Movie Review: Dead Poets Society (1989)

Genre: Coming-Of-Age Drama  

Director: Peter Weir  

Starring: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Kurtwood Smith  

Running Time: 128 minutes  

Synopsis: In New England of 1959, Welton Academy is a stuffy private school for boys, emphasizing tradition and discipline. John Keating (Robin Williams) is the new and free-spirited poetry teacher, encouraging his students to seize the day and think independently. His students are inspired to recreate a secret poetry-loving club and start to test boundaries. Neil (Robert Sean Leonard) defies his strict father (Kurtwood Smith) and joins a theatre group; Knox (Josh Charles) pursues an unlikely romance; Todd (Ethan Hawke) gradually comes out of his shell; and Charlie (Gale Hanson) shocks the school community with an unacceptable demand.

What Works Well: The central anti-conformance message is liberating, and here delivered with the confidently smiling light touch of Robin Williams in one of his best performances. His John Keating was himself a student at Welton, and so the deliberate challenge to the status quo comes from a place of knowledge. Keating's moments of unorthodox teaching, including connecting with pictures of students past, instilling confidence to walk independently, prodding Todd to discover the poetry within in front of the class, and introducing a different perspective from atop the desk, all register with breezy profundity. Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke convey the rigours of adulthood transformations with convincing fragility, while director Peter Weir and cinematographer John Seale augment the drama with some beautifully captured imagery in and around Welton Academy.  

What Does Not Work As Well: Keating's largely blank backstory nudges him more towards a symbol rather than a person, and one of the boys' stories dominates the final act, leaving a few loose ends. Some of the scenes (including the outsiders brought to the Dead Poets Society cave and some of the soccer pitch sequences) just add unnecessary padding.

Key Quote:

Keating (whispering forcefully): Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.

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Movie Review: Leave The World Behind (2023)

Genre: Survival Drama

Director: Sam Esmail

Starring: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon

Running Time: 141 minutes

Synopsis: Stressed out New Jersey couple Amanda and Clay (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke) book a family weekend getaway at a secluded Long Island house-for-rent. A day at the beach with their kids Rose and Archie is interrupted by an out-of-control oil tanker, then the internet and television signals mysteriously fail. In the middle of the night, the tuxedoed G.H. (George) Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha'la) knock at the door, with George claiming to be the home owner, as evidence mounts of strange events occurring at a large scale.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Rumaan Alam's book (and a good companion piece to 2015's Into The Forest) slowly but surely builds sinister momentum at personal and global levels. From the racial tension of two unknown blacks intruding late at night onto a white family's perceived sanctuary, to broader societal cracks giving way under external pressure, director and writer Sam Esmail constructs a portrait of psychological and physical fragility. A tick, a drone, a vague but persistent emergency signal, and a piercing sonic assault are joined by larger catastrophes - beware the driverless Teslas! - to signal the end and the beginning. Esmail's directing is full of top-down flourish, and while Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali never need to stretch, they do add the necessary intellectual and psychological touches.

What Does Not Work As Well: Without demystifying the premise, the long running time should have accommodated sharper event interpretations. The metaphysical involvement of animals (primarily deer and flamingos) is only tangentially resolved, and some character actions (a kid setting off alone into a strange house) and event resolutions (just take those blue pills for a seemingly horrifying ailment) stretch credibility.

Conclusion: Weekend getaways may just be gateways to much heightened anxiety.

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Movie Review: Before Midnight (2013)

The second sequel in the series, Before Midnight picks up the story a further nine years after the events of Before Sunset. The lovers are now in mid-life territory, juggling life's accumulated baggage.

The setting is Greece, where Jesse and Céline (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) are completing a six week vacation. They have been together and living in Paris for nine years, and they have twin daughters. Céline is considering a new governmental job in environmental project approvals, while Jesse has published two more books. But he is increasingly frustrated that he is mostly absent from the life of his 14 year-old son Hank, who lives with Jesse's ex-wife in Chicago.

On the last day of the vacation, the couple spend the afternoon conversing with their host family and friends, before heading to a resort hotel for what is supposed to be a romantic evening. But Céline senses pressure from Jesse to give up her career and relocate to the US for them to be closer to Hank, igniting a raucous argument that exposes simmering rifts.

Again co-written by Hawke, Delpy and director Richard Linklater, Before Midnight shifts towards darker territory despite the scenic backdrop of the Greek Peloponnese peninsula. Now in their forties, Jesse and Céline are more mature but also more entrenched. The premonitions from the first instalment about the challenges of maintaining long-term love come home to roost, the couple now struggling to reconcile their individual needs with the added complexities of careers in full flight and kids on both sides of the ocean. Bolder and longer at 110 minutes, this chapter challenges the very definition of a union.

Stylistically, the familiar long takes and extended scenes of dialogue are back. This time a few additional characters get larger roles, the meal session at the home of a celebrated host author bringing in new voices from three different generations. The conversation revolves around the familiar territory of gender power dynamics laced with humour and barbs, but now tension is building, Céline's strong feminist tendencies clashing with Jesse's desire to discuss relocating their lives.

The narrative rides an enjoyable roller-coaster of emotions. On the way to the hotel the couple seem to be in a better place, and as a night of passion beckons they appear to be closer than ever. But one unscheduled intrusion flips the switch, and what follows is a long and harrowing argument. This is the opposite side of naive romance, all the pressures of adulthood coming to bear on two perfectly imperfect people, their flaws growing into seemingly intolerable impediments.

