Movie Review: Identity (2003)

Genre: Psychological Suspense Mystery Horror  

Director: James Mangold  

Starring: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Rebecca De Mornay, John Hawkes, John C. McGinley, Jake Busey  

Running Time: 90 minutes  

Synopsis: Psychologist Dr. Malik (Alfred Molina) is attempting to secure a stay of execution for a mass murderer suffering from split personality disorder. Separately, a group of people gather at a secluded Nevada motel during a torrential storm. They include limousine driver Ed (John Cusack) and his actress passenger (Rebecca DeMornay), sex worker Paris (Amanda Peet), correctional officer Samuel (Ray Liotta) transporting a dangerous criminal (Jake Busey), a newly married couple, and a family on a road trip with their young son. The motel manager Larry (John Hawkes) accommodates them all, but soon the guests start to die under mysterious circumstances.

What Works Well: This genre-melding mystery combines elements from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None all the way to slasher horror, and throws in a couple of delicious twists. Thanks to a taut Michael Cooney script, the large group of soggy characters gathered at the motel are introduced with remarkable efficiency, and the parallel timeframe featuring Dr. Malik attempting to convince a judge to spare a killer's life adds the necessary context. Devious plot decoys strengthen the narrative complexity, and the unending nighttime rain storm emphasizes entrenched psychological turmoil. The cast members add quality to memorable characters hiding secrets and guarding against each other as the body count mounts.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a rare example of a movie that could have been marginally longer to better round-out a few of the key characters.

Key Quote:

Samuel: All right. You want a plan? Everybody want a plan? Here's the plan, okay? No one's gonna move. We're gonna stay here, like this, in this room until dawn. No one leaves, no one moves.

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Movie Review: The Way Way Back (2013)

A coming of age dramedy, The Way Way Back dives into the pool of introverted teenaged gawkiness to discover the birth pangs of emerging maturity.

Duncan (Liam James) is a quiet 14 year old, suffering through the getting-to-know-you phase with Trent (Steve Carell), the oily new boyfriend of his mother Pam (Toni Colette). Trent's older teenaged daughter Steph (Zoe Levin) is happy to ignore Duncan. The quartet head to Trent's summer vacation home near Cape Cod, where they meet vivacious neighbour Betty (Allison Janney) and her teenaged daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb). 

Trent and Pam start spending long hours with Trent's friends Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet), who own a pleasure boat. Left on his own and feeling like a complete misfit, Duncan wanders towards the cheesy Water Wizz water park where he meets carefree manager Owen (Sam Rockwell) and his co-worker/maybe girlfriend Caitlin (Maya Rudolph). Duncan's summer adventures start to improve when Owen takes him under his wing and Susanna attempts a friendship, but Trent's nauseating smarminess is never far away. 

Co-written and co-directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash in their debut, The Way Way Back is a tender poke at that one memorable growing-up summer when misery, company and emotional growth collide. While the themes, incidents and overall mood of awkward bemusement bordering on despair are not necessarily new, Faxon and Rash mush enough cringey and hopeful moments together to build well-rounded characters.

Duncan is a mostly silent adolescent caught in the treacherously funny terrain between kid and adult, with that inherent perceptive child's ability to see right through Trent's facade and into his rotten core. That mom Pam is not ready to acknowledge her new boyfriend is a scumbag only makes Duncan more miserable, along with the indignity of being the only person having to wear a flotation device on the boat.

But a summer of long days also offers unexpected opportunities for positive encounters. Owen is a man jealously safeguarding his inner teenager's attitude towards life, and recognizes that Duncan just needs a nudge of belief and surrogate fatherhood to break out of his shell. Meanwhile Susanna is attempting to avoid getting blown away by the hurricane generated by her mom Betty, and sees Duncan as a calm harbour worth exploring.

Faxon and Rash create a modest middle class beachside community teetering between fading small town charm and suburban dullness, a place where every family is broken, breaking, or patched-up, and the dilapidating water park still attracts a crowd although the beach is minutes away. In this milieu Sam Rockwell is the standout performer, having a blast as a caring man perfecting the couldn't-care-less schtick. Liam James speaks volumes with pained expressions of emotional torture and few words. Steve Carell oozes barely disguised toxins, while Allison Janney allows easily excitable neighbour Betty to take flight.

The Way Way Back zooms through the twists and turns of water park tubes, dark places to navigate on the way to a bright new splash.



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Movie Review: Please Give (2010)

A quirky comedy and drama, Please Give offers low key but astute commentary about family relationships, guilt and death.

In New York City, Kate (Catherine Keener) and her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) run a mid-century furniture resale business. They buy their stock from the apartments of recently deceased elderly people, taking advantage of grown children during their moment of grief. Kate is wracked by guilt, and hands money to every seemingly homeless person. She is also having trouble communicating with her teenaged daughter Abby (Sarah Steele), who is suffering from a bad skin condition.

