Movie Review: Parkland (2013)

Genre: Historical Drama  

Director: Peter Landesman  

Starring: Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden, Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver, James Badge Dale, Ron Livingston, Jeremy Strong  
Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: The film covers the events of November 22, 1963, when US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and the immediate aftermath. The multiple perspectives include dressmaker Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), who inadvertently captured the shooting on his 8mm camera; nurse Doris Nelson (Marcia Gay Harden) and doctor Jim Carrico (Zac Efron), who frantically tried to revive the President at Parkland Hospital; the shooter's brother Robert Oswald Jr. (James Badge Dale) and mother Marguerite (Jacki Weaver); and Agents Sorrels (Billy Bob Thornton) and Hosty (Paul Livingston) of the Secret Service and the FBI respectively.

What Works Well: Steering clear of conspiracy theories, this is a fascinating recreation of famous events from less famous vantage points. Writer and director Peter Landesman allows the well-known incidents (the shooting itself, the swearing-in of Vice President Johnson, the Kennedy funeral service) to play in the background or in the corners of the screen. He is more interested in the peripheral yet essential stories of what happened at the hospital, the sudden imperative to keep Johnson safe, the frantic search for a lab to process the Zapruder film, the emotional impact on Zapruder himself, the guilt and self-questioning consuming the men entrusted with protecting the President, and the unwanted boulder of infamy landing on Robert Oswald's life. Small details, including grandkids in the first few frames of the Zapruder film, skull fragments in the emergency room, and the unceremonial wedging-in of Kennedy's casket into the plane for the flight back to DC, transform grand history to intimate reality.

What Does Not Work As Well: By definition this is an events-driven narrative without a central role (Zapruder and Robert Oswald come closest) and no singular focus.

Key Quote: 

Dallas Police Detective, to Robert Oswald: If I were you, I'd consider changing my name. I'd pray I never needed the help of the Dallas Police Department or the federal government again. I'd pack your things and your wife and those two children of yours, and I'd move as far from here as I could. I'd never come back, even to die. But that's just me.

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Movie Review: The Gray Man (2022)

An action chase thriller, The Gray Man is brimming with spectacular set-pieces at the expense of everything else.

In 2003, a convicted murderer known only as Six (Ryan Gosling) is recruited by the CIA's Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) to join the Sierra shadow assassination program. By 2021 Fitzroy has been forced to retire and Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) is taking over, intent on shutting down Sierra. He uses Six and agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) to kill Four in Bangkok, but Six secures secret files damaging to Carmichael and becomes the next target.

Carmichael and his subordinate Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick) recruit ruthless independent assassin Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), and he in turn places an international contract on Six. As the chase progresses across Europe, Six can only trust Fitzroy and Miranda as he seeks to stay alive and expose Carmichael's dirty secrets.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (who also co-wrote the script), The Gray Man is a stunts-and-CGI show, with barely a plot to hang the action on. The quality of execution is stellar, with slick cinematography, vivid colours, and imaginative near misses as one town centre after another is reduced to rubble (Prague is particularly hard done by). Some of the lines of dialogue are razor sharp, both Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans having fun playing up sardonic twists.

But in the absence of any meaningful characterizations or just causes, the core is hollow. The digital files triggering all the violence are a sterile MacGuffin, and the yet-another-internal-CIA battle is an exhausted premise. The film settles into a boring rinse-and-repeat cycle of chases, fights, shoot-outs, explosions, and close quarters bone crunching battles, with a ludicrously high body count.

Six demonstrates a remarkable ability to survive a near death experience every six (ok, eight) minutes, and a more amazing ability to quickly recover from severe puncture wounds. An attempt to place a child (Fitzroy's niece) in danger never rises above the status of cheap ploy. Alfre Woodard does make a welcome contribution in her one scene as a retired British intelligence head. 

Six and Lloyd square off for the obligatory final mano-a-mano battle about two hours in. The can fight each other, but they cannot defeat the get-it-over-with-already gray haze.



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Movie Review: Faster (2010)

A superlative revenge thriller, Faster flamboyantly - and surprisingly - enjoys multi-character depth and twisty narrative surprises.

Released after serving ten years in a California prison, Jimmy Cullen (Dwayne Johnson) is intent on avenging the death of his older brother Gary. The siblings were double-crossed after a heist, Gary was killed and Jimmy, the getaway driver, miraculously survived a bullet to the head. Now he secures a powerful Chevelle and targets the men responsible, working his way through a list.