Across the years and the three chapters, the script's remarkable achievement is singular internal constancy. Whereas Céline is now more openly hostile and quicker to unleash a barrage of anger, her behaviour is consistent with the combustible mix of feminism and insecurity introduced on the train to Vienna. Similarly, Jesse's more laid-back approach echoes the unintended apathy bordering on smugness he first revealed after the palm reader encounter.

With Hawke and Delpy using their chemistry to fearlessly stride into the thicket of a relationship at the cross-roads, Before Midnight shines a harsh spotlight at the fragile juncture where romanticized expectations meet the cold air of reality.



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Movie Review: Before Sunset (2004)

A romantic drama and sequel to 1995's Before Sunrise, Before Sunset picks up the story nine years later, with the lovers moving into their thirties.

Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is in Paris completing a promotional tour for his new book, a work of fiction inspired by the one magical night he spent in Vienna with Céline (Julie Delpy) nine years earlier. Céline shows up at the end of Jesse's final media engagement, and they spend time walking and talking to get reacquainted ahead of his flight back to the United States.

After discussing why they failed to reunite as planned six months after their first meeting, they fill each other in on their lives since that night. Céline graduated, spent time in India and New York, and is now working for an environmental advocacy organization. She is disappointed in men and frustrated by a misfiring love life. Jesse is living in New York and stuck in a loveless marriage, but is deeply fond of his four-year-old son Hank. As the time for his flight draws nearer, they realize a strong spark of attraction still exists between them.

A bit older and a bit wiser, Before Sunset finds Jesse and Céline reuniting as they bump-up against the adult world. Hawke and Delpy co-wrote the script with director Richard Linklater, and the economical 80 minutes catch up on nine years in a single afternoon of conversations. The Parisian setting is judiciously deployed to provide a romantic backdrop without devolving into cliches.

The examination of an adult relationship through honest dialogue generates potent drama.  The magic of the first meeting, true young love, and the serendipitous discovery of a soulmate cannot of course be replicated. The sequel is therefore less mystical and more grounded in the sharper edges of life, the airiness of idealism and freedom of drift giving way to dissatisfaction and more caustic self-awareness, pangs of guilt providing an undercurrent. 

It's refreshing to see Jesse and Céline mature into real, flawed people, her neurotic brand of feminism and his nonchalant evasiveness hardening their personalities. Jesse never forgot Céline and indeed wrote the book to try and find her. His marriage is already on the rocks, but his writing career is taking off and he is discovering the joys of fatherhood. Céline is also finding her way in her chosen field of environmental protection with a music-writing side-hobby, but she is harbouring toxic frustrations with her inability to find a worthwhile partner in life, and unloads her anger with venom.

Linklater again uses long uninterrupted takes to naturalistically dive into two people's psyches, Hawk and Delpy tapping into their effortless rapport and deep comfort with their characters. As their day together draws to an end, undeniable attraction develops and major decisions beckon. This time as adults, whimsical surrenders carry more serious consequences.



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Movie Review: Juliet, Naked (2018)

A sharp-edged romantic comedy, Juliet, Naked enjoys a playful premise nibbling on life's suspended dreams.

In England, Annie (Rose Byrne) is the museum curator in the small seaside community of Sandcliff. She is getting exasperated with her partner Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), a college professor obsessed with obscure American independent musician Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), who released the album Juliet in 1993 and promptly disappeared mid-tour. Duncan runs a website for other Tucker aficionados, trading rumours about the musician's whereabouts. 

In fact Tucker is living a quiet life in upstate New York. He is trying to remain close to his youngest son Jackson, to make up for having been an inattentive father to all his other children, including London-based Lizzie (Ayoola Smart), herself now pregnant.

The record company sends Duncan an early demo of Tucker's album, this one labelled Juliet, Naked. Annie sarcastically joins the online discussion and is stunned to be contacted by an appreciative Tucker, and they start an exchange of messages. She drifts further apart from Duncan, then has an opportunity to meet Tucker when he travels to London to visit Lizzie.

An adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel, Juliet, Naked provides witty commentary about breaking free from old shackles. Director Jesse Peretz keeps the mood light but mature for the breezy 105 minutes of running time, and the script (co-written by Tamara Jenkins) makes good use of the fictional Sandcliff as a picturesque but still grey English town. Like the characters, the locale appears bogged down in the past, while the soundtrack of angst-riddled 1990's rock (performed by Hawke) underlines a long-gone musical era still dominating the lives of Annie and Duncan.

After 15 years, Annie can no longer deny her relationship with Duncan has a good past but no future. She wants to start a family, while he is still acting like an adolescent with his single-album Tucker infatuation. Meanwhile, Tucker has abandoned music to focus on Jackson, a laudable commitment, except that he is also studiously avoiding mending fences with all his other children (young Jackson hardly knows he even has siblings). Annie, Duncan, and Tucker all need to find the courage to re-engage with today, and some will move forward more gracefully than others.

The secondary characters add colour and humour. Annie's flighty sister Ros (Lily Brazier) believes she is finding love with a different woman every night, while Sandcliff's mayor (Phil Davis) is an eccentric relic more suited for display in Annie's museum.