Kate and Alex have purchased the next-door apartment occupied by crusty ninety-two year old Andra (Ann Guilbert), with plans to expand into her unit when the old woman dies. Andra is cared for by her kind granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a mammogram technician who lives with her more contemptuous sister Mary (Amanda Peet), a skin care therapist. The lives of Alex, Kate and Abby start to intertwine with Rebecca and Mary in unexpected ways.

Death as an avenue for profit is always a queasy topic rich with possibilities. Writer and director Nicole Holofcener finds the damp patches of guilt in this well-constructed and character-rich story, and Please Give is filled with calibrated moments of pleasure along with honest, funny, awkward and sometimes painful human contact.

To assuage her guilt Kate is a one-woman charity, distributing bills to New York's homeless population and then some. Except Kate is much less generous with her daughter Abby, who is desperate for a new pair of jeans, and Holofcener elegantly folds in the unintended consequences of charity that begins outside the home.

Abby's teenage traumas are relatively typical for a white privileged child of wealthy parents, but her angst is also the spark that forges connections with the sister pair of Rebecca and Mary. Her skin condition brings the opportunistic Mary into focus, while the considerate Rebecca offers Abby a comforting bond over dog walking.

Meanwhile the husband and wife team of Kate and Alex appear to be friends and business partners, but perhaps they lost the passion in the gap between his dismissive iciness and her remorseful fretting. Suddenly Alex is flirting with Mary, who is happy to embark on another ill-considered adventure. Meanwhile, Kate's exploration of volunteer opportunities at charity organizations is all kinds of wrong funny.

Please Give demands strong performances to work, and the cast delivers. Rebecca emerges as the pure heart of the film, and Rebecca Hall shines in a role full of selfless commitment. Catherine Keener is also excellent in conveying an exterior of polished professionalism barely concealing gobs of self-loathing.

With the elderly Andra and the grandmother (Lois Smith) of Rebecca's new boyfriend also meddling in the lives of their offspring, Please Give is a candid and clever probe of dynamics between four generations of women.

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The Movies Of Amanda Peet

All movies starring Amanda Peet and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

One Fine Day (1996)

Changing Lanes (2002)

Identity (2003)

Something's Gotta Give (2003)

Syriana (2005)

2012 (2009)

Please Give (2010)

The Way Way Back (2013)

Identity Thief (2013)

Sleeping With Other People (2015)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Identity Thief (2013)

A light-weight comedy, Identity Thief finds a few laugh but spends too much time in unfunny oafish territory.

Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is a lowly financial officer at a large bank in Denver, terrorized by his boss Harold Cornish (Jon Favreau) and barely earning enough to provide for his pregnant wife Trish (Amanda Peet) and two young daughters. Just when he decides to make a promising career move, things get a lot worse when the crude, overweight and overbearing Diana (Melissa McCarthy), who lives in Florida, remotely steals his identity, creates fraudulent copies of all his credit cards, and goes on a wild shopping spree.

With his life and reputation in tatters due to Diana's antics, and stymied by the slow-moving enforcement process, Sandy decides to travel himself to Florida, find Diana, and bring her back to Denver to force a confession. Sandy does find Diana but nothing else unfolds according to plan. Since they are now both called Sandy Patterson, they decide against flying, and instead opt for a slow cross-country drive. And to complicate matters considerably, Diana is also the target of assassins Marisol and Julian (Genesis Rodriguez and T.I.) working for an organized credit card fraud cartel, and no-nonsense bounty hunter Skiptracer (Robert Patrick).

Identity Thief has the considerable propelling power of Melissa McCarthy behind it, but little else. The film oscillates between a few peaks and many valleys according to McCarthy's comic antics. McCarthy stole many parts of Bridesmaids (2011) where her secondary character had plenty of support in delivering the laughs. Here asked to carry the full comic load, she buckles frequently.

On the few occasions when she hits her targets, Identity Thief is a reasonably funny road movie. But when McCarthy veers towards drudging repetition (how many times is punching someone in the neck supposed to be funny) or just low class vulgarity (really tasteless supposedly suggestive dance floor moves followed by a flat sexual ecstasy simulation scene with a stranger), the film stumbles badly.

In comparison, Jason Bateman is a relatively blank slate playing his typical reactive persona where others cause him pain or discomfort. Here Sandy Patterson may be initiating the transportation of Diana from Florida to Denver, but really it is Diana who is calling all the shots and getting the pair of them in and out of trouble. Bateman mostly just plays along, swept up in McCarthy's sizable slipstream.

Director Seth Gordon tries to squeeze some typical road movie journey-of-discovery type lessons, and at a relatively superficial level, Sandy's rage against Diana turns to some sympathy as he learns of her difficult childhood, while Diana develops a bit of a conscience as she comes face to face with one of her victims and his family. It's all rather platitudinous and predictable, as Identity Theft meanders on the highway of reasonable ideas, getting frequently lost.