Within hours Jimmy ruthlessly dispatches his first two targets, earning the attention of Los Angeles police detective Cicero (Carla Gugino). She is dismayed when detective Slade Humphries (Billy Bob Thornton), a burned-out addict nearing retirement, is teamed with her. Meanwhile, handsome and wealthy assassin-for-hire (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) receives an assignment to kill Jimmy. The assassin is deeply in love with his girlfriend Lily (Maggie Grace) and pondering whether it's time to retire.

As he fights his inner demons, Jimmy encounters difficulties terminating his next two targets. Meanwhile, Cicero, Slade and the assassin close in, each harbouring a different agenda.

Superficially carrying all the hallmarks of a stock man-on-a-revenge-mission thriller, Faster aims much higher. Director George Tillman Jr. has a clever and character-rich script to work with courtesy of Tony and Joe Gayton. And while Dwayne Johnson in the central role is rock-faced and does not even try to convey charisma, he is adequate when it's time to seek self-doubt.

The pleasant surprises start with three men defined in rich detail. Faster creates space for wheelman Jimmy Cullen, damaged detective Humphries, and the nameless professional assassin to share the spotlight. While Jimmy works his way through his kill-list like a wrecking ball, Humphries is a messy counterpoint as an antagonist and manipulator, complete with a complicated home life and a shadowy past. Meanwhile the suave hired killer schedules personal therapy sessions between assassinations and is becoming convinced Lily is his forever soulmate. He is more than wealthy enough to retire, but out of professional pride needs to fulfil his final contract.

With a foundation of three eloquently drawn characters, the second half dares to humanize further, and soars with audacious backstories for two of Jimmy's intended victims. In a canny feint, the confrontation between Jimmy and the bouncer Nixon (Lester Speight) is advertised as a bone-crunching showdown but suddenly veers into inter-generational torment. Then the preacher Jarod (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) moves from radio voice to in-person presence, and introduces a painfully weighty moral dilemma for Jimmy to grapple with.

All the lines between good and bad and right and wrong are deliciously blurred, giving birth to soul-breaking decisions. Jimmy's troubled upbringing and family background come into focus, further enriching his quest.

The bursts of action are frequent and forcefully short, all delivered with calm coherence. Faster knows when and how to propel machinery, but is much more interested in the flawed drivers.



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Movie Review: Primary Colors (1998)

A political drama laced with humour, Primary Colors is an inside look at the raging turmoil within a fledgling election campaign.

Political activist Adrian Lester (Henry Burton) is drawn to the campaign of charismatic candidate Jack Stanton (John Travolta), a governor from an unfancied southern state making an unlikely run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Stanton is a seemingly genuine and idealistic people-person with a love for education reform. He is also a hopeless womanizer with a chequered past.

His wife Susan (Emma Thompson) is involved in the campaign, and Lester joins slobby strategic advisor Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton) and organizer Daisy Green (Maura Tierney) to bring some operational discipline. When allegations of Stanton's past infidelities are made public, the team turns to researcher Libby Holden (Kathy Bates) to investigate and preempt other skeletons in the closet. Meanwhile Governor Fred Picker (Larry Hagman) emerges as an unexpected dark horse opponent in the nomination race.

Inspired by Bill Clinton's campaign that culminated in his winning the United States Presidency in 1992, Primary Colors is half of a good movie. Director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May adapt the 1996 book by Joe Klein (initially published anonymously), with Lester the fly-on-the-wall not quite aware how he is being sucked into his first presidential campaign. What he finds on the inside is disorganized chaos barely held together by a ramshackle team, but also a candidate radiating winning charm. Nichols excels in setting the context, introducing the characters and conveying the exhausting nature of a nascent campaign, clueless but enthusiastic workers always on the go, fighting fires and snatching sleep in cars, planes and nondescript motel rooms.

The film's second half shifts to the grind of gathering ammunition for the mudslinging wars. The focus moves away from the Stantons and towards Libby Holden, and the film loses most of its momentum. The narrative works its way to an almost quaint dilemma: the Stanton's outward idealism clashing with the ready appeal of dirty politics when Jack is being subjected to an intense smear campaign. His opponent Governor Picker is the convenient test case, and May chooses a too-easy target to aim at. A high price is incurred as Stanton searches for his moral compass, Primary Colors trying hard to have it both ways by leaving victims on the sidelines.