Compared to her sister and the men in her life, Annie is the only responsible adult in the room, and Rose Byrne is the standout performer, leveraging the anxiety of a biological clock ticking ever louder to kick-start a new chapter. Ethan Hawke can play characters like Tucker Crowe in his sleep, while Chris O'Dowd conveys a man with a teenager's psychology, still stuck in the posters-on-the-wall, hero-worship stage.

Astute and amusing, Juliet, Naked enjoys good acoustics.



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Movie Review: Reality Bites (1994)

A life-after-college drama, Reality Bites grapples with friendship, romance and the travails of adulthood. The challenge of pursuing dreams gradually gives way to a bland romantic triangle.

In Houston, a group of college friends venture into the real world. Class valedictorian Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is an aspiring documentarian and is filming the lives of her friends Troy, Vickie and Sammy. Handsome musician Troy carries a too-cool attitude and a perpetual cigarette but is happy to generally do nothing. Vickie (Janeane Garofalo) is terrified of commitment, sleeping with a different stranger every night while working at The Gap. Sammy is gay but has not yet come out to his parents.

Navigating adulthood gets harder when Lelaina is fired from her job as an intern on a cheesy morning television show and Troy is fired from his twelfth menial job. Vickie is promoted to store manager, but has a health scare. Lelaina meets television producer Michael (Ben Stiller) and they start a relationship, but she always harboured a crush on Troy, and now finds herself torn between a stable boyfriend and a dreamy but shiftless hunk.

A companion piece to 1992's Singles, Reality Bites tracks members of Generation X as they step out of their cocoons. Written by Helen Childress and directed by Stiller, the stories of Lelaina, Troy, Vickie and to a lesser extent Sammy check off all the expected themes: student debt, the difficulty of landing a job with no experience, the monthly drama of paying rent, the dilemma between striving for a dream or settling for what's available, and the mortal fear of turning into their parents.

Of course every generation faces similar tests, but Childress and Stiller tease out some Gen X specifics, including the broken homes they all come from. Lelaina possesses the self confidence and fortitude to at least try and stick to her vision, in terms of both career and artistry. Troy's deeply ingrained idealism mixes with cynicism to translate into an overriding sense of ennui. Vickie embraces her McJob but fences with relationship insecurities and the lingering threat of the disease of the 1980s. Finally, and to the detriment of the character's prominence, Sammy's sexuality is a non-issue among his friends.

In the first two acts Childress maintains a fine balance between empathizing with her protagonists and rolling her eyes, despite Stiller the director leaning too heavily on montages and a choppy, overstuffed soundtrack. But the ideas run out in the final third, and Reality Bites devolves into traditional love triangle territory, Lelaina caught between the grounded Michael and floaty Troy. Here the narrative unravels, Troy never demonstrating even the promise of any future redeeming values as a worthy partner.

Winona Ryder brings her full sparkle to Lelaina even if at times she is too perky. Ethan Hawke is the other stand-out performer, convincingly creating in Troy a character who probably peaked in high school. Faced with a biting reality, some bite back while others just sulk and lick their wounds.



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Movie Review: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

A crime-gone-wrong drama, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead enjoys a startling premise and sparkling cast, but the follow-through is only middling.

The movie jumps back and forth in time. Chronologically, brothers Andy and Hank Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) both have serious financial problems. The younger and more irresponsible Hank cannot keep up with alimony payments to his ex-wife Martha (Amy Ryan). Andy enjoys a managerial job but has an expensive drug habit and is pilfering money from his employer, with a looming audit about to expose his theft. Andy is married to Gina (Marisa Tomei), but behind his back she is having an affair with Hank.

Andy talks Hank into robbing the suburban jewellery store of their parents Charles and Nanette (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris). With the insurance covering the losses and no one getting hurt, it's supposed to be a victimless crime to make some quick money. But absolutely nothing will go according to plan, and both Andy and Hank will find themselves sinking deeper into trouble of their own making.

Carrying a Coen Brothers vibe but lacking the icy streaks of dark comedy, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead traces a series of brotherly missteps leading to disaster. The well-labelled time jumps in Kelly Masterson's script are unnecessary but nevertheless boost the engagement value, while Sidney Lumet directs with an eye for the little details. The film's opening is strong, before the second act deflates and the climax unravels.

At its core this is a story of two losers stuck in a hole but never grasping the imperative to stop digging. Andy's drug use is sabotaging his career and marriage as he allows the resentment at being his father's second favourite son consume him. Hank has coasted through life on now-fading boyish looks while taking little responsibility for anything. He is now broke, short-changing his ex-wife and pursuing an affair with his sister-in-law.

Masterson and Lumet enjoy piling on the agony for the two dimwits, but the film suffers in the absence of any sympathetic, or even just smart, characters. Events spiral out of control and the brothers descend from twilight into absolute darkness, but since they author their own predicaments, their fate registers somewhere between well-deserved and who cares.

Their dad Charles is the closest thing to an innocent victim who deserves better, but most of his scenes are wasted on a truncated bang-your-head-against-the-wall subplot involving police indifference. Another frustratingly careless script dead-end involves Hank's misadventures with a rental car.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and an underused but frequently disrobed Marisa Tomei paper over most of the weaknesses with dedicated performances. Hoffman stands out as a brooding, coiled, and near-the-edge presence. As the plot lurches towards untidy conclusions, Michael Shannon appears late and livens up the post-robbery narrative in a couple of pivotal scenes as another lowlife dabbling in crimes he should avoid.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead dances with misdeeds, turning up the temperature but lacking emotional warmth.



