Movie Review: To Die For (1995)

Genre: Satirical Crime Dramedy  

Director: Gus Van Sant  

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck  

Running Time: 106 minutes  

Synopsis: The small town of Little Hope, New Hampshire is scandalized by the arrest of local television weather girl Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) for plotting her husband's murder. In flashbacks and witness interviews, Suzanne is revealed as ambitious, vain, and obsessed with being on television. She marries Larry (Matt Dillon) but is always more interested in her career. After securing a job at a local cable station, she starts work on a documentary featuring underachieving high schoolers Jimmy, Russell, and Lydia (Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, and Alison Folland). When Larry attempts to constrain Suzanne's ambitions, she initiates a marriage escape plan through a nefarious seduction of the particularly dim Jimmy.  

What Works Well: Inspired by the Pamela Smart story, writer Buck Henry adapts Joyce Maynard's book into a sly mockumentary packed with astute celebrity culture observations. Director Gus Van Sant wades through the toxic combination of ambition, narcissism, and obsession with fame, and adds femme fatale sex-as-a-weapon noir shadings. Suzanne, Jimmy, Lydia, and Larry's sister Janice (Illeana Douglas) expand on their side of the story straight to the camera, stirring manipulation and victimization into a frothy mix. Nicole Kidman achieves a career highlight conveying the complex contradiction of limited smarts and sexual allure colliding with over-confidence and self-delusion.

What Does Not Work As Well: Given the comprehensive character investments, the resolutions are abrupt, including a barely-there investigation and a frigid mop-up. Suzanne's lack of forethought after she wriggles free of marital shackles is inconsistent with the preceding level of connivance.

Key Quote:

Suzanne: You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV. On TV is where we learn about who we really are. Because what's the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody's watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person.

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Movie Review: Our Friend (2019)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite  

Starring: Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel  

Running Time: 124 minutes  

Synopsis: The story is told through multiple time jumps. In Alabama of 2013, Matt and Nicole Teague (Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson) inform their two daughters that Nicole is close to succumbing to cancer. Matthew is a writer and Nicole is a theatre actress, and back in 2000 they were establishing their careers in New Orleans when Nicole's colleague Dane (Jason Segel) became a family friend. When Nicole was diagnosed in 2012, Dane moved in to provide support. Flashbacks also reveal the couple's previous struggles: work assignments kept them apart, and a near-affair threatened the relationship. 

What Works Well: Based on a true story, this is an honest celebration of friendship under exceptional stress. Dane's actions are selfless, and the sidekick perceived as a goof becomes the one person to step up and provide essential support to a devastated family. The trio of Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, and Jason Segel excel in forging a triangle of support. All three are portrayed as essentially good people, but director Gabriela Cowperthwaite also invests in the wrinkles of Matt and Nicole's marriage, and the spikier edges of friendship.

What Does Not Work As Well: The frequent time jumps add unnecessary clutter and awkward truncations to what is an ultimately simple story. With insufficient content to stretch over two hours, several scenes are unnecessary while others linger well after the point is made.

Conclusion: Competent and well-intentioned without ever threatening to be exceptional.



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Movie Review: The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)

A melancholy western, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford traces events leading to the death of the famous outlaw. 

In Missouri of 1881, 19-year-old Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) sidles up to the outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his older brother Frank (Sam Shepard). Jesse is all of 34 years old but already a legend, celebrated in local comics as a Robin Hood-type southern hero standing up to the unionists. But now the decimated James gang is reduced to seeking help from any local bandits, opening the door for Robert and his brother Charley (Sam Rockwell).

Other hangers-on and wannabes include scuzzy relatives and friends like Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner) and Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider). Battling insomnia and internal demons, Jesse is in a state of constant agitation and finds it difficult to trust anyone. But he is revered by Robert, who is equal parts star-struck and ambitious beyond his talents. As jealousies and tensions tear the gang apart, Jesse's options narrow, and Robert ponders his next move.

In addition to the long-winded title only marginally summarizing 160 minutes of cinema into 10 words, the adaptation of Ron Hansen's 1983 historical novel suffers from a few other problems. This is a story of outlaws plotting against outlaws, thieves and murderers turning against each other and settling scores in slow motion. Allies and enemies are one and the same, and in each other's company they either sleep lightly, or not at all. With none of the characters deserving of sympathy, the plot is an emotional slog until everyone meets their deserved comeuppance. 

The pacing is slow, the dialogue exchanges are perforated by ponderous gaps, and the overall mood is of grave predeterminism, the characters seemingly aware of the outcome having no doubt read the full title. Women are essentially non-existent in this story. Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel show up on the margins, but have no more than ten words to say. Important characters like Frank James just drop out without explanation. And despite the mammoth length, writer and director Andrew Dominik still resorts to wordy narration, demonstrating a lack of confidence in the on-screen material.