John Travolta imitates Clinton's mannerisms and excels in walking the fine line where it's always perfectly unclear whether the candidate genuinely cares or is just brilliant at pretending. Emma Thompson as his wife Susan is not given enough to do, her juggling act to keep both tolerance and ambition in the air frequently unconvincing. Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates are colourfully dramatic but also almost cartoonish. Burton suffers in the role of a supposed protagonist who does little other than experience what others are instigating.

Primary Colors is never less than vivid. While the packaging sparkles, the inside machinations are not always as pretty.

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Movie Review: Friday Night Lights (2004)

A high school football drama, Friday Night Lights is an intense study of sports-as-life, with a small rural community living vicariously through its football team.

It's the start of the 1988 high school year, and the small town of Odessa, Texas fully expects their Permian High School to win the football state championship. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is highly respected and highly paid, but has to deliver or face the wrath of the community.

The team of seniors is talented but small in size. Running back James "Boobie" Miles (Derek Luke) is the star player and already inundated with college scholarship offers. Quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is effective but moody with an ailing mother and no support at home. Fullback Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) has a tendency to drop the ball at crucial moments and is constantly berated by his father Charles (Tim McGraw). The other players include third-choice running back Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young), safety Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez) and linebacker Ivory Christian (Lee Jackson III).

The season starts with a victory but also a serious injury. Permian has to regroup and recover, and they stutter their way through an unconvincing regular season, raising doubts as to whether they will even make the state championship playoffs. Gaines and the seventeen year old boys find themselves under increasing pressure to succeed.

Directed by Peter Berg and based on the non-fiction book by H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights delves into small-town Americana through the lens of high school football. High and lows, hopes and disappointments, spectacular triumphs and bitter defeats, Odessa lives and breathes through the fortunes of the Permian football team. And it's the American way that only winning matters, expectations are immense, and it does not matter that the shoulders of seventeen year old boys may not be broad enough to carry the full weight of a town's dreams.

The film spans the season from August to December, and spends most of its time in the dressing rooms, on the training pitch, and on the playing fields. Scenes that take place away from the football facilities address one thing and one thing only: football talk. Friday Night Lights appears oblivious to anything else happening in the community, and this is the point: not much else is happening in the community. For the senior players football is their ticket out of town, and for their parents, football is their one escape from lives that came to a halt after high school.

The glimpses into private lives are poignant and forlorn. Full Don Billingsley's father Charley is either drunk, violent or both, incessantly berating his error-prone son for not being good enough. Country music singer Tim McGraw captures a pathetic man fully aware that his singular moment of glory came at seventeen. A cloud hangs over quarterback Mike Winchell's house, his father absent and his mother ailing. The team's cocky star Boobie Miles appears to have no parents but his loving uncle L.V. Miles (Grover Coulsen) is guiding his career towards the riches of top scholarships until fate intervenes.

Coach Gaines is the calm eye of the storm, an outsider to the community and therefore there for one reason: deliver the championship. Used to the pressure, Gaines knows to push the right buttons at the right time to get the most from his team, and off the pitch calmly tolerates everyone lecturing him on how to do his job. But at home, conversations with his wife Sharon (Connie Britton) revolve around the next career stop. After the pressure cauldron of football-mad Texas, Alaska is sounding good.

The in-game scenes are plentiful and rarely less than thrilling, Berg capturing momentum shifts, game changing plays, touchline frustrations and moments of individual tragedy and heroism. Friday Night Lights is all about executing the plan, chasing the dream, overcoming the pain and reaching for glory, life played out between the lines of the football field.

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Movie Review: Sling Blade (1996)

A rural drama about a mentally handicapped killer attempting to reintegrate back into the fabric of a small town, Sling Blade features a superlative Billy Bob Thornton performance and an unsettling mood of surface normalcy building to a quiet boil.

The story is set in rural Arkansas. As a young and none-too-bright teenager, Karl Childers killed his mother and her lover with a sling blade (handle like an axe, blade curved like a banana) when he caught them in the act of having sex. Incarcerated for years in a mental institution, the adult Karl (Thornton) has now served his sentence and is released back into the community. He has a lumbering gait and a distinctive monotonal speech pattern, his sentence pauses frequently filled with "mmm-hmmm" sounds and most of his phrases starting with "I reck'n".