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Movie Review: Regression (2015)

A dramatic thriller with horror elements, Regression enjoys an engaged cast and creepy visuals, but awkwardly shifts tones before stalling altogether. 

It's 1990 in the small (fictional) town of Hoyer, Minnesota. With unsubstantiated stories of evil satanic rituals making the news in various communities, detective Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke) investigates allegations by Angela Gray (Emma Watson) that she was sexually abused by her father John (David Dencik). He admits to the crime but has no recollection of specific events.

Professor Kenneth Raines (David Thewlis) suggests hypnosis to trigger "regression" and stimulate memory recall. The resultant interrogations ensnare police officer George Nesbitt (Aaron Ashmore) as part of a satanic cult holding sacrifice rituals. Angela's brother Roy (Devon Bostick), her grandmother Rose (Dale Dickey) and Reverend Murray (Lothaire Bluteau) may all be keeping secrets, and in his quest for the truth Bruce starts to experience disturbing nightmares and possible threats.

Regression is inspired by the wave of panic about satanic cults that obsessed an excitable corner of the news cycle in the 1980s and 1990s. With Ethan Hawke in a determined mood (although both Detective Kenner and Professor Raines appear out of place in a rural backwater), writer and director Alejandro Amenábar creates a suitable aesthetic, the grey small town providing a susceptible venue for spooky things. But Amenábar cannot quite decide on what story he wants to tell, the limited to non-existent character development and wayward narrative execution undermining any good intentions.

So the film starts with allegations of sexual abuse within a family, expanding to include the involvement of a police officer, and then descriptions of a (very) large number of Satan worshippers wearing dark robes and white make-up, gathering around various beds or in eerie sheds to kill animals and babies. At some point the number of cultists appears to exceed the town's entire population. But then Regression abandons the investigation and becomes more of a horror flick, Bruce succumbing to a series of scary incidents (real or imagined) and getting sucked into a mentally fragile state.

The final act snaps back sharply to a different place entirely, a rational if cinematically sterile resolution condemning multiple characters. Regression exposes overlapping agendas, most of them devilishly misguided.



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Movie Review: The Truth (2019)

A family drama, The Truth explores a difficult relationship between a celebrity mother and her emotionally neglected daughter. While the characters are interesting, the story struggles for justification.

In France, Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve) is a fading but still active movie star about to release an autobiographical book. Her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) arrives for a visit, along with her American husband and struggling actor Hank (Ethan Hawke) and young daughter Charlotte. Self-centred and obsessed with her career, Fabienne never tried to be much of a mother. Her autobiography is filled with flagrant inaccuracies intended to varnish her image, infuriating Lumir.

The visiting family accompany Fabienne to the set of her latest movie, which happens to be about a complex mother-daughter bond starring current hot actress Manon (Manon Clavel). With her long-time butler abandoning her after getting fed-up with her ego, Fabienne has an opportunity to reconsider how she treats those closest to her.

With the talents of Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche occupying the two central roles, The Truth does not lack acting excellence. Both actresses shine, Deneuve finding the unapologetically icy diva within, and Binoche responding with a cry for a semblance of regret or humanity.

Writer and director Hirokazu Koreeda has less success with a relatively damp script. Tension between a career-driven mother and neglected daughter is not exactly new cinematic territory, and here peripheral distractions abound from Ethan Hawke's non-entity actor to Fabienne's butler, cook/lover and ex-husband all in a parade of ignored men. The dialogue lacks edge, and the narrative ambles instead of striving.

What is expected from career women, the trade-offs between professional and family happiness, and who gets to tell their own story are the touched upon themes. The chasm between Fabienne and Lumir is occupied by the spectral presence of the never-seen Sarah, Fabienne's friend and rival during her star-making years. Except that Sarah was also a caring human being and took on the role of Lumir's surrogate mother, offering Fabienne a clear shot at career glory but at a heavy personal price. Frustratingly, Sarah is repeatedly mentioned but never shown.

In the movie-within-a-movie, Fabienne's role as the daughter of a mother who placed her needs first offers rich terrain for reflection. The character of star actress Manon has found a way to stay young forever, the desire of every movie star, but can only see her daughter every seven years. Fabienne approaches Manon with a mixture of barely concealed envy and disdain, not enjoying the image in the mirror. The Truth may be influenced by perspective, but rarely lives up to the desired fantasy.



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Movie Review: The Purge (2013)

A home invasion horror movie, The Purge proposes a warped evolution of societal violence, but the execution quickly reverts to traditional defend-the-fort cliches. 

The United States of 2022 is under the political leadership of the "New Founding Fathers". Crime and unemployment are at an all-time low, but once a year all crimes are legal for a 12 hour period called "the purge". The time-limited release of aggression is credited with eliminating lawlessness and enabling economic prosperity.

James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a successful security systems executive married to Mary (Lena Headey) with two kids, surly teenager Zoey and the younger Charlie. The Sandins live in a good neighbourhood and plan to wait out this year's purge behind a sturdy security system including shields and cameras. 

