reduced to the simplistic objective of acting without fear, and neither prosecutor Foster nor defendor Diamond appear convinced. The film's key hinge scenes, replaying and evaluating Daniel's critical days, are reduced to routine bland vignettes ultimately suggesting little of consequence.

The romance between Daniel and Julia is hustled along at celestial speed from initial meeting to expressions of deep love, the attraction between them based on little more than Meryl Streep's whimsical etheralism. To endear himself Daniel unleashes a stream of corny dialogue that by itself should rush-deliver him back to Earth for swift punishment. Julia is never provided a reason to fall in love, while Brooks skips over any explanations about the rules of post-death romance.

A steady current of mild humour is maintained, mostly drawn from secondary characters and the absurdities of the surroundings. But Brooks as an actor sleepwalks through the film with apathetic bemusement, and Streep delivers one of her least impactful roles, Julia drawn as an elusive ideal rather than a person.

Defending Your Life is tantalizingly close to being good, but surrenders to meek resolutions.



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Movie Review: The Is 40 (2012)

A slice-of-life raunchy comedy, The Is 40 is a cluttered but often hilarious adventure through the chaos and confusion of life's middle phase.

Married couple Pete and Debbie (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann) are both celebrating their 40th birthdays in the same week. While he is laid back and inattentive, she is having trouble accepting the reality of middle age. They are dealing with the stress of raising two girls, 13 year old Sadie and 8 year old Charlotte (Maude and Iris Apatow), plus the potential financial collapse of Pete's independent music label business and thousands of dollars in missing revenue from Debbie's small boutique.

Pete's father Larry (Albert Brooks) is a financial drain, while Debbie's dad Oliver (John Lithgow) is cold and distant. But most of all the couple now mostly antagonize each other. The sexual spark is gone, he resents her secret smoking habit, she despises his inability to control his cupcake intake, and they can rarely have a moment alone together. With their arguments getting louder and more frequent and impacting the happiness of their daughters, the marriage approaches a breaking point.

With co-producer, director and writer Judd Apatow zooming into his forties, married to Mann and raising the two daughters featured in the movie, This Is 40 is a family affair. The heartfelt albeit amplified exploration of the stresses and strains of kids, parents, finances and careers experienced by the sandwich generation creates fertile ground for pointed adult humour. In search of the big laughs (often found) the film does focus more on rub points and irritations, although Apatow does provide Pete and Debbie with one idyllic sequence at a holiday resort where they rediscover each other free of all externalities.

This Is 40 sprawls out to 133 minutes, and Apatow is almost right in thinking all his ideas are good ideas, but many of them are also irrelevant sideshows. The rampant improvised dialogue often hits the mark, and is therefore allowed to run, prolonging many scenes. Melissa McCarthy shows up for an extended sequence as a rival mother at Sadie's high school. It's a hilarious foul-mouthed turn, but almost unrelated to the rest of the film. Megan Fox also gets plenty of screen time as the suspiciously wealthy enchantress salesperson at Debbie's boutique in a sideplot about employee theft that steers towards a cul-de-sac.

Albert Brooks and John Lithgow are heavyweight support players, and so both get their share of screentime, earned or not. Jason Segel also pops up in a small role as a physical trainer. But obvious mid-age flab emerges in the repetitive arguments between Pete and Debbie, the two verbally sparring in every other scene of the film's second half, often circling the same ground with new versions of the same insults as Sadie joins them in tedious three-way screaming matches.

Paul Rudd is dependable, but Leslie Mann is brilliant. In a sparkling comedic performance riding the sharp edge between exasperation and self-deprecation, Mann sets the film's tone and grabs hold of a woman's disproportionate responsibility in setting a household's pulse. With Pete often hiding in the bathroom or avoiding his responsibilities altogether, Debbie, almost despite herself, embraces the challenge of making 40 work, a mission both seemingly impossible and fraught with zingers.

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Movie Review: A Most Violent Year (2014)

A gritty business drama, A Most Violent Year is a pragmatic story of commerce and crime coming together in a brewing mix. The film promises much, but ultimately misses its boiling point.

It's 1981 in a violence-plagued New York City. Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is an immigrant who has done well running the growing Standard Heating Oil company, having purchased the business from the father of his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain). Abel is now taking the biggest risk of his career, trying to close the deal on an expensive river front industrial property to further boost his business advantage. The Morales family move into their dream new house, but all is not well.  Abel's adversaries are circling, and the Standard delivery trucks are being repeatedly hijacked and their cargo of oil stolen. One driver, an ambitious young man called Julian (Elyes Gabel) is badly roughed up in one such heist.