Karl makes his way to his home town, and befriends a young teenager called Frank (Lucas Black), who is being raised by his mother Linda (Natalie Canerday). Frank's father killed himself, and Linda is now dating the boorish and abusive Doyle (Dwight Yoakam). Karl finds employment at a small engine repair shop, and is introduced to Linda's good friend and boss, the openly gay Vaughan (John Ritter). Karl remains haunted by a childhood trauma, and pays a visit to his elderly father (Robert Duvall), now living in decrepit conditions. Although Karl's reintroduction into town appears to be generally going well, Doyle's utterly selfish behaviour and mistreatment of Frank threaten to disrupt Karl's new life.

Directed by Thornton, Sling Blade is a small, independent film with a big impact. Thornton immediately catapulted himself into stardom by carefully assembling a quiet, often quaint film, but with a pervasive sense of potential danger lurking around the unkempt corners of southern smallville, USA. Karl carries a dangerous past, but he is a product of his culture and upbringing. Religious zealotry, infanticide and domestic violence fed by a lack of education travel along with the seemingly docile winds of his home town.

The film unfolds with a measured pace. The first chapter at the mental hospital introduces Karl through the device of an interview he gives to a high school newspaper, and in an astounding one-take scene Karl recounts his story with a chilling combination of innocence, awareness and stark honesty. The middle third introduces the town and the characters within it, and they generally open their hearts and homes, for the most part welcoming Karl despite his past. The final act builds towards Karl forming an exceptionally strong bond with young Frank, and understanding his purpose in life.

The film never wavers in tone but it also starts to telegraph its intentions relatively early. Doyle as the antagonist (Dwight Yoakam nailing a despicable low-life) is a version of Karl who has yet to commit the crime that will send him to an institution, but he's getting close. The confrontation between the two men with Frank's future at stake is predictable, and Thornton sees it through to the end.

The screen character of Karl Childers is unforgettable. Thornton brings to life a seemingly docile, slow, dim-witted man who has killed out of ignorance, grown up behind the walls of an institution and is now asked to go out and survive in the real world. Thornton delivers mannerisms, speech patterns and pauses that recall Hoffman's stellar turn as Charlie Babbitt in Rain Man, only more tortured and living with a legacy of a history most violent.

Sling Blade explores the origins and consequences of evil, and finds fertile grounds where death and redemption flourish side by side.

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Movie Review: Monster's Ball (2001)

A somber drama, Monster's Ball is the story of two damaged people connecting under a dark cloud of grief. The film resonates with the raw power of human emotions reaching for the warmth of companionship to overcome unspeakable anguish.

In Georgia, Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son Sonny (Heath Ledger) are both prison guards at the local penitentiary. They live with Hank's father Buck (Peter Boyle), a loudmouthed racist and himself a retired prison guard. Hank is a widower and has inherited his dad's racist tendencies.

Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs) is a black death row prisoner about to be executed, with Hank and Sonny charged with overseeing his capital punishment by electric chair. Lawrence leaves behind his wife Leticia (Halle Berry) and obese son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun). Sonny does not handle the execution well, unleashing Hank's wrath. Meanwhile, Leticia is penniless, and about to lose her house, her car and her job. Tragedies strike both Hank and Leticia, and a chance encounter brings them together for an unlikely relationship.

A compact two character study, Monster's Ball delves into the soul-shaking impact of loss on the psyche. Directed by Marc Forster with a measured pace and an eye for detail, the film refuses to take any easy short cuts. Neither Hank nor Leticia are necessarily likeable characters, and the calamities that befall them are shocking. Both of them rightfully hold themselves at least partially responsible for their losses, and the film distinguishes itself by staring at gaping, self-inflicted emotional wounds.

The film invests heavily in both characters to set the individual contexts. Hank and Leticia start their relationship approximately halfway through the film, and by then, both have been rounded into genuine people, products of their environment and their choices. The parallels between their independent lives are compelling. Hank abuses Sonny because he believes him to be weak; Letitia berates Tyrell for being overweight. Hank is already a widower; Leticia becomes one, with Hank an active participant in Lawrence's state-sanctioned demise. And as much as fate has a hand in the losses that they will experience, the spectre of personal responsibility hovers over both.