But the night goes awry when first Zoey's boyfriend Henry secretly hides in the Sandin house, then Charlie provides refuge to a Black stranger (Edwin Hodge) being hunted by a blood-thirsty mob of privileged youth. James and Mary have difficult decisions to make and are forced to fight for their lives.

Director and writer James DeMonaco conceptualizes a contentious and dystopian solution to a society overrun by crime: have at it, but for just one night each year. The rationalization is grounded in providing an outlet for natural human belligerence, with the ends justifying the means: the United States is thriving with near zero rates of unemployment and crime.

But as the Sandins discover during the course of one harrowing night, the purge is also a sanctioned culling of the less privileged in society. The homeless, defenceless and those deemed undesirable make for easy killings. And while James and Mary can support the theory of the purge, and indeed profit from it, the dynamics are different when they - and their kids - are face to face with an intended victim in the form of the Black stranger seeking shelter. A close-up of the perpetrators as snotty nosed kids hiding behind smiley masks and partying through the kill adds a layer of disgust.

But the thoughtfully insane premise only takes The Purge so far. Even at the short length of 85 minutes, DeMonaco spends too much tiresome time in well-worn flashlight-through-the-darkness, what's behind-the-corner territory, and then bloody close-quarters combat as James and Mary do their best to fend off the invaders. Every minor plot milestone is telegraphed in advance and arrives with the soggy smell of predictability.

Ethan Hawke never needs to shift away from a singular expression, yielding the most memorable role to a pasty-faced Rhys Wakefield as the leader of the rampaging/carousing mob. The Purge posits an unnerving near-future, but retreats to the hide-and-seek games of the past. 



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Movie Review: First Reformed (2017)

A personal drama about the ravages of creeping depression, First Reformed is an intense portrait of a man teetering on the edge of the mental abyss.

In Albany, New York, Pastor Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is in charge of the historic but relatively tiny First Reformed church, now serving mostly as a tourist attraction. Nearby is the Abundant Life megachurch run by Pastor Joel Jeffers (Cedric "The Entertainer" Kyles). Toller's health is poor and he is still dealing with the trauma of losing his son in the Iraq War and the subsequent disintegration of his marriage. He tries to avoid Esther (Victoria Hill), the choir director at Abundant Life, ashamed of the affair they had when his marriage was failing.

Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a member of the community, implores Toller to speak to her troubled husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), an environmental activist with a prison record and eco-terrorism tendencies. Michael is growing increasingly depressed about the fate of the world due to climate change, and is pressuring Mary to abort her pregnancy. Toller and Michael have a long debate about the battle between despair and hope, but shocking tragedy strikes before they can meet again. With his health deteriorating and his drinking increasing, Toller sinks into a depression and starts to contemplate the unimaginable.

A potent mixture of personal demons clashing with guilt over human-caused global destruction, First Reformed combines two powerful themes. Written and directed by Paul Schrader, the film is a cerebral and intensely personal character study. But it also carries broader commentary on depression finding amplification in the cause of a world warming towards catastrophic inhospitality.

Schrader uses Toller's daily journal as a sometimes verbose narrative device to reveal a man struggling against his own failings. He desperately wants to do better but is weighed down by insurmountable suffering and the burden of betrayal, and drowning a severe stomach ailment with hard drinking does not help.

The debate with Michael is a trigger event, and Schrader leverages the encounter as a pivot point, superficially a stalemate but sowing dangerous seeds in Toller's heart. Michael's treatise on a burning future globe extinguishes the remaining vestiges of hope.

The film seeks a gloomy yet picturesque northeast aesthetic. The quaint First Reformed church, once a place of refuge along the underground railway, is a throwback to a bygone era. Now it's a perfunctory stop for tourists seeking trinkets, Toller's role as souvenir salesman as important as his function as Pastor. The nearby Abundant Life is comparatively cavernous and soulless, a place where big business can write cheques to earn propaganda points, and Toller recognizes he has no future at either church.

Ethan Hawke commits to the dour man drawn to the logic of illogical solutions, his thin facade often cracked by a tortured smile. Schrader offers Toller one glimmer of hope in the form of the appropriately named Mary, hinting at love, devotion and nurturing as the antidotes to anguish, even as one man hurtles towards a singular countdown to extinction.

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Movie Review: In A Valley Of Violence (2016)

A budget western, In A Valley Of Violence seeks a Spaghetti Western vibe but offers a clunky and feeble script stacked with overly familiar elements.

Mysterious drifter Paul (Ethan Hawke) and his dog Abbie are heading to Mexico to escape a dark past full of violence. They tangle with a drunk preacher (Burn Gorman) before riding into the small and sparsely populated town of Denton. Local hardhead Gilly Martin (James Ransone) resents Paul's presence and earns a humiliating punch in the face for his troubles.

Gilly's fiancee Ellen (Karen Gillan) and her younger sister Mary-Anne (Taissa Farmiga) run the local hotel. The talkative Mary-Anne takes a liking to Paul, but he is mostly silent and brooding. Gilly's father is Marshal Clyde Martin (John Travolta), and he asks Paul to quietly leave town. But the deeply insulted Gilly and three goons catch up with Paul to seek revenge, resulting in plenty of bloodshed.

The opening credit sequence is an effective and nostalgic ode to Spaghetti Westerns enlivened by a Jeff Grace music score. The dog Abbie is exceptionally well trained and steals every scene she is in. But these are just about the only positives offered by In A Valley Of Violence.

