Movie Review: Music Of The Heart (1999)

Genre: Musical Biography  
Director: Wes Craven  

Starring: Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett, Cloris Leachman  

Running Time: 123 minutes  

Synopsis: When her husband leaves her for another woman, Roberta Guaspari (Meryl Streep) has to raise her two sons alone and start life over again. Her only skill is teaching the violin, and her friend Brian (Aidan Quinn) connects her with Harlem inner-city school principal Janet Williams (Angela Bassett), who gives Roberta a substitute teaching opportunity. The kids react well to her relatively stern methods, but after the violin teaching program takes off, new challenges await.

What Works Well: Wes Craven leaves behind suspense and horror to direct this edge-free, competent, and familiar biography. Meryl Streep ensures a base level of excellence in the central role, and allows Roberta's frailties and imperfections to round the character. The disadvantaged-kids-inspired-by-a-dedicated-teacher is a well-worn narrative device, but still delivers the desired feel-good vibes. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The structure is a mushy combination of episodic, repetitive, and predictable, and ultimately prolonged into an interminable final act hampered by a foregone conclusion. Aidan Quinn as the love interest, Cloris Leachman as Roberta's mom, and Angela Bassett as the well-meaning but overworked principal are all efficient but strictly linear. The kids are unusually passive for this sub-genre.

Key Quote:

Roberta (to her students before a big concert): I want you all to play from your heart.



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Movie Review: What's Love Got To Do With It (1993)

Genre: Musical Biographical Drama  

Director: Brian Gibson  

Starring: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: Born in Tennessee, Anna Mae Bullock always loved to sing and perform, but as a child she was abandoned by her mother. In the mid-1950s, a teenaged Anna Mae (Angela Bassett) moves to St. Louis and soon catches the eye of famous singer and songwriter Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne). She joins his touring group and he gives her the stage name Tina, while their romance evolves into marriage and children. Through the 1960s and 1970s Tina achieves stardom with a string of hit songs, but Ike is beset by jealousy and addictions, and becomes abusive.

What Works Well: An adaptation of Turner's book, this is an against-the-odds biography, elevated by remarkable mid-career turbulence and two stellar performances. Angela Bassett navigates a long arc from a young woman who knows what it means to be abandoned to a star forced to independently re-invent herself, passing through the star-struck, ingenue, and victim stages. Laurence Fishburne captures the raw danger of a talented man suffering from a Svengali complex and multiple demons. Together, they provide the high-revving power behind music performance scenes that capture Turner's energy and naturally forceful on-stage presence.

What Does Not Work As Well: Ike's brilliant but deeply flawed personality merits a more thorough background exploration. The intense focus on the central relationship relegates all others to irrelevance, with none of the secondary characters afforded the opportunity to make a sustained impact.

Conclusion: Glamour on-stage, ferocity backstage.



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Movie Review: Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

A wild action thriller, Gunpowder Milkshake is a stylish, over-the-top battle fest celebrating girl power. 

Samantha, or simply Sam (Karen Gillan), is an assassin for a shadowy organization known only as The Firm. Her latest job ends in a bloodbath, and one of her victims is the son of powerful gang boss Jim McAlester. 15 years earlier, Sam's mother Scarlet (Lena Headey), also an assassin for The Firm, had to disappear after one of her jobs ended badly.

Nathan (Paul Giamatti) is Sam's handler, and he issues her next assignment, to retrieve money stolen by an accountant. She arms herself with guns provided The Firm's "librarians" Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Florence (Michelle Yeoh), and Anna May (Angela Bassett). 

After Sam kills the accountant, she learns he only stole the money because a vicious gang held his young daughter Emily (Chloe Coleman) hostage. She gets involved to save Emily, disobeying Nathan's orders. With McAlester seeking revenge and The Firm turning against her, Sam is in a lot of trouble, but Nathan provides some support by arranging a surprise reunion.

Gunpowder Milkshake features many good girls with many big guns (and assorted other weaponry), battling many bad guys with just as many big guns (and assorted other weaponry). Director and co-writer Navot Papushado crafts a feminist action extravaganza bathed in surreal neon and ultra-abstract sets, channeling Tarantino, Woo, and Leone with unfettered passion.