When they finally meet and engage, Foster charts a relationship course that is at once fragile and intense. The fierce intimacy between Hank and Leticia is more about physical release than mutual tenderness. They tentatively get to know each other while already relying on the relationship, Hank shocking himself by starting to care about a black person while discharging himself from the vestiges of his old life. Meanwhile, Leticia wonders if his financial, physical and moral support will actually help heal her anguish and guilt.

The film is fully dependent on the two central performances, and both Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry deliver. Thornton stays well within himself, portraying Hank as a man's man, his father's son, more influenced by the despicable attitudes of the old man than he cares to show or acknowledge. Berry became the first black woman to win the Best Actress Academy Award. She keeps Leticia real, human and impressively pragmatic.

The film ends with Leticia facing yet another unwanted surprise, and another potentially life-altering decision point. Again Monster's Ball quietly chooses the more difficult road, Leticia representing real people forced to make wrenching trade-offs just to be able to shake hands with life.

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Movie Review: Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

A romantic comedy set in the world of a divorce lawyer and his clients, Intolerable Cruelty rides the glowing charisma of stars George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but flounders after a bright start.

Miles Massey (Clooney) is a slick divorce attorney who specializes in either securing or escaping large settlements for well-heeled clients, and rarely loses a case. When the stunningly beautiful Marylin Rexroth (Zeta-Jones) captures her husband Rex (Edward Herrman) with his lover on video, she thinks that she has an open and shut case to claim at least half of his considerable fortune. Working for Rex, Miles is able to prove that Marylin is a gold digger who only ever married Rex for his money, and she gets nothing. But despite humiliating her, Miles is smitten by Marylin, and the attraction is mutual.

Marylin pretends that she wants to rehabilitate herself, starts planning for her next marriage, and claims to have fallen deeply in love with oil tycoon Howard D. Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton). She even seeks Miles' help to draft an iron clad prenuptial agreement to prove that she in not after Howard's money. However, Miles is suspicious of her motives and he is proven right, although even he does not know how far Marylin will go to achieve financial independence.

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (with only Joel credited), Intolerable Cruelty is one of the relatively weaker Coen efforts. A romance with just the slightest of edges, the film rides on a predictable rail, and even the supposedly big twist is easy to foresee. Which is not to say that the stars don't shine, because Clooney and Zeta-Jones are worthy adversaries. Both play characters who are sexy, smart and single-minded about getting what they want, and watching them circle each other before pouncing to either kill or kiss is rarely dull.

Although conceivably a romance, the romantic elements are the most poorly developed elements of the film. Miles' emotions are more about lust and conquest, Marylin has grander agendas linked to financial freedom, and the two are attracted to each other abruptly and mostly out of animal magnetism rather than warm enchantment. The movie works better when the two are competing rather than courting, and some good humour is provided by eccentric supporting characters including Cedric the Entertainer as a private detective and Jonathan Hadary as an unforgettable Baron Krauss von Espy.

But the film takes a sharp turn towards cretinism in its final third, and what was a reasonably enjoyable sparring match for adults turns to poorly conceived farce. An assassin by the name of Wheezy Joe (Irwin Keyes) is introduced, and while the character is admittedly funny, he takes the film far from its grounded premise and towards juvenile humour. The film deflates and never reclaims its good will.

Intolerable Cruelty is flighty entertainment, tolerable but not all that enduring.

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Movie Review: The Judge (2014)

A coming home father - son character drama, The Judge achieves impressive heights of emotion and boasts two excellent central performances from Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr.. The story ultimately packs itself into too neat a package, but is never less than mesmeric.

When his mother dies, celebrated Chicago defence lawyer Hank Palmer (Downey Jr.) travels home to the small town of Carlinville, Indiana to attend the funeral. Hank has a deeply strained relationship with his father Joseph (Duvall), the long-serving and well respected judge in the community. Joseph is getting on in years and Hank notices that his father is struggling to recall names and events. The evening of the funeral, Joseph's car hits and kills a local ex-convict, and he is arrested for the hit and run murder.