Writer and director Ti West appears to be operating with limited resources, the entire film effectively constructed from about a dozen scenes, most of them achingly prolonged well past the point of effectiveness to scratch out a 99 minute feature. The town of Denton consists of 10 residents, background extras an out of reach luxury in this valley.

Also lacking is any sense of originality. This is a straightforward revenge western where the bad guys are bad, the good guy is escaping a dark past, and the dog angle is lifted straight from John Wick. The writing is rudimentary, West quick to snatch at unearned epic moments. The humour is welcome and sometimes sharp, but also uneven and as the climax approaches, the attempted laughs clash with the prevailing tone.

Ethan Hawke is decent within the confines of the material despite a scattershot backstory consisting of vaguely defined incidents. John Travolta is unsure what to do with the role of a Marshal with one wooden leg and one dense but dangerous son. James Ransone is shallow as the villain of the piece, and both Karen Gillan and Taissa Farmiga are treated as irritating afterthoughts.

In A Valley Of Violence is the place to find tired western cliches in search of a better project.

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Movie Review: Sinister (2012)

A horror movie about a series of chilling unsolved family murders, Sinister extracts maximum impact from old 8mm footage of abhorrent crimes but is otherwise too reliant on standard genre clichés.

True crime author Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) has not written a successful book in years. With financial pressures mounting, he relocates his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) and two young children Ashley and Trevor to a new community to research his latest book. He wants to investigate the unsolved death of four members of the Stevenson family, found hanging from their backyard tree. Their young daughter Stephanie was never located and remains missing.

Ellison does not tell Tracy they have moved into the actual Stevenson house where the hangings took place. Upon starting his research he finds a box with a Super 8mm projector and a set of labeled films. To his horror he discovers every reel depicts a different gruesome real mass murder of an entire family, dating back many years and each occurring in a different city. With daughter Ashley drawing spooky imagery on the walls and son Trevor suffering from night terrors, Ellison's life begins to unravel as he investigates the links between the murders.

Sinister fully exploits the inherent spookiness of old jittery films voyeuristically chronicling the lives and deaths of unsuspecting families. The premise is built upon an unseen murderer gleefully capturing crimes on film, and the scenes featuring the 8mm movies carry a disturbing impact and propel the core mystery, as well as providing a treasure trove of clues. Repeated exposure to the abominations infiltrate Ellison's mind and unhinge his life.

The parallels to The Shining are present but subtle, as Ellison starts to succumb to the pressure of writing and experiences difficulty differentiating reality from fantasy. Director and co-writer Scott Derrickson is more blatant about the price of chasing fame and monetary glory, Ellison seemingly driven more by greed than any noble pursuit of truth and justice for murder victims.

While the suspense level is uniformly adequate, Sinister is hampered by an ill-advised over-reliance on darkness, Derrickson allowing most scenes to languish in insufficient or misdirected light. As well, too many segments default to boring what's-that-sound investigations, Ellison skulking around in the blackness towards the next cheap jump scare. The two kids Ashley and Trevor both bring pre-packaged creepy tendencies to the table, which only serve to encourage lazy writing.

Ethan Hawke is a steady presence in the middle of the murky mayhem, never stretching but conveying ample creeping discomposure.

Sinister works its way to an ancient bloodcurdling being thriving on the destruction of families and children, the line between image and reality blurring into a continuum of horror. The film is a mixed bag of inventiveness, but the films within the film create a special whir.

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Movie Review: Stockholm (2018)

A crime drama, Stockholm recreates the bank robbery at the origin of the condition known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

It's 1973, and an armed man who might be Kaj Hansson (Ethan Hawke) storms a large bank in central Stockholm. He takes a few hostages including tellers Bianca (Noomi Rapace) and Klara (Bea Santos), and demands the release of his friend Gunnar Sorensson (Mark Strong) from prison, a Mustang and $1 million. Police Chief Mattsson (Christopher Heyerdahl) handles the negotiations, and with widespread live television coverage, the event becomes a national crisis.

Bianca, a married mother of two children, establishes an unusual connection with Kaj. She tries to keep him calm and he promises not to kill her, despite his uttered threats to Mattsson. Gunnar is delivered to the bank to appease Kaj and potentially help in the negotiations. Prime Minister Olof Palme (Shanti Roney) insists the hostages be freed before the criminals are allowed to leave the bank, further inflaming the crisis, but the bond between the bank robber and Bianca only grows stronger.

The Stockholm Syndrome refers to hostages gaining sympathy for their aggressors, a phenomenon that first came to light due to the widespread media coverage of the 1973 bank hold-up. Loosely based on the actual event, Stockholm treads lightly into the terrain of psychology as assailants and hostages are placed under duress. Canadian director Robert Budreau orchestrates an uneasy melange of tension, humour and provocative romance, all fuelled by the unstable but undoubtedly charismatic bank robber.

Budreau's script brings the dynamics between Kaj and Bianca to the fore, and finds the seeds of affinity germinating in their humanity. She is an even-tempered employee, wife and mother, desperate to survive the ordeal and see her children again (her husband, not so much). He carries the weapons without really ever being in control of the situation, but senses her strength. The hostage-taking drags on for several days, allowing their relationship to evolve from survival codependency to something more.

