The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label Amy Ryan. Show all posts

Sunday, 19 September 2021

Movie Review: Worth (2020)

A drama about the value of life, Worth delves into the crass process of calculating a monetary amount to compensate victims of an atrocity.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, lawyer Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) is appointed by the White House to negotiate a settlement agreement with the victims' families, in lieu of crippling lawsuits against the airlines. Working with his law partner Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), Kenneth's initial approach is cold-hearted and formula-based.

But the families' emotions are raw, and Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci), who lost his wife in the attacks, organizes them to oppose and improve the proposed settlement. Kenneth's team members uncover difficult individual situations impossible to fit within a formula, including a gay partner not recognized as family and a firefighter with a complicated domestic life. Meanwhile, lawyer Lee Quinn (Tate Donovan) argues for much higher settlements for families of high-income executives. Gradually, Feinberg starts to understand a different approach will be required.

Based on real events as recounted in Feinberg's book, Worth examines the conflict between the need for an emotions-free legal settlement and the passionate turmoil of families reeling after an inexplicable and catastrophic loss. The plot lacks traditional tension between good and bad, and the blood-sucking lawyer sub-text is avoided when Feinberg accepts his assignment on a pro bono basis. The film faces several other narrative obstacles: an empathy-challenged corporate suit is a poor protagonist choice for a heart-wrenching 9/11 drama, and any substantive discussions about actuarial formulae are more than likely to induce sleep.

To their credit, director Sara Colangelo and writer Max Borenstein navigate around these pitfalls with decent agility. They find refuge in victims' family members telling their stories almost straight to the camera, and Feinberg's team of junior lawyers learning to listen and tugging on their boss to modify his approach.

The performances also help. Michael Keaton invests in Feinberg as a confident but also apathetic lawyer who thinks he has all the answers, only gradually awakening to the enormous human scale and complexity of this particular challenge. If Keaton's Feinberg is the drama's brain, then Stanley Tucci as Wolf is the heart, pumping effort into creating a difficult bridge between the families and the lawyers, and eventually orienting Feinberg towards demonstrated compassion.

Worth is more curious than compelling. It's a corner of the 9/11 tragedy worth exploring, insofar as cinema and the process of hammering out compensation agreements can co-exist.

All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

Movie Review: Lost Girls (2020)

A biographical drama, Lost Girls focuses on familial advocacy for at-risk women operating on society's margins.

In New Jersey, Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan) is a single mother raising two daughters, Sherre (Thomasin McKenzie) and Sarra (Oona Laurence). Eldest daughter Shannan, who has left home and is working in the sex trade, promises to visit but fails to show up. Alarmed, Mari contacts her daughter's boyfriend and driver, and learns Shannon visited a Long Island client in the Oak Beach area the night she went missing.

With police Commissioner Richard Dormer (Gabriel Byrne) looking into Shannon's case, a grizzly discovery is made: the bodies of four other sex trade workers are found in the thick bush near Oak Beach, all murdered by strangulation. With Shannon still missing and the police investigation stalled, Mari takes the initiative, raising the case with the media and identifying Oak Beach resident Dr. Peter Hackett (Reed Birney) as a potential suspect.

An adaptation of the Robert Kolker book and inspired by real events, Lost Girls is subtitled An Unsolved American Mystery, as indeed the Long Island Serial Killer has not yet been identified. The absence of a conclusion means director Liz Garbus and writer Michael Werwie are looking at impacts rather than resolutions, and Mari Gilbert as a mother pushed into advocacy takes centre stage.

In an unfortunately familiar story, sex trade workers are treated as less worthy victims, and Lost Girls taps into Mari's rage as she is confronted with the double blow of loss and police apathy. The official investigation is sloppy at best, the gated community of Oak Beach good at keeping outsiders out and secrets in, and Mari has to resort to banging on doors and leaks from community whistleblower Joe Scalise (Kevin Corrigan), who may have ulterior motives.