Despite the rift between them, Hank insists on defending his father, and gets reaquainted with his brothers Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dale (Jeremy Strong). Glen had a promising baseball career truncated by a car crash, while Dale is functional but has a mental impairment. Hank also reconnects with old flame Samantha (Vera Farmiga), who now owns the local restaurant and has a fiery daughter (Leighton Meester). With the prosecution team of Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton) uncovering evidence that appears to prove the judge's intent to kill, Hank has to delve into his painful personal history to try and rescue his father's reputation.

Directed by David Dobkin, The Judge is forceful drama about the present pausing to address unresolved issues from the past. With rich characters, strong emotions and the bubbling stream of family history unexpectedly converging into the headlines of today, the film is an intriguing examination of two men forced to re-examine their relationship. The film creates variety by alternating between the court case and Hank's re-engagement with family, Samantha and his past foibles, providing two narrative streams that nourish each other.

Despite the prevailing tension both in the personal dynamics and the court proceedings, the script by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque is also peppered by well placed doses of humour. The strategically deployed light touch flows naturally from Hank's big city life clashing with small town sensibilities, and the merging of the past and present sparking whimsy as well as strain.

The two Roberts deliver dedicated performances. Duvall captures the judge as a rightfully proud man not yet ready to accept the creeping damage of failing health. It's an intense, tightly coiled performance, and Duvall demands full attention whenever he is on the screen. Downey keeps up, conveying the bittersweetness of a big city success story confronting the many ghosts of his small town past.

The Judge does wrap up all its story elements into too neat a package. By the time the court case reaches its climax, the reasons for Hank's estrangement from his father have been anchored into every character and event in their common history, in a case where everything is explained, printed on glossy paper, bound in a shiny cover and tidily placed on the coffee table. It's all just a bit too satisfying and detached from the unresolved loose ends commonly cluttering real life. But despite the impeccably precise resolution, The Judge delivers a fulfilling verdict.

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The Movies Of Billy Bob Thornton

All movies starring Billy Bob Thornton and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Indecent Proposal (1993)

Tombstone (1993)

Sling Blade (1996, also Director)

Primary Colors (1998)

Armageddon (1998)

Monster's Ball (2001)

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Love Actually (2003)

The Alamo (2004)

Friday Night Lights (2004)

Mr. Woodcock (2007)

Eagle Eye (2008)

Faster (2010)

Parkland (2013)

The Judge (2014)

The Gray Man (2022)

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

Movie Review: Armageddon (1998)

A spectacular science fiction disaster adventure, Armageddon is a thrilling battle between hardened men and a killer asteroid. The film quickly jettisons common sense for outright escapism, a trade-off that succeeds thanks to a breakneck pace and a committed cast.

A large, Texas-sized asteroid is discovered on a planet-annihilating collision course with Earth. With the impact predicted to occur within 18 days, advance fragments of rock start pounding the planet, destroying portions of New York City. Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is tasked with developing a strategy to save Earth, and settles on a plan to land a group of expert drillers on the asteroid as it passes near the moon, drill an 800 foot hole, and detonate a nuclear device deep within the rock's core.

Truman turns to veteran oil rig driller Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) to lead the team. Stamper agrees, as long as he can use his regular crew of ruffians, including AJ (Ben Affleck), Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), Chick (Will Patton), Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan)  and Oscar (Owen Wilson). AJ is deeply in love with Stamper's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler), a relationship that Harry is not thrilled about. The men undergo intensive astronaut training and are then launched in two advanced space shuttles for a rendezvous with the killer asteroid, with limited time to fulfill their dangerous mission and save civilization.

One of the noisiest and craziest science fiction films is also among the best all-action spectacles from the 1990s. Armageddon is a dizzying experience, with everything dialled to over-the-top, from the end-of-the-world premise to the ridiculous oil-riggers-in-space concept. Director Michael Bay crams in explosions, wildfires, wanton destruction and narrow escapes into every corner of the movie's 151 minutes, deploying frantic editing to portray the carnage and even contriving to transform a routine refuelling stop at the International Earth Station into fiery fiasco.

Once the action switches to the asteroid, the screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J. J. Abrams unleashes crash landings, canyon jumps, equipment failures, tragic team losses and groundquakes to add to episodes of space dementia and the ever-reliable secret military "Plan B" that threatens to jeopardize Stamper and his crew. There is not a moment that is not pressed into the service of endless thrills and death-defying escapades.

