Movie Review: Marlowe (2022)

Genre: Crime Drama Neo-Noir  

Director: Neil Jordan  

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: In Los Angeles of 1939, private detective Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by the married and wealthy Clare Cavendish (Diana Kruger) to find her missing lover Nico Petersen. Marlowe's investigation leads him to Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), manager of the exclusive Corbata Club; Clare's retired movie star mother Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange); studio boss O'Reilly; mobster Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming); and Nico's sister Lynn (Daniela Melchior). As the dead bodies start to accumulate, Marlowe is drawn into a conspiracy involving the cross-border drug trade.

What Works Well: Although the shine is artificial, the pre-war Los Angeles era is recreated with affection. The plot is suitably complicated and features the required mix of crime, cover-up, jealousy, lust, triple-crosses, and quests for elusive objects and power, all swirling around elites and wannabes who should know better.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite borrowing Raymond Chandler's legendary creation, the milieu and people never progress beyond a sense of dress-up: neither the locations nor outfits look lived-in. The dialogue is contrived, over-extending the writing talent and leaving the characters devoid of genuineness and struggling against an empathy void. Plot twists and coincidences are more bizarre than impressive, with an apparently key influencer largely invisible and plenty of loose ends abandoned in a blizzard of unconvincing explanations.

Conclusion: The stuff that disappointments are made of.



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Movie Review: Angel Has Fallen (2019)

An action thriller, Angel Has Fallen provides enough of a plot to sustain the requisite good quality action at breakneck speed. 

Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is in line for a promotion to Director, although his body is starting to ail. He nevertheless springs into action and saves the life of President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) when he is attacked by bomb-carrying drones while on a fishing trip. Trumbull is left in a coma, and because Banning is the only agent who survived, he is suspected of involvement in the attack.

Vice President Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson) is sworn in, and evidence emerges that Banning received large payments from Russian-linked sources. He is forced to go on the run to clear his name, with the FBI's Helen Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith) in pursuit. Banning suspects a private military contracting firm led by his old friend Wade Jennings (Danny Huston) was behind the attack, and turns to his outcast father Clay Benning (Nick Nolte) for help.

The second sequel to 2013's Olympus Has Fallen finds Gerard Butler, at 50 years old, huffing and puffing his way through the role. At least the character's physical decline is consistent with the actor, and the movie places his ragged health at the forefront. Within this category of wild action flicks, the story is not bad: the antagonist Jennings is introduced in the first sequence, with an army of private contractors at his disposal and a reason to go to war (Trumbull opposes the use of military contractors). This time Banning is forced to worry about his family, confront his health, then fight back when all evidence points to his involvement in an act of treason.

Nick Nolte is another plus. The veteran actor brings a voice more gravelly than an old pickup truck on a dirt road, and an attitude to match. Most of what Clay Benning is up to is played for chuckles, and it's good for the series to poke fun at itself while still demonstrating the apple does not fall far from the tree. In addition to Nolte, Morgan Freeman, Danny Huston, and Piper Perabo (as Banning's wife) ensure a strong supporting cast.

Director Ric Roman Waugh knows enough to fast-forward through most of the static scenes, then delivers far-fetched yet polished set-pieces with gritted-teeth intensity. The opening attack on the President and the climactic storm-the-building finale are particularly well staged, and all the chases, gun battles, explosions, and infiltrations arrive at the necessary breathless clip. This angel makes a racket when falling down, but is even louder standing back up.

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Movie Review: You Don't Know Jack (2010)

The factual story of the doctor who forced a discussion on medically-assisted death, You Don't Know Jack portrays a maverick shaking up the world of medicine.

In Detroit of the early 1990s, semi-retired Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino) starts to act on his conviction that doctors should be allowed to help their patients die. With support from his sister Margo (Brenda Vaccaro) and friend Neal Nicol (John Goodman), a medical technician, Kevorkian develops the rudimentary "Mercitron" machine, allowing patients to self administer a cocktail of lethal chemicals. He is careful to videotape interviews with each of his patients as they convey their wish to die, and also records their final moments.

As news spreads of his activities, more patients suffering from debilitating conditions seek his services. Kevorkian triggers a national controversy and debate about the right-to-die, and becomes known as Dr. Death. Michigan's state prosecutors haul him into court on several occasions, but his lawyer Geoffrey Fieger (Danny Huston) is victorious every time, because there is no law against assisting suicide. By the late 1990s, Kevorkian becomes eager to enshrine the right to die into law.