As a narrative it's not much to go on and Lost Girls runs out of content as quickly as the police lose interest, although Amy Ryan does her best to breathe anguished energy into the role of a working class mom sparring against an uncaring system and emerging as the voice of the voiceless. Thomasin McKenzie contributes a dash of side plot as the daughter breaking out of a shielded reality. Despite noble intentions, Lost Girls is a tragedy consumed by scrubland and the grey lethargy of indifference.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Monday, 18 June 2018

Movie Review: The Infiltrator (2016)

A thoughtful biographical crime drama, The Infiltrator delves into the murky world of undercover enforcement work targeting ruthless drug cartels.

It's the mid-1908s, and Colombian drugs are flooding into the United States. Veteran Customs Service special agent Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston) goes undercover as Bob Musella, pretending to be a well-connected businessman capable of laundering illicit money in large quantities. With the help of fellow-agent Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo), Mazur starts with one informant and works his way up to meeting leading cartel member Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt) and his glamorous wife Gloria (Elena Anaya).

Mazur is married to the long-suffering Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey), but as part of his cover has to pretend he has a fiancée. His boss Bonni Tischler (Amy Ryan) arranges for rookie agent Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger) to play the role of bride-to-be, causing more tension with Evelyn. Mazur even recruits his elegant Aunt Vicky (Olympia Dukakis) to help in the charade. Mazur and Ertz earn the trust of Alcaino and Gloria, leading to difficult decisions as the customs trap prepares to snap shut on the cartel members and their corrupt international financiers.

Directed by Brad Furman and written by Ellen Brown Furman based on Mazur's book of the same name, The Infiltrator is a slick character-based dive into the real world of crime investigations. This is an exposé of honour among barbarous criminals in expensive suits operating from boardrooms, bank headquarters and multi-million dollar apartments, where one word can be the difference between absolute trust and a bullet in the back of the head.

The film does suffer from a slow and marginally disorienting start, with too many characters and incidents introduced too quickly. Once the story settles down, the latches click and the tension ramps up into a gripping thriller shaped around people dedicated to their work on both sides of the law.

Almost by definition Mazur has to distance himself from his real identity to sell his cover. Maintaining trust with Evelyn is essential to his well-being, and yet Mazur has to develop a convincingly affectionate relationship with Ertz, and together they need to appear genuinely close to the Alcainos. The Infiltrator thrives in the milieu of emotional complexity necessary to pull off a dangerous deception.

The Infiltrator does take a few quick detours to short and sharp scenes of violence that serve as reminders of the brutality lurking behind the surface. And there is no shortage of colourful personalities populating the world of large-scale drug smuggling, with the slimy Javier Ospina (Yul Vazquez) in his all-white suits particularly troubling.

At the middle of it all Cranston is excellent as the crusty Mazur, who could retire at any time but insists on finagling his way into the lion's den, his craggy face equally effective reflecting a life invested in enforcement or selling the fake story of money laundering on a grand scale.

The powerful forces of organized and well-resourced crime require a special brand of enforcement, and The Infiltrator deploys courageous chicanery to serve the cause.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Sunday, 17 January 2016

Movie Review: Dan In Real Life (2007)

A mild romantic comedy, Dan In Real Life has a cute premise but weak follow-through.

In New Jersey, Dan Burns (Steve Carell) writes a newspaper relationship advice column. A widower, he is overprotective and struggling to raise three daughters on his own as they go through puberty and puppy love issues. In a despondent mood, Dan drives with his daughters to Rhode Island for a long weekend family reunion at the beach front home of his parents (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest). Also in attendance are Dan's siblings and their families, including his brother Mitch (Dane Cook), a hunky bachelor and fitness trainer.