The plot is almost irrelevant, providing just enough of a string to hang the thrills on. The dialogue scenes focus on establishing a sorority of women, mother-daughter bonds, and surrogate parent relationships. Sam is the node around which her mother, the three librarians and Emily revolve, creating three generations of strong and morally sound women battling to rid the world of men either faceless, evil, or both.

The levels of violence and the action set-pieces are wildly enjoyable at the cartoonish level. The exquisitely choreographed highlights include a hospital battle between Sam and three goons, her arms paralyzed by a serum while the villains are compromised by laughing gas and a previous altercation. This is quickly followed by a cat-and-mouse parkade duel with young Emily (eight and three quarters of a year old) at the wheel. Papushado leaves the best for last, a linear, slow-motion beauty of a single-shot gun-down at a supposedly neutral diner.

At 114 minutes and with next to no genuine narrative depth, the energy does start to flag. A battle at a library goes on, and scene after scene of bone-crunching combat with the women mowing down an army of men get repetitive. But with cool attitude to spare, Gunpowder Milkshake is unapologetically always craving the next explosive slurp.



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Movie Review: Boyz N The Hood (1991)

A social drama and coming-of-age story, Boyz N The Hood is a stunningly clear-eyed look at the grim realities of the Black inner-city experience.

It's 1984 in Los Angeles, and 10-year-old Tre gets into trouble at school one time too many. His divorced mother Reva (Angela Bassett) transports him to live with his father Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne) in the tough Crenshaw neighbourhood. Furious is a real estate agent and determined to keep Tre out of trouble by being a good male role model. The other neighbourhood kids, including brothers Darren and Ricky, are not so lucky and lack a father figure.

Seven years later, Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is finishing high school, holding a job at the mall, and courting girlfriend Brandi (Nia Long). They are both planning to go to college. Ricky is already a father, but hoping his football skills will secure him a college scholarship. Darren has dropped out of school and is into thuggery as the neighbourhood crack cocaine dealer. Crenshaw is besieged by despair, frequent shootings, brutality, and police interventions. When Darren tangles with a rival gang, the violence escalates.

At 24 years old, John Singleton wrote and directed Boyz N The Hood based on his own experiences and the friends he grew up with in South Central Los Angeles. The first Black cinematic perspective of the treacherous environment where American Black youth are brought up, this is a painfully stark and often harrowing portrayal of a hell on earth. The language is coarse, the behaviour brazen and crass, the attitude towards women abhorrent, and it's all routine for youth coming of age unequipped to even seek a better future.

Young men like Tre, Ricky and Darren emerge from broken homes where parents are more than likely to be addicts. With limited opportunities and resources, they flounder to find their way out of a jungle dominated by violence, guns, drugs and abuse. Singleton underlines the siege mentality with the clatter of police helicopters hovering incessantly overhead, the Crenshaw residents' main interaction with government reduced to officers quick to aim guns at heads and hardware at the entire neighbourhood.

The film does have weaknesses. The opening segment with the kids sometimes slips into television drama mode, a warped mirror of The Cosby Show. The salute to Stand By Me threatens to slip into mimicry. Beyond Tre, Darren and Ricky, the film is littered with young men who remain stock representations. And Cuba Gooding Jr. at 23 struggles to convince as the 17 year old Tre.

While the messaging is preachy, it is also effective in its simplicity. A present and caring father is a starting point to improve the odds. Birth control tames the cycle of instability. Young Black males refraining from knee-jerk reactions to kill each other at the slightest provocation helps. Pursuing school and employment is a good idea. And broader society could contribute by stemming the flow of guns and drugs into neighbourhoods least equipped to survive the resulting carnage.

Singleton does not pretend any outsiders are actively seeking solutions, and in Furious Styles Boyz N The Hood finds the catalyst for a change that can only come from within. The path out of affliction requires uncommon fortitude, but the alternatives are depressingly dire.

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Movie Review: Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

A thrill-a-minute action movie, Mission: Impossible - Fallout delivers expertly constructed and exhilitaring set-pieces with astounding stunt work, but tilts towards over-the-top extremes.

Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) accepts an assignment to retrieve missing plutonium before it falls into the hands of an anarchist terrorist group led by the mysterious John Lark, who filled the void created when Ethan apprehended mastermind Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

Working with his support members Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), Ethan finds but loses the plutonium in a botched transaction in Berlin. This failure prompts the CIA's Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) to insist her agent Walker (Henry Cavill) accompany Ethan, over the objections of IMF's Secretary Hunley (Alec Baldwin). 

Using information extracted from a rogue Norwegian nuclear scientist, Ethan's team heads to Paris to disrupt a meeting between Lark and black market dealer White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). After reuniting with MI6's agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), Ethan is forced to improvise by adopting a terrorist persona, and learns that Lane's release is part of a maniacal revenge and mass murder plot, with Ethan's ex-wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) in imminent danger.

The sixth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Fallout is stacked with exactly what the series promises: a succession of hair-raising chases, impossible yet possible stunts, and dazzling oh no! moments. Every plan is well thought-out but nothing ever goes according to plan, on-the-fly innovation is a core ingredient, and every twist is followed by a turn to throw doubt on everything and everyone. And in the hands of star/co-producer Tom Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, quality and confidence ooze from every scene.

But yet signs of flab creep in. At 147 minutes this is a really long haul. Many of the chases should have been more sharply edited, and one or two of the pursuits could have been dispensed with altogether. In a subversion of real-time tension, the final 15 minutes (featuring the de rigeur countdown to the small matter of multiple nuclear bomb explosions) seem to take twice as long to tick by. And the humour starts to creep towards Roger Moore-era Bond shenanigans, sharp wit replaced by eye-rolls.

As for the plot, this is classic MacGuffin territory. The plutonium balls are an excuse for agile hops to snazzy locations in Berlin, Paris and London, ending with a trip to a rustic medical camp in Kashmir. The neck-snapping double and triple-crosses between all the assembled agents border on incomprehensible, but McQuarrie takes care to always explain what is going on and why (whether it makes sense or not), and particularly excels in rational, non-nausea-inducing editing of the chase and hand-to-hand combat scenes.

And Cruise continues to astound by performing all his own stunts, and some are truly jaw-dropping. The breathless motorcycle, car, and foot chases are here augmented by extraordinary fun with helicopters (inside and out), and Cruise earns enormous respect by placing his body on the line for some of the most impressive stunts captured on film.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout succumbs to some excess, but still delivers a blast.



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Movie Review: Black Panther (2018)

A groundbreaking superhero movie, Black Panther is one of the finest examples of what the genre is capable of, with a rich story and a multitude of characters carrying far-reaching resonance.

The isolated African country of Wakanda hides behind a veil of poverty while enjoying prosperity and advanced technology afforded by Vibranium, a mineral deposited by an ancient meteor strike. As well, a heart-shaped herb provides supernatural Black Panther combat powers to the country's selected ruler. T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) rises to King of Wakanda when his father is assassinated. He reunites with his mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), elder statesman Zuri (Forest Whitaker), and ex-lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o). The fierce General Okoye (Danai Gurira) is in charge of the all-female security warriors, while T'Challa's sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) heads up the technology advancement labs despite her young age.

W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya) leads the border tribe, one of four clans united under T'Challa, but M'Baku (Winston Duke), the leader of the Jabari Mountain Tribe, chooses to remain isolated. The new king is immediately confronted by a threat. Black market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) teams up with the mysterious Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) to try and sell stolen Vibranium to undercover CIA Agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) at a rendevouz in South Korea. T'Challa, Nakia and Okoye intervene to try and reclaim the precious mineral, triggering a potentially catastrophic series of events carrying echoes of decisions made by T'Challa's father in years past.

With black director Ryan Coogler at the helm, an almost all-black cast and a predominantly African setting, Black Panther is a bold step forward in the Marvel Studios cinematic world. But remarkably, the brave new racial frontier is only one of the film's many spectacular successes. Black Panther creates the most compelling fantasy world since the original Star Wars, and a fertile plot teeming with interesting characters and events. The script, co-written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, soon asserts itself. The story proudly takes centre stage, and several themes intertwine across the screen, connecting Wakanda's fantasy with current realities. The film's genius resides in debating with searing honesty pressing and relevant societal issues.

A central theme is an advanced country's role in the family of nations. Wakanda has always prided itself - and thrived - on a policy of isolation, looking inwards to the prosperity of its own people and disengaging from the rest of the world. T'Challa is challenged with three options: maintain the status quo, export technology to promote weaponized conflicts, or find a way to engage peacefully. Each potential choice comes with risks, and the film presents a well rounded view of all the justifications.