Abel and his lawyer Andrew Walsh (Albert Brooks) turn to District Attorney Lawrence (David Oyelowo) to try and identify the aggressors, but Lawrence is no help. In fact, the DA's office is about to charge Standard Oil with various counts of fraudulent business practices. An attempted break-in at Abel's house is followed by more truck hijackings, with the level of violence increasing to include shootouts on the freeway. Anna grows restless, the bankers get cold feet, and suddenly Abel has to face the prospect of potentially losing everything he has ever worked for.

Directed by J.C. Chandor, A Most Violent Year leaves the vague impression that it should be much better than it is. There is a thread of sloppiness that runs through the film, from a script (written by Chandor) that sounds remarkably stilted to a slipshod editing job that all too readily truncates scenes prematurely. Key characters, including the lawyer Walsh and most of Abel's business competitors, are barely provided with any screen time despite their increasing importance to the story. Instead the film tilts towards over-investing in individuals like Julian, who are ultimately not as relevant. The film ends with too many loose ends flailing in the riverfront breeze.

Visually the film captures a pleasing late 1970s / early 1980s dour aesthetic, but the attempt at industrial bleakness also borders on sparse.

Where the film does succeed is in presenting an inflection point in a struggle between good and evil on the battlefield of a single industry and more specifically one business. While the 1970s are associated with a crime-infested and dangerous New York City, by the time the late 1980s rolled around the city had undergone a remarkable transformation into a sparkling modern day and relatively safe metropolis. A Most Violent Year sits at the transformational crossroads, Abel's stubborn insistence on a different way of doing things representing a forthcoming societal sea change.

Most of the better moments come thanks to a terrific performance by Oscar Isaac as Abel Morales. He finds the essence of a man determined to play the business games as ethically as possible within the confines of a corrupt industry. Isaac's dark, intense eyes are essential in conveying a businessman carrying the weight of the future on his shoulder and fending off appeals from all around him to dive into distasteful sleaze and increased violence.

The pacing and tone are also generally good. The film maintains steady momentum, Abel and Anna dealing with one misfortune after another, and creating some of their own strife through a tumultuous lack of alignment. The rising tension serves to highlight the film's shortcomings, with some of the good set-up work going to waste, Chandor too often failing to deliver the intellectual punch when needed.

A marginally rewarding drama, A Most Violent Year is also an opportunity wasted.

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The Movies Of Albert Brooks

All movies starring Albert Brooks and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Taxi Driver (1976)

Private Benjamin (1980)

Terms Of Endearment (1983, voice only)

Unfaithfully Yours (1984)

Broadcast News (1987)

Defending Your Life (1991, also Director)

Out Of Sight (1998)

Drive (2011)

This Is 40 (2012)

A Most Violent Year (2014)

Concussion (2015)

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Movie Review: Concussion (2015)

Based on real events, Concussion is the story of one doctor who uncovered the epidemic of head injuries with long-term effects besetting the National Football League. The film is earnest in tone, but also mechanical in execution and only moderately engaging.

It's 2002, and Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) is a Nigerian immigrant doctor working in the Pittsburgh coroner's office. When retired legendary Pittsburgh Steelers centre Mike Webster (David Morse) is found dead at age 50 from unknown causes after having been reduced to a rambling, incoherent man living in a pick-up truck, Bennet performs the autopsy. Not finding any obvious reasons for Webster's inability to function and untimely demise, Bennet doggedly pursues expensive lab tests until he uncovers severe but barely visible brain trauma caused by repeated blows to the head. Meanwhile, in his personal life, Bennet meets and starts a romance with immigrant nurse Prema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

Supported by county coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks), Bennet publishes his findings. Soon he is subjected to an intimidation campaign as the NFL closes ranks and attempts are made to discredit Bennet and his work. But more deaths of former NFL players come to light, including Terry Long, Justin Strzelczyk and Andre Waters, all suffering from similar symptoms and brain damage. Dr. Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin), the Steelers' former doctor, comes forward to help Bennet publicize his research, but getting the NFL to admit that there is a problem will be a struggle.

Concussion benefits from an excellent Will Smith performance, putting on a Nigerian accent and bringing to life a confident, methodical and extremely amiable yet highly principled man. Smith is the main reason to watch Concussion, as the rest of the film barely rises above routine fare.