Dan meets the attractive Marie (Juliette Binoche) at the local bookstore, and they immediately sense an attraction. They chat over coffee and she snaps him out of his moodiness. They part on a promise to meet again although she does tell him that she is just starting a new relationship. Back at the beach house, Dan is shocked to re-encounter Marie, who has arrived at the family reunion as Mitch's new girlfriend. They keep their bookstore encounter a secret. As the weekend progresses Mitch and Marie fawn all over each other as the rest of the family falls in love with the vivacious, worldly and clever Marie, while Dan is pushed to extremes of jealousy and childish behaviour.

Directed by Peter Hedges, Dan In Real Life has a single idea to work with, and doesn't do much with it. The film hinges on Dan and Marie first deeply connecting with each other after a single encounter, and then keeping their sudden attachment a secret from the sprawling family. This is all established within the first 30 minutes, and for the next hour Hedges (who also co-wrote the script) wanders around the beach house looking for opportunities for Dan to act childish.

This not only gets tiresome quickly, but also undermines the film's premise. Dan's pouty behaviour is only rarely funny and generally makes him exceptionally unattractive, and a smart woman like Marie should have recognized his emotionally immaturity and cast him adrift instead of stringing him along. But then Marie's purported intelligence is already undermined by her attachment to the hunky but relatively dull Mitch, further eroding the movie's rationality.

The film attempts to win cheap sentimental points late on by throwing in sappy moments related to Dan's deceased wife and his relationship with his girls, but by then the infatuation triangle between Dan, Marie and Mitch has unravelled beyond salvation.

A talented cast is merely adequate. Carell does show an aptitude for the more subdued side of the comedy spectrum, but too often sleepwalks through the film with a single passive aggressive stance of simmering jealousy. Binoche is perky but borderline annoying. The rest of the family members are almost interchangeable and lack definition. Emily Blunt shows up in a couple of scenes as a bubbly childhood friend of Dan's, and a potential pawn in the spite battles. Amy Ryan has a minor role as Dan's sister-in-law.

Dan In Real Life arrives at the vacation house with good intentions to have a fun time, but is caught at the beach all wet and without a towel.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Saturday, 21 November 2015

Movie Review: Devil's Knot (2013)

A triple murder mystery drama based on real events, Devil's Knot wades into well-worn territory, and offers neither anything new nor any sort of resolution.

In the rural community of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys go out for a bike ride into a wooded area and never come back. After a mammoth search, the dead and naked bodies of Stevie, Christopher and Michael are found at the bottom of a creek, tied up and seemingly brutally assaulted. Stevie's mother Pamela Hobbs (Reese Witherspoon) is distraught, not helped by her coarse husband Terry (Alessandro Nivola). The national media descends on West Memphis, the local police force is overwhelmed, and rumours start to swirl that the boys were victims of a satanic death cult. Soon, three teenagers are arrested and charged with the murders. The dark and brooding Damien Echols is designated the ring leader, with his friends Jason Baldwin and the borderline retarded Jessie Misskelley as active accomplices.

Christopher's father John Mark Byers (Kevin Durand) regales the media with tirades about satanic forces at play. Meanwhile, private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth) notices plenty of holes in the case against the three teens, and offers his services to the defence team. The muddled police investigation includes botched questioning, missing evidence, dubious confessions, and improbable witness testimony. The case goes to court with Judge David Burnett (Bruce Greenwood) presiding, and the community witnesses a trial circus that compounds the tragedy of the murders.

The West Memphis murders occurred in May 1993, and in subsequent years, the crime and subsequent trial have been the subject of several in-depth documentaries and books. The arrest and trial of Damien, Jason and Jessie are considered an injustice piled onto to a calamity, and every aspect of the story has been poured over in detail, on film and in print.

It is not clear what director Atom Egoyan thought could be gained from dramatizing the story, using the non-fiction book by Mara Leveritt as source material. The production has undoubted quality and polish, and Egoyan succeeds in recreating a small town consumed by unimaginable events, invaded by the media, and obsessed by fear-based wild stories of satanic rituals. Devil's Knot also takes an unblinking look at a small town police force simply not equipped to deal with a brutal triple murder, and a trial judge who redefines the rules of objectivity.