And yet, somehow, Bay pulls it all together, away from camp and towards rampant entertainment. As the tension mounts and the asteroid hurtles towards Earth, a good streak of self-deprecating wit keeps the action grounded, and the character of the fiercely self-confident Harry Stamper is among Bruce Willlis' best screen creations, providing a phenomenal focus for the sprawling film, and a centre of gravity for the mission.

His crew is efficiently coloured in with enough definition to create interest, with AJ as the surrogate son who wants to be a son-in-law, Rockhound a genius redneck, and Chick as the failed father regretting the life that passed him by. The likes of Aerosmith, Journey and Bon Jovi contribute to the thumping soundtrack.

By the time Armageddon reaches its climax, with self-sacrifice to the fore and individual acts of ultimate valour required to save the planet, Bay is able to strip his epic down to the human level of a father, a daughter, and the necessity to break one small promise in order to fulfill a greater mission. Armageddon flies on the ludicrous edge of control, but it always hurtles in the right direction.

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Movie Review: The Alamo (2004)

An earnest retelling of the seminal siege during the Texas Revolution, The Alamo is a character-rich war film, proudly raising the flag for realism and looking for the genuine hearts behind the facade of heroism.

It's the mid 1830s, and the Texas Revolution is in full swing. American settlers have driven the Mexican army out of Texas, but Mexico's President Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarría) is himself leading an army of 1,500 men to reclaim lost ground. His destination is the Alamo in the town of San Antonio de Bexar, a former church mission and now a semi-fortified compound. The prominent Americans in the area include politician and military commander Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid),  Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis (Patrick Wilson) of the fledgling Texas Army, and adventurer James Bowie (Jason Patric) in command of a band of militiamen.

After clashing over leadership, Travis and Bowie lead their men to the Alamo with the intention of defending it and repulsing the Mexicans long enough for Houston to raise reinforcements and rush to the rescue. Further to a political election defeat, congressman and celebrated frontiersman Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) also arrives in Texas, and joins the defenders. In total, around 200 Texians occupy the compound and attempt to fortify it against attack. But Santa Anna arrives sooner than expected and a siege begins, the small number of defenders hunkering down to withstand daily canon bombardments, hoping for reinforcements as they await a decisive Mexican assault.

The Alamo maintains a welcome focus on authenticity, all but eliminating any jingoistic elements to the famous last stand. By chasing the facts and eschewing legendary embellishments, director John Lee Hancock (replacing Ron Howard further to creative differences besetting the production) switches the focus to the key characters, and finds in each of them the combination of skills and flaws needed to create real people. The Alamo succeeds precisely because it moves away from mindless heroism and seeks a story of normal men accepting an extraordinary challenge.

In pursuit of down-to-earthiness, The Alamo understandably endures a slow build-up. The pace is deliberate and unhurried as many characters are introduced and provided with a background and a narrative that places them at the Alamo at a crossroads in Texas history. Davy Crockett, James Bowie and William Travis are the most prominent, and Hancock emphasizes the dynamic between the men, particularly the tension between the young and inexperienced Travis and the overconfident but coarse Bowie. Crockett is presented as wise and weary, now much more of a politician than a wilderness warrior, but still in command of the quiet leadership skills needed to inspire men to action.

Santa Anna and his army also receive plenty of build-up as they assemble to reclaim Mexico's honour, and the decision to film these scenes in Spanish adds to the film's drive for authenticity, but the absence of subtitles is an unfortunate omission.

When the shooting finally starts, the action picks up, but the emphasis remains on the men's reaction to the exchange of hostilities rather than the fighting itself. Only with the final assault does Hancock switch to an all-out war movie, and The Alamo delivers an excellent recreation of the climactic battle. The denouement, as represented by Houston's scraggly retreat (known as the Runaway Scrape) and subsequent counterpunch, places the sacrifice at the Alamo in its proper historical context.

The performances are solid without being spectacular, Quaid perhaps too dour as Houston while Billy Bob Thornton enjoys the most engaging role of Crockett, a nuanced blend of resignation and inspiration. Jason Patric and Patrick Wilson bounce off each other as their characters clash often, and while both actors offer depth and shine in moments, they are overshadowed by Thornton and the increasing momentum of the siege story.

The Alamo is respectful salute to the famous battle, allowing the event to garner its own power with minimal hyperbolic intervention.

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