But for a story about people more than events, Stockholm is limited in scope to what happens in the bank. Although a few scenes of dialogue attempt to invest in background depth, the characters' actions are undermined by insufficient definition. Ironically Bianca emerges as the slightly better rounded person, Noomi Rapace grabbing hold of Bianca's spirit and personal frustrations in a phenomenal scene where she gives cooking instructions to her wobbly husband. Ethan Hawke has less to work with, and resorts to stock nervous gunman mannerisms.

Just as the real incident was a messy and often bewildering affair, Stockholm enjoys ups and downs as a small group of people are forced into a vault, trigger fingers at the ready but with plenty of haphazard planning and wayward targeting.

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Movie Review: Maggie's Plan (2015)

A semi-serious romantic comedy, Maggie's Plan brings the subgenre down to earth with wry humour, a sprinkling of originality and flawed characters all around.

Maggie (Greta Gerwig) works as a liaison between students and business at an arts college. Unable to find a long-term relationship, she decides to have a baby using the donated sperm of pickle merchant Guy (Travis Fimmel). But she then meets and falls in love with anthropology professor John (Ethan Hawke), who is married to haughty Columbia University Professor Georgette (Julianne Moore) and the father of two young children. John is writing his first fiction book and finds Maggie an inspiration.

John divorces Georgette, marries Maggie and they have a child of their own. But it does not take long for the magic to disappear from their marriage, and John's book project comprehensively stalls. Georgette is jilted, but remains in close touch with John, leading Maggie to hatch a new plan in her quest for happiness.

Directed and written by Rebecca Miller, Maggie's Plan breathes organic life into the eternally tired rom-com formula. This is a story about three adults entering the midstream of life and carrying plenty of baggage, ranging from unmet expectations to ticking biological clocks, and more than capable of making a brand new set of mistakes. In celebrating the quirky foibles of her characters, Miller sidesteps most of the cliches that beset idyllic romances desperate to generate laughs.

Maggie always has a plan and always over-plans, a trait she recognizes but is unable to control. The plot is a succession of Maggie plans, from artificial insemination to marrying John and finally finding a way out of the misery of a marriage she thought she wanted. Greta Gerwig is delightful as the self-aware Maggie, always ditzy enough to make a right-sized mess out of every situation.

Georgette, to Maggie: I don't know what to say. You're a funny person. There is something so pure about you. You know, and a little bit stupid. And it's a kind of innocence. You know, just so unconscious. I can't help it. I like you.

Georgette is controlling, arrogant and yet loving and passionate, and Julianne Moore luxuriates in a Scandinavian accent and a complex performance as a smart woman deservedly dumped but only slightly resentful. John is mainly oblivious to the emotions of others and needs something different from each of Maggie and Georgette, the former an intellectual superior capable of pushing him and the latter a cheerleader and muse. Ethan Hawke is sympathetic as the struggling academic trampled by two women at a more assertive stage in life.

Maggie's Plan maintains a low-key, grounded tone, the humour anchored in the consequences of intricate life altering plans that sound good in concept, but never quite unfold as intended.

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Movie Review: Dad (1989)

A family drama, Dad tackles issues of aging and the complex dynamics between fathers and sons as well as husbands and wives.

In Los Angeles, elderly couple Bette and Jake Tremont (Olympia Dukakis and Jack Lemmon) are living out their retirement, with Bette controlling every last detail of Jake's life. As a result he is  disengaged, disinterested and utterly dependent. When Bette suffers a heart attack, their son John (Ted Danson) a Wall Street executive, flies in to help his sister Annie (Kathy Baker) and her husband Mario (Kevin Spacey) care for Jake.

John has not seen his parents for a few years and is shocked at Jake's emotional deterioration. With Bette in hospital, he sets about reviving his dad's spirit and love for life. Gradually Jake perks up and starts to take a much more active role in his own well-being. But more changes will impact Jake's promising rejuvenation: Bette returns home; John's wayward son Billy (Ethan Hawke) arrives for an unexpected visit; and an unwelcome health diagnosis will all play a role in the family's happiness.

Directed and written by Gary David Goldberg and based on a book by William Wharton, Dad enjoys a committed Jack Lemmon central performance, but is otherwise emotionally all over the place. With an intimate focus on familial matters the film is not many notches above standard television fare, but Lemmon at least ensures that great big-screen acting resides at the heart of the melodrama.

The film rides a nauseating emotional rollercoaster and crams too many sudden health turnarounds in less than two hours. Jake Tremont goes through about two and a half jarring down and up cycles in his physical and psychological well-being, dragging his small family along as he navigates up the mountain from the depth of despair to the giddiness of seemingly great health only to start another descent that precedes yet another climb. As a result Goldberg loses grip on what the film is intended to convey, with obscure and complex medical and psychological issues barely described before being allowed to run loose.

And Jake's health is far from the only matter of consequence: Dad also tries to explore the dynamic between a domineering wife and a submissive husband, an issue that probably deserved more exposition that it receives in the gaps between Jake's yo-yo health. And with John for the first time experiencing the fragility of his father's health, he reassesses his relationship with his own son Billy, and the film includes some decent side-quest scenes as the next generation attempts to avoid the same mistakes.

Ted Danson provides decent support, but is not helped by a script that never explains how he can suddenly shift gears, mentally and pragmatically, to be away for so long from his high-powered Wall Street job. Danson also struggles when the script demands strong displays of emotion, which are never his forte.