But none of this is new material, and the film flounders in search of a purpose. It does not offer anything new to the story, and neither does it work as compelling drama. Egoyan adopts a documentary style to chronicle and annotate events on the screen, a puzzling case of a non-documentary positioning itself in bewildering competition with actual documentaries that already delved into the same story.

Colin Firth sleepwalks through the film, an Englishman trying to conjure up a southern accent but unable to latch onto a dramatic lifeline. Amy Ryan as Lax's ex-wife is wasted in a couple of throwaway scenes. Reese Witherspoon does a bit better and gets a few moments to infuse some emotion, but Pamela Hobbs mostly exchanges meaningful glances with Ron Lax across the courtroom, only for all meaning to seep out of the film as it fizzles into an non-conclusion and more documentary-style postscripts.

Devil's Knot suffers from that most insidious of flaws: a film that works its way to irrelevance.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Movie Review: Bridge Of Spies (2015)

A cold war drama inspired by true events, Bridge Of Spies succeeds in recreating an era of secrets, spies, and suspicions. The story of an insurance lawyer embroiled in a high stakes prisoner exchange is compelling, but falls just short of stirring the spirit.

New York, 1957. Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is arrested by a team of FBI agents. With the US government eager to demonstrate due process, slick insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is nominated to defend Abel. Initially hesitant, Donovan soon jumps into the challenge. Abel's fatalistic, calm demeanour impresses Donovan, and the two men establish a rapport and mutual respect, with Donovan understanding that Abel is simply doing his job to the best of his abilities. But Donovan's enthusiastic embrace of his role as the representative of the most hated man in the country takes a toll on his wife Mary (Amy Ryan) and family.

Meanwhile, the US ramps up a spy flight program designed to capture photos of Soviet military installations from enormous altitudes. But pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and captured by the Soviets. The CIA approach Donovan to broker a prisoner exchange deal to trade Abel for Powers, and he is thrust into the dangerous world of Berlin being actively bisected by a wall. Young American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is caught up in the chaos and held by the East Germans. Donovan has to deal with Soviet and East German secret services at odds with each other, and try to negotiate a risky deal within a spy environment he knows little about.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by the Coen brothers with Matt Charman, Bridge Of Spies oozes with quality. The set designs from the late 1950s and early 1960s evoke the Cold War era at its most paranoid, with agents on both sides of the curtain weighing every move and every mistake against a shortening distance between finger and button. The scenes in Berlin are particularly effective, capturing a city at the literal fault line of east and west, a wall actively being built to harden attitudes and close hearts.

Spielberg throws in the occasional mild scene of action to inject some energy into the proceedings, but this is primarily a character study focusing on the relationship between the lawyer Donovan and the spy Abel. The film is at its best when the two men are sharing scenes, with the sharp Donovan applying all his inquisitive skills to get to know his client, and Abel giving nothing away with the most docile possible disposition. It's not that Abel does not care; he just realizes that at the end of the day he is a a very small pawn in a much larger game, and his fate is formally in the hands of nations.

At just over 140 minutes, Spielberg adopts a languid pace, and Bridge Of Spies could have easily been tightened by about 20 minutes. Several scenes go on longer than they need to, with the Francis Gary Powers sub-plot unfolding mechanically and with no character depth. Powers' CGI-enhanced fall from the sky is particularly overblown in the context of a cerebral cold war drama. In contrast, the story of student Frederic Pryor receives short thrift, as he is introduced late in the story and almost as an afterthought.

Tom Hanks delivers a reliable but not particularly memorable performance. Mark Rylance emerges as the subdued star of the film, with a grey performance filled with the contradictions and vagaries that define the life of a spy. Amy Ryan is mostly wasted as the worried wife, while a haggard-looking Alan Alda gets a couple of scenes as Donovan's boss.