Written and directed by Peter Landesman based on the book Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas, the film struggles to generate drama beyond the obvious. The script is filled with peripheral doctors drifting in and quickly out of the story, barely introduced and adding little punch. There are doctors who validate Bennet's work and co-publish with him (including Paul Reiser in just the single scene); there is an unfriendly colleague at the coroner's office; there are grim-faced officials, experts and quacks at the league offices. None of them stay long enough to register as relevant. Even Alec Baldwin as Dr. Julian Bailes struggles to define his role in the unfolding conflict between the findings of his profession and the interests of his former employers.

On the positive side, the romance between Bennet and Prema is sweet and adds texture, two medical professionals connecting more through mutually respectful rationality than infatuated chemistry, Prema gradually revealing her inner strength to cozy her way into Bennet's home and heart. The one other supporting character who rises above the cursory writing is Albert Brooks as Dr. Cyril Wecht, a veteran coroner who sees past Bennet's eccentricities, and recognizes that sometimes medical science has to trump both finances and public apathy.

Concussion is well-intentioned and has an important story to tell. It is also rather blandly executed and feels incomplete. Dr. Bennet Omalu is an outsider who dared to reveal the human carnage being caused by a brutalistic sport. But out on the playing fields, brains are still being destroyed as the rabid beer-swilling fans bray for even bigger hits and the crude business of sports-for-profit rolls on.

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Movie Review: Broadcast News (1987)

A dazzling foray into the exacting world of nightly television news, Broadcast News is triumphant combination of pragmatic drama, humour, and romance set in a charged workplace.

At a high profile Washington DC network television station, Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) is a well-regarded journalist still hoping for a chance to take over the anchor chair. His best friend is producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter), who is equally smart and career driven, but suffering from stress due to an unbalanced life of all work and no play.

Aaron and Jane believe in the old-fashioned principles of news being about the news and not about celebrities and pretty faces. Their world is rocked when handsome dunce Tom Grunick (William Hurt) is hired as the new anchor for the nightly news show. With a background in sports and no understanding of world affairs, Tom is Aaron and Jane's worst nightmare. But Tom does prove himself to be a good anchor, and despite herself, Jane falls in love with him, threatening her friendship with Aaron. With the station in an upheaval due to impending staff cuts, the professional and personal lives of Aaron, Jane and Tom are thrown into turmoil.

Written and directed by James L. Brooks, Broadcast News is one of the smartest movies to come out of the 1980s, with crisp dialogue, episodes of broad humour, and ultimately a human-centred drama about ordinary lives subjected to high stress in an evolving industry.

The spiritual sequel to Network (1976), Broadcast News is an equally excellent trip through the world of television news. But while Network was still all about fighting the good fight against news yielding to commercial interests, Broadcast News understands that the fight is lost and nobody cares. The barbarians are inside the gate, and Aaron goes as far as likening Tom to the devil himself, disguised as a handsome charm merchant, taking over in front of the camera to satisfy aesthetic sensibilities despite knowing nothing about journalism. Meanwhile, when Jane stands up to give a rousing talk about defending the principles of good newscasts, the audience of fellow journalists cannot empty the room fast enough.

Broadcast News is also smart enough to give the devil his due. When Aaron turns to Tom for tips on how to succeed in front of the camera, Tom is suddenly is in his element, and yes, the uninformed simpleton knows what it takes to be a star anchor. Aaron finally realizes that being the high profile face of the news is an altogether different profession than being a journalist, and his dream of both finding and presenting the news is a generation too old.

In addition to presenting an inside look at the exhilarating world of assembling a nightly news show, Brooks enjoys serving up his tasty romantic triangle, and takes a thoughtful stance on the parallels between love and life. In an example of dazzling writing and directing, the most romantic scene has nothing to do with physical closeness. Jane and Tom connect as he successfully anchors emergency coverage of an emerging crisis in real time, Jane producing the segment, communicating with Tom through an earpiece, and pushing the buttons that make it all work.

The cerebral Jane ultimately falls for the dishy Tom in a hurry, leaving the earnest Aaron sidelined in friendship hell. And if even Jane can be seduced by style over substance, there is nothing left to defend: the news industry stands no chance, and has to offer up the pizazz to maintain the love of an audience much less intelligent than Jane.

Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter deliver the definitive performances of their careers. Brooks gives Aaron the caustic voice of brains over beauty, the smartest kid in the room still not quite understanding that it takes a lot more than smarts to succeed. Hunter never had a better role than Jane, written by Brooks at the most well-rounded character in the film. Hunter perfectly occupies the space where the studiously organized Jane even schedules her crying breaks, and otherwise rolls through her career with a voracious appetite that leaves hardly any room for a personal life but plenty of opportunities for spectacular successes in the production booth.