Dad offers some substantive topics, but overburdens its own capabilities.

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Movie Review: Maudie (2016)

A biography of Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, Maudie is a simple, heartfelt and slow-moving story about overcoming adversity with plenty of unlikely perseverance and limited talent.

It's the late 1930s in the small community of Marshalltown, Nova Scotia. Maud Dowley (Sally Hawkins) is a slightly eccentric dowdy spinster, abandoned by her brother and living with an aunt. Maud walks with a pronounced limp, suffers from arthritis and seems to have no prospects in life. But determined to make something of herself, she applies for a job as housekeeper for gruff fish salesman Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke).

Everett is a grumpy man of few words and fewer social skills, living on the edge of town in a tiny one-room house. Maud has to navigate around his moods just to keep her job as live-in cleaner and cook. Gradually they become close, and Maud starts to paint the walls of the house, demonstrating an artistic bent for simple images of nature. When her artwork is spotted by Sandra (Kari Matchett), a sophisticated tourist from New York, Maude's reputation as a folk artist starts to grow, but secrets from her past emerge to cause more pain.

The art of Maud Lewis is simple, innocent and childlike, inspired by the natural landscape of Canada's east coast. Maudie the film holds true to the same principles, maintaining an uncomplicated stance and relying on the central performance and the lost-in-time rural setting to capture the imagination.

There is nothing in the story deserving of shouts from rooftops. Lewis was an unassuming humble woman, and the film draws from her power of quiet determination to push back against personal and societal barriers to build momentum. Director Aisling Walsh keeps her cameras largely static, the passage of time slow and unassuming, allowing the sparse surroundings to seep onto the screen. The settings alternate from the idyllic small town with one general store and no secrets to the bumpy outskirts where Everett lives on the margins of society and Maud finds an unlikely home.

Maud and Everett become a couple without ever talking about becoming a couple, their affection conveyed through tolerance and accommodation rather than chemistry and sparks, an uncomfortable relationship between two misfits perfectly portrayed by Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke. Hawkins gets into Maud's skin and disappears within the character, a committed performance built on small increments of individual courage rather than large actions or words. Hawke pulls off the difficult task of turning a brooding, undomesticated man who initially favours his dogs and chickens over any other human into something resembling a sympathetic supportive character.

Maudie does test the patience with an over-reliance on mood, but despite the languid pacing the film is a worthwhile celebration of an unlikely cultural icon.

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Movie Review: Lord Of War (2005)

An exposé drama about the international arms trade, Lord Of War is a highly enjoyable romp through the business of selling the tools of death.

The son of Ukrainian refugees, Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) grew up in a rough Brooklyn neighbourhood and learned from personal experience the value of guns. In the early 1980s Yuri starts his own business as a gun dealer, before teaming up with his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) and quickly expanding into the international trade. Yuri becomes an expert in finding loopholes to break arms embargos, and particularly skilled in locating and reselling abandoned weapons caches around the world. His initial attempts to partner with Simeon Weisz (Ian Holm), the world's most renowned weapons dealer, are rebuffed.

Staying one step ahead of dogged and incorruptible Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), Yuri sells weapons in all the world's hotspots including Liberia where dictator André Baptiste Sr. (Eamonn Walker) becomes a favoured client. Yuri also wins the love of glamorous fashion model Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan) but Vitaly falls victim to a drug addiction. The fall of the Soviet Union results in a flood of new product on the market, and Yuri uses old family connections in Ukraine to expand his business and join the ranks of elite weapons traders. Weisz now needs Yuri's help, and Valentine remains in hot pursuit.

Written and directed by Andrew Niccol and co-produced by Cage, Lord Of War is an irreverent but sharp-eyed take on the world of independent gun smuggling inspired by real world characters such as Sarkis Soghanalian, Oleg Orlov and Viktor Bout. Touching down in the rubble of some of the world's worst conflict zones, the film pokes away at the double standards of an international system that places sanctions and admonishes dictators while ensuring men like Yuri carry on with the business of supplying rifles for child soldiers.

Although the story is undoubtedly episodic and over-narrated, Niccol finds a groove in the adventures of an antihero who uses every excuse in the book to justify his profession, and has every trick at his disposal to skate past international laws. The film moves briskly and with plenty of panache, Niccol finding memorable set-pieces in places as diverse as the rubble of war-torn Beirut, on the high seas off the shores of South America, in a derelict Monrovia hotel, in Ukrainian warehouses crammed with weaponry, and most effectively on a dusty road in Africa. A forced cargo plane landing results in a real-time lesson in third world armament distribution efficiency and recycling economics.

Meanwhile back home Yuri builds a life of wealth and comfort for his family. Ava and his parents turn a blind eye to the source of all the money until the glare of the obvious becomes impossible to ignore. But just as Vitaly is addicted to cocaine, Yuri is addicted to the thrill of the weapons deal, and with no shortage to the number of buyers, sellers and dirty wars, his services are always in demand. Nicolas Cage delivers a pragmatically laid back central performance built on an advanced intellect thriving in a despicable profession, his dead eyes concealing layers of self-delusion.

Lord Of War is a gut punch to the concept of a world at peace. As the guardians of morality profit from war, killing is Yuri's business, and business is good.

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