Spielberg finds a brilliant climax at the snow covered Glienicke Bridge, a simple exchange transformed into the essence of a complex conflict between giant foes who pointed angry words, harsh lights and large guns at each other, but never quite pulled the trigger. The Cold War in a perfect tableaux, Bridge Of Spies is the beautiful image of a most dangerous time.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone (2007)

A dark investigative thriller about a missing young child in Boston, Gone Baby Gone starts with a simple premise and gracefully expands into an engrossing quest through the terrain of conscientious choices. For every action there is an unplanned consequence, and Gone Baby Gone shines a light on alternatives that remarkably reside somewhere between well-intentioned, selfish and socially destructive.

In the working class Boston neighbourhood of Dorchester, four year old Amanda McCready is abducted. The child's angelic looks dictate that the media will choose this case to be the shock crime story of the week, creating a predictable circus of television crews and reporters overrunning a once reasonably quiet residential neighbourhood. The police are on the case, but the girl's aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) want to do more, and approach private detective Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) to also investigate. Patrick grew up in the area and went to the same school as Amanda's mother Helene (Amy Ryan), a single mom now proudly flaunting her white trash credentials.

Police chief Doyle (Morgan Freeman) who himself lost a young child to crime years prior, reluctantly agrees to cooperate with Patrick and Angie, and connects them with detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton). They soon uncover Helene's drug habit, her sleazy boyfriend, and their drug supplier, a Haitian crime lord who goes by the name Cheese (Edi Gathegi). Helene recently stole money off Cheese, creating the perfect motive. Another investigation thread suggests that a recently released child molester and two other drug addicts may also be suspects. But just when Patrick thinks he is close to making a deal with Cheese to recover Amanda, events take a sudden turn for the worse and a bad situation descends into an unmitigated disaster.

Ben Affleck's directorial debut is a magnificently downbeat achievement. Adapting the Dennis Lehane book, Ben directs his brother Casey with the measured confidence of a veteran and creates a dramatic, morally nebulous masterpiece. Gone Baby Gone peels away layers of social normalcy to uncover the warts that live underneath, and dares to wade into unattractive places with imperfect people, where decisions start at bad and progress towards atrocious. Other than Amanda, no one is pure, everyone has questionable motives, and unspoken shades of gray dominate the landscape of judgement.

A thriller with no cheap thrills, no contrived drama and barely any superfluous action, the film just exists with common people trying to get ahead in a world decaying on news soundbites and crass daytime television. Patrick and Angie uncover the lowlifes surrounding Amanda, and realize that they are lifting the cover on a sewer of rotten humanity. Helen's scuzzy boyfriend Skinny Ray, crime lord Cheese and his henchman Leon are just the start: the list of scumbags possibly connected to Amanda's disappearance extends to a deranged child molester and hardcore drug addicts.

This is a foulmouthed, dangerous world that easily sucks in the uneducated Helene, but no matter what, she is a victim: her child has been abducted, and Patrick clings to this principle as everything else around him seems to collapse. Meanwhile, the unglamorous Boston locations give the film an earthy attachment to a current of discontent where crime can find a comfortable home.

Ben Affleck carefully constructs the film around character depth, and although no single person dominates, they all receive enough definition to emerge as real and flawed people. Helene, Bea, and Lionel instantly create an uncomfortable family dynamic, while on the enforcement side, Patrick is never sure how far he can trust the sharp Remy Bressant, burly Nick Poole and their Captain Jack Doyle. They all become memorable individuals circling each other, saying half-truths to get by and sustain dark motives that may or may not emerge into the light.

With Patrick stubbornly picking away at the details of a case that never quite seems to be resolved, every relationship ruptures. Even Angie finds herself questioning Patrick's actions, her belief in her partner called into question by the lingering fate of a young girl.

Gone Baby Gone elegantly finds its way to the murkiest corners of the soul, where wrong may be right, right may be wrong, the moral choices are infused with unease and all decisions lead to uncertain futures.