William Hurt has possibly the most difficult role, and plays Tom as a self-aware handsome face, under no illusions that career doors are opening due to superficial reasons. But among the three lead characters, Tom is perhaps the most in tune with where the television industry is headed. If he ever had any illusions he has long since replaced them with a willingness to ride the wave running in his favour.

Robert Prosky as the executive producer of the news show and Jack Nicholson as the network's star self-aggrandized New York-based anchor provide weighty support. Lois Chiles and Joan Cusack round out a terrific cast.

Brainy, lively, and playful, Broadcast News is a ratings winner.

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Movie Review: Drive (2011)

An artistic journey into the heart of crime, Drive is an intense, occasionally violent but slow moving character study. However, it is dubious whether there is enough of a character here worth studying.

In Los Angeles, The Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a mechanic by day, a movie stuntman when the work is there, and a crime getaway driver when seeking excitement. A man of few words who rarely displays any emotion, The Driver moves into an apartment building and meets his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan), a young mother living with her young son and awaiting the release of husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) from prison.

To capitalize on The Driver's exceptional talent behind the wheel, his boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston) tries to secure a loan from mobsters Bernie (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman) to start a racing team. The tentative relationship between The Driver and Irene is interrupted when Standard returns home after finishing his sentence. Standard has debts owing to some uncompromising criminals represented by Cook (James Biberi) and his moll (Christina Hendricks), and The Driver agrees to help in a seemingly straightforward robbery of a pawn shop. But events quickly spiral out of control, and The Driver finds himself on a violent collision course with Bernie and Nino.

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn constructs an alternate reality where few words are spoken, violence is sudden and intense, the nights are tinted blue and the days are a harsh yellow. Echoing the western man-with-no-name anti-hero who is as violent as his enemies, The Driver has no name, hardly a background, and certainly no appetite to talk about much of anything. The film often satisfies the through-the-windshield visual appeal of a first-person video driving game, while characters interact with each other through looks and violence rather than coherent conversation.

While the style is abundantly on display, it is not backed-up be a compelling narrative. A film awash in flair needs the foundation of a simple story to serve as an anchor. Here the money problems of Standard quickly disintegrate into a muddle of ill-defined Mafia goons resorting to extreme measures, and The Driver's interest in helping Irene through Standard is at odds with his apparent lack of commitment to any cause other than his own.

Drive does eventually suffer from its own excesses, the pace quite slow as the standing-and-staring takes precedence over any plot momentum. There are scenes where Gosling and Mulligan are pretending to be all dark and brooding, but they also seem on the verge of breaking out into laughter at the absurdity of the timed delays between sentences.

In amongst the pregnant pauses, Winding Refn throws in brief bursts of action. Given the title and subject matter, the amount of actual car-oriented carnage is limited. More memorable are the bloody beatings, head-bashings and knifings that take over towards the end of the movie, as the body count mounts and every death attempts to outdo what came before in terms of gore.

Drive enjoys cool stretches, but can't avoid all the tricky potholes.

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Movie Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

A descent-into-hell psychological drama, Taxi Driver slowly drives along the path towards emotional carnage. It's a hypnotic journey, where one veteran's disgust with modern society methodically spirals downwards into an uncontrollable need to violently lash out.

Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a former Marine now living alone in New York City. Unable to sleep, he takes a job driving a taxi on the night shift. Unlike other drivers, Bickle accepts fares to the most dangerous corners of a decaying, crime-infested New York. Already disgusted with the scum that crawls on the sidewalks, his nightly exposure to the pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers and gangs intensifies his sense of social isolation. His only acquaintances are other taxi drivers, including the larger-than-life "Wizard" (Peter Boyle).

As he drives around the city, Bickle spots Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a beautiful political aide working on the presidential campaign of Senator Palantine, and fending off the unsophisticated advances of fellow worker Tom (Albert Brooks). Bickle's attempts to get to know Betsy are promising at first, but the relationship collapses on a movie date when he takes her to the wrong type of theatre. Bickle also builds an unlikely interest in Iris (Jodie Foster), a very young prostitute who goes by the street name "Easy" and is fully controlled by her pimp "Sport" (Harvey Keitel). Bickle buys several illegal guns and spends time on target practice. His emotional isolation turns to quiet rage, and his painfully twisted brain conjures up plenty of possible targets.

Today it is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but screenwriter Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver before the label existed, and there has rarely been a more powerful screen examination of a mind spinning away, ever so slightly and imperceptibly to others, from its normal orbit towards the darkest of dead-ends.