But some strong positives do maintain interest. Roger Deakins' cinematography is often spellbinding, and the music (by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis) adds soulful possibilities. Dominik's prose, once finally articulated between the pregnant pauses, is often achingly lyrical. And despite the epic scope, ultimately the drama distills to an intimate psychological showdown between two men. 

The study of hero-worship is superb, Robert Ford a restless kid entranced by Jesse James and dreaming of achieving similar exploits - maybe by replacing his hero. The dynamic between the two men is often electric, Dominik teasing out the danger of lies and the importance of reading silence and observing body language. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck deliver engrossing performances full of restless agitation, bringing to life two men testing confidence limits as they toy with death.

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is frustratingly overblown and self-aggrandizing. It is also absorbing, visually captivating, and brilliantly well-acted.



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Movie Review: Triple 9 (2016)

A crime thriller, Triple 9 features stellar action set-pieces, but also a large cast struggling against a convoluted and context-free plot.

In Atlanta, Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) leads a gang of ex-military types conducting high-risk heists for Russian crime lord Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet), who holds Michael's young son as leverage. He calls upon corrupt cops Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) to join his crew to steal a bank safety deposit box. Detective Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson) starts to investigate, while Irina demands Michael immediately start planning a follow-up theft of critical records from a Homeland Security building.

Jeffrey's nephew Chris (Casey Affleck) is an honest cop and Marcus' new partner. They tangle with a group of tough street gang members, including Luis Pinto (Luis Da Silva). To create a diversion for the Homeland Security heist, Michael's crew decide an "officer down, code triple 9" incident is required to draw police resources to the wrong side of town. Chris is selected as the victim to be shot, but little will go according to plan.

Triple 9 features three well-executed action set-pieces, neatly placed at the start, middle and near the end of the film. The first establishes the pace with Michael's gang pulling off the audacious bank break-in followed by an insane car chase. The second is an incidental but still impressive house search followed by a street chase and fire fight as Chris and Marcus go after a member of Pinto's gang in a hostile neighbourhood. And the finale is the double whammy of the code triple 9 incident overlapping with the Homeland Security theft.

In these scenes director John Hillcoat excels in delivering cohesive thrills, but the film struggles during all the in-between sections. The Matt Cook script drops in on all the characters essentially mid-flight and never pauses to set a meaningful context. The people, places and relationships are sketched in using the broadest of strokes, and as a result it is exceptionally difficult to care about any of them.

The central plot supposedly driving all the action involves the evil Irina attempting to free her barely-seen but highly influential husband from an overseas prison by getting her hands on some vaguely defined records, a classic example of a hastily slapped together, needlessly complicated yet still utterly flimsy MacGuffin.

The effort to portray Michael as a victim lands with an unconvincing thud, his semi-hostaged child (the mother is Irina's more chill sister Elena, played by Gal Gadot) a lame device to garner sympathy. Chris is supposed to emerge as the honest core of the story but he is dramatically under-defined, while a myriad of greasy bad guys, bad cops, and bad guys who are ex-cops, all with labyrinthine personal connections, clutter the screen. By the time it becomes clearer who is who, most of them are dead anyway.

Woody Harrelson adds his distinctive brand of caring by not caring, here as a drug-addicted detective unpeeling the rash of daring heists, while Kate Winslet's turn as a Russian mob boss borders on cartoonish.

Triple 9 does feature a triple header of accomplished highlights, but these are strung together with saggy material.

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Movie Review: The Finest Hours (2016)

A rescue-at-sea drama, The Finest Hours is serviceable but never rousing.

The year is 1952, the location coastal Massachusetts and the Chatham Coast Guard Station. Boatswain's Mate First Class Bernie Miller (Chris Pine) meets and falls in love with local girl Miriam (Holliday Grainger). When he dawdles to commit, she proposes marriage, but Bernie insists on following the tradition of requesting permission to get married from his stiff Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff (Eric Bana).

But Cluff is preoccupied with a massive incoming storm, and two oil tankers break apart in rough seas on the same night. One of them is the SS Pendleton, where the reticent engineer Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) has to rally the surviving crew to keep half the massive ship afloat. Using a small boat, Bernie is dispatched to the Pendleton's last known location on a dangerous rescue mission, joined by Coast Guard Seaman Richard Livesey (Ben Foster), Engineman Andrew Fitzgerald (Kyle Gallner) and Navy Seaman Ervin Maske (John Magaro). Back on shore, Miriam frets about the fate of her husband-to-be.

The story of one of the Coast Guard's most famous rescues, The Finest Hours gets most of the technical details wrong, and is infused with a heavy dose of Disney's saccharine wholesomeness. The music crescendos to epic levels every five minutes, the dangers faced by Bernie and his crew are exaggerated to Greek mythology levels, the faces of Bernie and his love Miriam always glow in the incandescent light of love, and any hints of darkness, death, and guilt are pushed far to the edges, and often fully off-screen.