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Movie Review: Something's Gotta Give (2003)

A romantic comedy for adults, Something's Gotta Give is the equivalent of spending an evening with old friends: the entertainment flows smoothly, enhanced by good humour, great food, and an inevitable happy ending. It may go on for longer than it needs to, but time spent with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton is always pleasurable.

Harry (Nicholson) is a successful businessman in his 60s, dating the much younger Marin (Amanda Peet). Harry makes no secret of wanting to be in the company of younger women: he finds them much simpler to deal with and significantly less demanding. Marin's mother is the divorced Erica (Keaton), a famous Broadway playwright in her late 50s. Harry and Erica meet at her house in the Hamptons and they develop a healthy mutual dislike: she is uptight and judgemental, while he is all self-satisfied smarm.

But Harry suffers an unexpected mild heart attack and Erica finds herself babysitting him. Gradually they begin to care for each other. Marin notices and happily breaks up with Harry to leave the coast clear for her mother to nurture the romance, but Erica's love life gets further complicated when she also attracts the attention of the young and handsome Julian (Keanu Reeves), the doctor looking after Harry's heart health.

As time passes Harry and Erica fall truly in love, but he finds it difficult to commit and she finds it difficult to trust; for the relationship to survive both will need to take risks and venture into previously fenced-off territory.

Nicholson and Keaton slip into their roles with exquisite ease. They both convincingly depict adults blind-sided by love after having been certain that life carried no further surprises. Nicholson's performance starts with some scenery chewing, but gradually dials back as Harry comes to terms with his mortality and his first great romance. Nicholson holds Harry's hand and gently guides him through a transformation to a man overcoming hubris to plead for Erica's trust and companionship.

Keaton's performance is more nuanced, as is the fate of any role opposite Nicholson. Erica has experienced love and hurt, and has rigidly set-up her defences to prevent any future emotional damage. Initially she sees in Harry exactly the type of man she needs to avoid, but as he knocks down her fortifications she gradually recognizes in him an unlikely second opportunity for a grand romance.

Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves and Frances McDormand (as Erica's sister) round out a formidable cast, but they do get nudged firmly into the shadows once Nicholson and Keaton take centre stage.

Nancy Meyers wrote, produced and directed Something's Gotta Give, the beginning of her journey to explore romance among mature adults which would continue with 2009's equally appealing It's Complicated. The romance of Harry and Erica takes more than two hours to unfold, and a solid 15 minutes could have been trimmed to remove unnecessary fat. But otherwise, the screenplay has the unmistakable focus of a single author's vision, Meyers putting to shame the all-too-common clumsy scripts written by committee.

Something's Gotta Give is playful, witty and memorable. It may carry some weight around the waist, but that is just in keeping with the realism of its central characters.

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Movie Review: 2012 (2009)

Disaster movies don't come any bigger than the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, and 2012 imagines this scenario by unleashing modern day cinematic pyrotechnics to full effect.

Some intense solar flares are cooking the Earth's core. In the year 2012, our globe goes into melt-down mode, and it's pretty much the end of civilization. Massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis are unleashed throughout the world on mostly unsuspecting earthlings. The continents shift, and the north and south poles relocate. It's all pretty unsettling stuff.

World governments, including the US President (Danny Glover) and a geologist Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), have had little time to prepare a plan for the survival of the human species. They've nevertheless secretly conjured up massive ark-like vessels secretly built near the Himalayan mountains, to save the lives of selected scientists, politicians, and those who can afford to buy their way on-board.

Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a limousine driver with a failed marriage and a flamed-out career as a writer, trips over a doomsday merchant (Woody Harrelson, deliciously over the top and appropriately on top of a mountain), stumbles upon the truth, and desperately races to save himself, his former wife (Amanda Peet) and kids.

2012 does not pretend to be anything other than a rollercoaster thrill ride, an epic disaster movie built on a foundation of deliriously effective special effects. Director Robert Emmerich conjures up scenes of destruction on a massive scale, lovingly crafted and demonstrating the state-of-the-art in computer generated visuals.

As a movie, 2012 unfortunately wades straight into Hollywood cliche swampland, with arduous debates about who deserves to be saved, some superfluous characters making the briefest of appearances and mostly just cluttering up the film, and a cringe-inducing climax in which a heroic sacrifice is sacrificed at the altar of guaranteed syrup-heavy happy endings.

With no major stars demanding a huge share of screen time, Cusack and Ejiofor provide a solid tandem to keep the action moving, Cusack from everyman's perspective and Ejiofor from inside the government bunkers. 2012 also offers a throwback to the disaster movies of old where actors well past their best-by date populated minor characters. George Segal and Stephen McHattie stumble past the screen here on their way to a welcome pay-cheque.

If the world is going to end, it may as well be spectacular, and 2012 presents an entertaining-enough vision of God hitting the "reset" button.

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