The black experience is tackled from two fronts. Black Africa's hidden potential to positively contribute globally is presented as an intriguing future state, while the appropriate response to the historical and current mistreatment of blacks in the United States and indeed around the world is the key grievance driving the film's antagonist Erik Stevens.

The sins of the father haunting future generations gradually emerges as a powerful thread unting T'Challa and his resentful cousin, who steps forward from the shadow of history seeking to right old wrongs. The film distinguishes itself by bringing the conflict to Wakanda itself, the struggle between good and evil presented as an internal conflict for the soul of a country .

All the plot elements provide opportunities for the many characters to shine, and Black Panther introduces an extraordinary number of memorable people, most of them women. While T'Challa hovers the near the middle of all the intersecting ideas, General Okoye, Nakia and Shuri emerge as his closest allies and confidants, and Coogler provides each with a worthwhile personality.

All of which leaves the superhero elements as the cherry on the cake, a natural embellishment to the film rather than its reason for being. Black Panther does not disappoint when the time comes for special effects and stunts, although the breathless chase scene in South Korea outshines the final triple-headed climax. The right dose of dry wit and a sprinkling of high-tech gadgets add a layer of gloss.

Smart, engaging, and relevant, Black Panther sets a new standard for superhero achievement.

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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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The Movies Of Angela Bassett

All movies starring Angela Bassett and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

F/X (1986)

Kindergarten Cop (1990)

Boyz N The Hood (1991)

What's Love Got To Do With It (1993)

Contact (1997)

Music Of The Heart (1999)

The Score (2001)

Mr. And Mrs. Smith (2005, voice only, uncredited)

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

White Bird In A Blizzard (2014)

London Has Fallen (2016)

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Black Panther (2018)

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Contact (1997)

A science drama, Contact is an intelligent story about the passion to search for a connection with alien beings, and the implications once the unthinkable becomes true.

As a young girl, Ellie Arroway (Jena Malone) was encouraged to pursue astronomy by her father Ted (David Morse). The grown up Ellie (Jodie Foster) graduated from MIT and developed a passion for seeking signals transmitted by aliens. While on assignment at an observatory in Puerto Rico, Ellie establishes a rapport with fellow scientist Kent Clark (William Fichtner), and has a brief but passionate affair with Christian philosopher Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey). The Puerto Rico assignment is eventually shut down by National Science Foundation Director David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), who does not believe that searching for alien signals is worthwhile research.

Ellie finds private funding through the Hadden Corporation, led by the extremely rich but dying tycoon S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), and establishes her team at the Very Large Array (VLA) of massive listening satellite dishes in New Mexico. After months of effort Ellie stumbles onto a signal transmitted from the Vega star system. Her discovery unleashes a global frenzy, with the White House getting involved in the form of Chief of Staff Rachel Constantine (Angela Bassett) and National Security Advisor Michael Kitz (James Woods). Then Ellie's team uncovers more: the alien signal contains a coded message and reams of advanced data including the blueprints for an advanced, massive machine.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and based on the novel by celebrated astronomer Carl Sagan, Contact is a spiritual successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Although neither as fantastical as Kubrick's epic nor as fuzzy as Spielberg's opus, Contact brings its own attitude to the search for intelligent life: a science-first stance, a willingness to take a pragmatic look at how politics will interfere with any major discovery, and a deliberate eagerness to delve into the debate about the role of religion when the time comes for human interaction with another species.

The film excels at maintaining a clear-headed, science-based perspective through the eyes of Ellie, including the frustrating chase for funds, clashes with superiors, disappointing initiatives that lead to nothing, and long hours, days and years of research sustained only by hope and belief that a breakthrough must be just around the next frequency.

And when contact is made and Ellie shakes the world with her discovery, Zemeckis takes his time to capture the frenzied reaction. From President Clinton (masterfully weaved into the film) and his army of White House suits to religious zealots, and passing through the journalists and talking heads on the cable news networks and Chevrolet Vega enthusiasts, the world will react to alien communications in unpredictable ways, and Contact imagines the outpouring of emotion and insanity with plenty of colour.