But after an ill-considered and really slow start that stumbles to connect Bernie with Miriam, director Craig Gillespie settles down to a respectable retelling of a harrowing rescue at sea, with Bernie's against-the-odds small-boat-in-a-big-storm journey intercut with Sybert rallying the Pendleton crew to improvise a pathway to survival. For once the CGI is extensive but also good; the images of a monstrous sea are impressive, whether threatening to swallow up Bernie's tiny motor lifeboat or mercilessly tossing half an oil tanker.

Less effective is Miriam's subplot back on shore. She runs around rather aimlessly and tangles with other locals who are suspicious about Bernie's competence due to a previous non-rescue that is only ever hinted at but never properly discussed, the script dangling a backstory and then timidly backing away from it.

Out on the seas Chris Pine and Casey Affleck are stoic without ever stretching, the enormity of events surrounding them enough to sustain the drama without the need for stellar performances.

The Finest Hours is a rescue adventure painted by numbers, produced with slick efficiency but tightly confined between dependable and predictable.

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Movie Review: Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A drama about reengaging with life, Manchester By The Sea delves into ordinary lives to seek the private battles raging within.

In Boston, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) leads a lonely existence as a building caretaker, fixing residents' clogged toilets, shoveling snow and living in a depressing single-room basement unit. Lee is divorced from his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and has no interests other than getting drunk and instigating fights with random bar patrons. Lee's life is turned upside down when his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), who lives in the small coastal community of Manchester by the Sea 90 minutes away from Boston, dies from heart disease.

Joe appoints Lee as the guardian for Joe's 16 year old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), and Lee has to fight off his internal demons just to be able to function in his new and unexpected role as the responsible adult in the young man's life. And Patrick has a surprisingly full agenda: two girlfriends, a rock band, and ambitions to follow in his father's footsteps as a fishing boat captain. Matters are further complicated when Patrick reaches out to his estranged mother Elise (Gretchen Mol).

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea drinks deeply from the world of broken families, broken dreams and lives drifting sideways. An exploration of personal battles to justify second chances set against the idyllic beauty of a small town by the ocean, the film is an outstanding multiple-character study, with various visible and invisible wounds and scars in various states of bleeding and healing.

Lonergan adopts a deliberate but steady pace. The film builds in intensity as the faults in the foundations of Lee's life are gradually revealed, and then the equivalent but different cracks in the lives of all those around him also come to light. Lonergan's masterstroke is in never succumbing to any easy answers or trite moments of sentiment. The relationship between Lee and Patrick remains thorny at best, the uncle and the nephew stumbling over a seemingly endless succession of rub points. Similarly the encounters with Lee ex-wife Randi and Patrick's damaged mother Elise are awkward, full of shame, guilt and unresolved emotions.

While none of the characters are happy, misery does not preclude self-awareness, regret and a deep sense of responsibility. Manchester By The Sea is that rare film where adults are locked into emotional prisons of their own making, and they know it. Lee, Randi and Elise are in various stages of making progress towards redemption, an uncertain journey fraught with self-doubt. Meanwhile young Patrick is unknowingly suffering from youth's illusion of indestructibility. He may already be on the path to his own serious mistakes with his casual attitude towards multiple concurrent girlfriends, but his determination in salvaging his father's boat also carries the promise of success built on grit.

Casey Affleck delivers a devastatingly affecting performance, carrying the bottled-up agony of a man having to exit his own purgatory to shoulder a new responsibility. Lucas Hedges is the surprise of the film, benefiting from a screenplay that creates a resilient 16 year old and matching Affleck in the second half of the film. Michelle Williams and Gretchen Mol make strong impressions in small but key roles.

Out of seemingly irretrievable wreckage, there are embers of hope. Manchester By The Sea goes looking for glimmers of recovery, and it's a quest both deeply satisfying and sobering in its pragmatism.

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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.

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Movie Review: Tower Heist (2011)

A rather bland revenge caper comedy thriller, Tower Heist assembles a large cast and then wastes it on an underdeveloped story. There are moments of fun to be had thanks to the star power on display, but the overall package is a disappointment.

In downtown Manhattan, Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) is the manager of The Tower, the most prestigious high rise residential address in the city. His crew includes veteran doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson), the tentative desk clerk Charlie (Casey Affleck), housemaid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe) and rookie elevator operator Enrique (Michael Peña). They all work for General Manager Mr. Simon (Judd Hirsch), looking after every need of the very rich tenants.

The most famous and wealthiest resident is billionaire Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), an investment fund manager who occupies the lavish penthouse, complete with Steve McQueen's bright red Ferrari as a centrepiece decoration. Without warning, Shaw is arrested for stealing $2 billion. Kovaks and his team had all their pension money invested with Shaw, and they lose everything. With FBI agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni) leading the investigation into Shaw's business dealings, Kovaks assembles his colleagues as well as bankrupt Wall Street investor Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and common criminal Slide (Eddie Murphy) to plan a daring theft of Shaw's secret safe, located in a wall enclosure within the penthouse.