Dr. Kevorkian created his legacy in the moral morass where medicine, religion, and the law intersect. This HBO production tells his story in a rather grey semi-documentary style, the controversial material sidelining any attempts at artistry. Director Barry Levinson and writer Adam Mazer focus on the actions and motivations of a unique historical character, tracing factual events and leaning on Al Pacino to embody the doctor's headstrong idiosyncrasies.

Mazer is sympathetic to Kevorkian's convictions that the medical profession needs to re-assess how patients who want to die are treated. His actions stem from a desire to end suffering and respecting patients' wishes. His opponents in the form of street protesters and state prosecutors are driven by religion and dogma, pushing court cases based on no viable laws. Kevorkian and his lawyer Fieger are able to swat away the court challenges, emboldening the doctor. He then pushes further and starts to challenge new limits with the intent of seeking an audience with the land's highest court.

As a single man with no family commitments and near the end of his career, Kevorkian is presented as having nothing to lose as he challenges the status-quo. His motivations stem from personal experiences, and are gradually revealed through Pacino's soulful performance. Levinson rounds out his protagonist with character quirks including frumpy clothing, picky dietary habits, willingness to go on hunger strikes, and, ironically, a steadfast determination to never lend a helping hand when it comes to carrying physical objects. 

As portrayed by an animated Danny Huston, lawyer Geoffrey Fieger radiates swagger pushing into arrogance. In comparison, the other characters surrounding Kevorkian are short-changed. Sister Margo and medical technician Neal barely progress beyond props, and advocate-turned-friend Janet Good (Susan Sarandon) is lost in the shuffle.

It may lack panache and cinematic creativity, but You Don't Know Jack does set the record straight in revealing the human behind the moniker.



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Movie Review: The Constant Gardener (2005)

A geopolitical conspiracy thriller, The Constant Gardener features a rich plot combining an eloquent love story with governmental meddling, corporate greed and exploitation.

British human rights activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is killed at a remote lakeside location in rural Kenya. She was on a field trip with Dr. Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé) who is now missing and a suspect in her death. Tessa's husband, low-level British diplomat and gardening hobbyist Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), starts to investigate her murder. In flashback, the story of their first meeting and quick courtship is revealed, and they got married before they really knew each other.

She was eager to join him in Africa, where she quickly set about exploring health issues. Tessa grew infuriated with a system enabling pharmaceutical companies to test potentially unsafe drugs on local populations, and demanded help and answers from British High Commissioner Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston) and Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy) of the foreign office. Now Justin starts piecing together what his murdered wife was working on, and gradually uncovers the depth of a conspiracy stemming from the work of the mysterious Dr. Lorbeer (Pete Postlethwaite).

An adaptation of the John le Carré novel directed by Fernando Meirelles, The Constant Gardener is a conspiratorial mystery wrapped in a tender and unique love story. Starting with an unglamorous death, the film delves into Tessa's story to reveal a vivacious young woman poking too hard at the normal course of modern colonialism. Infused with le Carré's trademark jaundiced pessimism around a world run by grey bureaucrats making all the wrong decisions, this is a grim, layered and uncompromising look at unstoppable corruption wrapped in the veneer of foreign aid.

The film is made all the poignant by the retroactive nature of the love between husband and wife. Justin and Tessa married too soon and relocated to Africa. His low key style, metaphorically reflected in the deliberate care and attention he dedicates to his plants, proved too slow for Tessa. Off she went asking difficult questions across Kenya, and they drifted further apart. Insinuations about her having an affair with Dr. Bluhm did not help, neither did men like Sandy lusting after her behind Justin's back.

It's only when Justin starts following the thread of his wife's death that he starts to genuinely get to know her and truly understand her affection towards him. Meirelles weaves this sense of growing attachment and appreciation towards a murdered woman with the unfolding story of exploitation and connivance, dramatically enhancing Tessa's impact despite her demise in the opening scene.

Not everything about The Constant Gardener is perfect. Meirelles tries to cram too many events and characters into the film, resulting in some people and events left stranded, a long 129 minutes of running time and a somewhat rushed ending. But enhanced by the stark yellows of the African landscape and a firecracker of a Rachel Weisz performance balanced by a low-key Ralph Fiennes, The Constant Gardener is a subdued yet scathing denunciation of realpolitik.

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