Travis Bickle never stops functioning in society, does not reveal himself as blatantly mad or potentially violent towards others, keeps on working and almost normally interacting with others. Meanwhile he gathers a lethal arsenal and convinces himself that people need to die, to serve some purpose that only his damaged brain can fathom. It's his relative social normalcy prior to his emotional disintegration that is the disturbing core of his story.

Director Martin Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman bathe New York with the sickly light of all-pervasive neon cutting through the night, with Bickle's yellow taxi adding to the garish surroundings and propagating the artificial glow. The daytime scenes, primarily portraying Betsy's world, are mostly filmed in bright sunlight, the New York of normal people oblivious to the infestations that take hold at night. Bickle's small and lonely apartment is a depressing place, the ramshackle furniture and claustrophobic walls doing nothing to improve his mood.

Ironically for a role in which he portrays a driver, Robert De Niro delivers the performance of a passive passenger unable to change the destructive course that his brain is on. Never outwardly animated, most of what Bickle is suffering occurs behind De Niro's eyes, with the building lunacy only beginning to ooze out when he is alone, most notably in the quietly disconcerting "You talkin' to me?" sequence in front of his mirror.

The other inhabitants of Bickle's world are quite distant, with Betsy and Iris existing in opposite corners of his universe. Betsy is completely out of Travis' league, the only surprise being how long it takes her to realize that the thrill of hanging out with a mildly charming taxi driver has an extremely limited shelf life. Shepherd gives Betsy a bored urban career girl vibe, a wickedly attractive woman who can have any man she likes and is therefore impulsively attracted to the unknown represented by an infatuated loner.

Iris has no idea that she is already at the bottom of life's barrel, Foster filled with wide-eyed innocence, and the film reaches a mortifying highlight when she slowly dances with Keitel's pimp, fully believing that he is her protector and that their relationship represents love.

Bernard Herrman's melancholy jazz score seeps loneliness from every pore, providing a mesmerizing, even encouraging, companion in the exploration of gloomy physical and emotional places best left alone. It was Herrman's final movie soundtrack, and Scorsese dedicated the film to the composer.

Taxi Driver responds to the call, picks up on time, and triumphantly drives to a cinematically resplendent destination.

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Movie Review: Out Of Sight (1998)

A heist movie featuring a romance across criminal lines between a bank robber and U.S. Marshal, Out Of Sight tries to be slick but succeeds only in being mostly wet. Based on an Elmore Leonard novel, the action never leaves the realm of the contrived and hydroplanes on accumulations of the absurd.

Serial bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) has committed more hold-ups than anyone can remember.  He is non-violent and has never used a gun, and has spent a lot of time in prisons and as much time plotting to escape. With the help of frequent accomplice Buddy (Ving Rhames), Jack busts out of jail, and in the process takes Marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) hostage. A spark immediately ignites between the two, but they part ways as Jack and Buddy hook up with another accomplice, the slow-witted Glenn (Steve Zahn). As Jack and his gang make their way to Detroit where they plan to hold-up the diamond-rich mansion of Ripley (Albert Brooks), Sisco is part of a group of federal agents on their tail, and hardened criminal Maurice Miller (Don Cheadle) leads a rival mob intent on getting to Ripley's mansion first.

Out Of Sight is a film attempting to be cool and real, but not many of the central actions or character behaviours ring true. Foley's unlikely escape from prison; Sisco abandoning all logic to immediately fall for a con man who has abducted her; the police showing up en masse to arrest Foley and Buddy at their hideout hotel, but failing to secure the parkade; and the prolonged climactic robbery sequence, in which the real bad guys (Miller and crew) fall into that typical Hollywood trap, where vicious and calculating criminals become bumbling and incompetent just when it matters most, to the benefit of the attractive stars.

Director Steven Soderbergh attempts to cover up the gaping script holes by unnecessarily forcing the action to jump around the hurdle of convoluted flashbacks, which add little style but plenty of confusion. Other stunts include tiny roles for Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, and Nancy Allen, none of whom are on-screen long enough to meaningfully contribute.

Without a firm grip on any sort of reality, Out Of Sight is left with the chemistry of its two stars as it's only watchable element. Clooney and Lopez do not disappoint, but neither can they save the movie. Clooney, still a couple of years removed from movie superstardom, provides further proof that he is heading in that direction with a world-weary performance that oozes class, while Lopez overcomes her character's lack of common sense and delivers what may be her most engaging screen performance, particularly in the scenes opposite Clooney.

Despite the available star charisma, Out Of Sight is out of ideas and quickly out of mind.

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