Tower Heist has shiny outside packaging, but a listless core. The film looks slick and sounds great, the bass-and-horns theme courtesy of Christophe Beck packing plenty of promise. The talented array of stars do their part to help make the experience half-way watchable. Stiller throws himself into the role and manufactures a decent level of conviction, while Broderick hits the better comic tones with a brooding turn as an investor chewed up and spit out by Wall Street's merciless carousel.

Murphy is in good crude form, recalling the edgy, urban and profane Murphy of old as the one true thief among wannabe crooks, although his scrappy street-level experience is ill-suited to a high-rise heist. Alda (finding his inner Bernie Madoff), Affleck, Peña, Leoni, Sidibe and Hirsch ensure that every corner of the tower is occupied by familiar faces.

With most of the budget invested in the cast and the needlessly complicated backdrop of the Thanksgiving parade, little is left for a decent script, and Tower Heist quickly falls apart. The break-in plan is half-baked to the point of emerging from the oven as a sloppy mess, and the attempts at generating some heat between Josh and Claire misfire, although Leoni sparkles in one scene where the FBI agent disappears behind the fog of alcohol and the woman comes to the fore.

Once director Brett Ratner moves the action to the execution phase, all the tension gets caught up in that red Ferrari, and the film devolves into a single silly gag, over the top, outside the building and beyond the bounds of reason. Tower Heist gets stuck in the elevator, with great company but going nowhere.

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The Movies Of Casey Affleck

All movies starring Casey Affleck and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

To Die For (1995)

Good Will Hunting (1997)

American Pie (1999)

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Tower Heist (2011)

Interstellar (2014)

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

The Finest Hours (2016)

Triple 9 (2016)

Our Friend (2019)

Oppenheimer (2023)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Killer Inside Me (2010)

A disturbing journey into the mind of an abject sociopath, The Killer Inside Me features jolts of cruel violence, but suffers from bland narration and shallow characters.

It's 1952 in a small rural town in Texas. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) appears to be a normal and dependable part of the town's fabric. When Sheriff Bob Maples (Tom Bower) assigns Lou to drive prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) out of town, Lou instead beats her up, which she enjoys. They commence an intense physical relationship, despite Lou being involved with long-time girlfriend Amy (Kate Hudson).

Lou is actually a cold blooded psychotic killer, and he blames the rich Conway family for the long-ago murder of his adopted brother. When Lou learns that Elmer Conway (Jay R. Ferguson) is one of Joyce's regular customers, he plans a revenge plot to inflict pain on Elmer and agony on his father Chester (Ned Beatty), the town's construction magnate. Lou's revenge involves brutal murders arranged to incriminate others followed by pathological lying, prompting an investigation by County District Attorney Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker). Lou may need to kill again to cover his tracks and stay ahead of the law.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom as an adaptation of the 1952 Jim Thompson book, The Killer Inside Me is not for the squeamish. The film includes two shocking scenes of barbarous violence, as Lou unleashes his inner demon in a fury of killer blows. The victims are pummeled into grotesque disfigurement, and Winterbottom allows his cameras to linger, prolonging the scenes to emphasize Lou’s soulless brutality and the pathetic helplessness of his victims.

Lou is responsible for many deaths, but the two victims of his most shocking acts are both women. This elevates the visual horror, and is partially explained by the root causes of Lou’s derangement as the film reveals fragments of childhood that helped to twist his brain into a malfunctioning mess.

But the film falters when it attempts to provide substantive depth. Outside of Lou’s actions, the narrative, context and characterizations are distinctly lacking. Winterbottom regularly fails to properly introduce or develop essential people and plot elements, resulting in a detached and blurry experience. Elmer’s relationship with Joyce; Lou’s suddenly urgent need to impart revenge on the Conways; the barely explained appearance of District Attorney Hendricks; and the even more puzzling late arrival of lawyer Billy Boy Walker (possibly a figment of Lou’s imagination) are all barely sketched in. And the morsels from Lou’s childhood are too abstract to be helpful.

And finally, Lou’s narration, delivered by Affleck in a high pitched, nasally mumbled monotone, may be appropriate for the sound inside a killer’s head, but is fingernails-on-chalkboard aggravating as a film experience.

The performances are no more than average, Affleck unable to do much with a character who has no human feelings, while the other actors struggle with roles defined through the truncated thoughts of a madman. Winterbottom does manage to create a sun-drenched laid-back smoke-filled small-town 1950s ambiance, the kind of place where nothing exciting ever happens until a prostitute sets up shop, a psychopath goes to work and the bodies start piling up.

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