Some parts of the film don't work as well. There is a serious sabotage incident that appears far-fetched and ultimately neither adds to nor deletes from the story. As the machine is being built at enormous cost, Zemeckis dials back the curiosity factor and does not even attempt to explain how it may be expected to work. And the personal scenes between Ellie and Palmer too conveniently and quickly devolve into a complicated relationship that mirrors the tension between her science and his religious philosophy.

Jodie Foster is at the core of the drama, and allows Ellie to not only be a bright and fiercely determined scientist, but also a human being with faults. She has to check her anger and attitude at meetings, and is too honest when it matters least. As Sagan intended, Ellie carries with her the struggle of women scientists to stand alongside the men, and more than once Ellie has to swallow her pride and plan a recovery after men brutishly shove their interests ahead of her rights. The supporting cast is adequate, but none of the men around Ellie achieve much depth.

The film ends with a journey sequence driven by spectacular special effects, and a conclusion built on sober reflection. The search for evidence finds belief and the intrinsically faithful find evidence. The quest to find answers will continue, built on advancements measured simultaneously in light years and milliseconds.

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Movie Review: The Score (2001)

The two legendary actors who brought Don Corleone to life are finally united. A modern heist movie, The Score is reasonably satisfying but decidedly unspectacular.

Nick (Robert De Niro) is an expert thief who can break into any building and open any safe to steal the best protected jewels. The elderly Max (Marlon Brando, in his final completed movie) is Nick's handler, arranging jobs and buyers for the stolen goods. Nick lives in Montreal where he also owns a jazz club, but he refuses pull any jobs in the city, for fear of attracting attention in his home town. Diane (Angela Bassett) is his lover and very much aware of his secret life as a thief. Nick considers settling down with her to a life of normalcy.

When their most recent job turns sour due to the unexpected death of a buyer, Max convinces Nick to consider a daring high-risk, high-reward break-in of the Montreal Customs House to steal a precious jewel-encrusted sceptor. Max connects Nick with Jack (Edward Norton), an aggressive thief who has secured a job at the Customs House, pretending to be a dim-witted overnight janitorial assistant. With Jack as the inside man, Nick starts to plan the heist, hoping that this could be his last job before retiring for good from the dangerous world of burglary.

The Score creaks noticeably at the edges. Marlon Brando's character of Max is provided with a vague backstory of financial hardship imposed by an invisible foe and then dropped altogether. It may be extreme to call Brando's entire appearance in the movie a publicity stunt, but his character is, at best, underdeveloped and abandoned. Angela Bassett's role as Diane is also wafer thin. Her relationship with Nick is created for the sole purpose of providing him with a reason to consider quitting the criminal lifestyle, but Diane herself remains little more than a mirage, a blurry vision of the ideal woman with no details drawn in.

While character depth is not a strong point in The Score, De Niro and Norton do well to bring Nick and Jack to life, and ensure that the core of the film pulses with healthy tension. De Niro skates expertly through the movie with fluid ease, his face providing Nick with the background that the script neglects. Nick is too good at what he does to resist the next big job, yet wise enough to know that one more job may not be the best thing for him. The opening scene of a theft interrupted leaves little doubt that Nick can untangle himself from any mess that he finds himself in, and it is only Jack's unknown and erratic attributes, rather than his self-proclaimed bravado, that presents a challenge.

Norton gets the showiest role, as the self-confident Jack and pretend-retard janitor Brian. Norton is an effective counterweight to De Niro, but is less capable of filling the missing background story. The trio of screenwriters comprised of Scott Marshall Smith, Daniel E. Taylor, and Kario Salem conjure up no information about how Jack came to be who and where he is, and while obviously talented and ambitious, it is unclear whether or not the planned Customs House heist is even Jack's first job.

Director Frank Oz does well with the robbery scenes, where dialogue and character are less important, and stealth, smarts, and a battle between thief and technology take over. Both the unexpectedly tension-filled opening scene and the climactic attempt to steal the sceptor proceed with well-oiled precision. But the flustered ending lets the film down again, with the script abandoning Max's story and most egregiously overlooking the potential for a simple plea bargain to land Nick, Max and Jack in a lot of trouble.

The Score takes a solid shot, but does not strike the target cleanly.

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