Movie Review: Even Money (2006)

Genre: Gambling Drama  

Director: Mark Rydell  

Starring: Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Kelsey Grammer, Tim Roth, Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Carla Gugino  

Running Time: 113 minutes  

Synopsis: Aspiring author Carolyn (Kim Basinger) is addicted to slot machines, but keeps her problem a secret from husband Tom (Ray Liotta). At the casino she meets and forms an empathy bond with has-been magician Walter (Danny DeVito). Clyde (Forest Whitaker) is deep in gambling debts owed to bookie Augie (Jay Mohr), and pressures his brother Godfrey (Nick Cannon), a star college basketball athlete, into shaving points. Both Augie and Walter have reasons to connect with ruthless criminal Victor (Tim Roth), who controls the biggest illegal gambling network on behalf of the reclusive Ivan. Meanwhile, police detective Brunner (Kelsey Grammer) tries to keep a lid on escalating violence in the gambling world.

What Works Well: This anthology benefits from the pervasive down-but-keep-digging psychology of gambling, with key characters deep into the addiction morass and far from seeking help. Kim Basinger and Forest Whitaker add star power to the doldrums, and allow the separate stories of Carolyn and Clyde to quickly develop within the efficient running time. Tim Roth contributes venom to Victor's heartless dean of crime, while Kelsey Grammer fits perfectly into a frumpled detective's overcoat, his defeated attitude saluting the human propensity for self-destruction.

What Does Not Work As Well: A sub-plot featuring Augie's partner in the bookie business Murph and his girlfriend (Carla Gugino) just gets in the way. Overall, emotions are confined to plastic predictability, and the resolutions default to tidyness carrying bags of faux poignancy.

Key Quote:

Detective Brunner (narrating): The question is...what are you willing to lay on the line?

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Movie Review: Havoc (2025)

Genre: Action Thriller  

Director: Gareth Evans  

Starring: Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, Luis Guzman, Timothy Olyphant  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: Corrupt cop Walker (Tom Hardy) investigates a massacre at the drug den of master criminal Tsui. Prime suspects and drug thieves Charlie (Justin Cronwell) and Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) are on the run, although Walker concludes they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Charlie is the son of real estate tycoon and mayoral candidate Lawrence (Forest Whitaker), who pays Walker to make scandals go away. With inexperienced cop Ellie (Jessica Mei Li) as his only ally, Walker has to find Charlie and Mia and keep them safe from a group of violent corrupt cops led by Vincent (Timothy Olyphant), and an army of goons assembled by Tsui's vengeful mother.

What Works Well: This is an over-the-top, wildly entertaining action thriller. In extended and often chaotic scenes of balletic violence, countless bullets fly, gallons of blood spurt from gaping wounds, and hordes of bad guys (and girls) are mowed down in cartoonish but artistic displays of excess. Director and writer Gareth Evans squeezes into less than two hours a complicated pursuit story with a rich set of characters but hardly any good people, just shades of bad ranging from dubious to despicable. Tom Hardy's Walker looks (and probably smells like) snail excrement, and yet he's the best hope to save the few souls worth salvaging.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is unrestrained narrative terrain devoid of most logic or common sense, and all the violence is ultimately numbing.

Key Quote:

Walker (narrating): You live in this world, you make choices. Choices you try to justify. For yourself, for your family. And for a while it works. Until it doesn't. Until you make a choice that renders everything worthless.

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Movie Review: The Great Debaters (2007)

Genre: Biographical Drama

Director: Denzel Washington

Starring: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker, John Heard

Running Time: 126 minutes

Synopsis: The setting is Texas in the 1930s. At the all-black Wiley College, teacher Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington) assembles a debate team including students Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), and James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Lowe is a spirited womanizer, Booke is the first woman to join the debate team, and Farmer is the precocious 14-year-old son of a preacher (Forest Whitaker). As the team's reputation grows with a series of wins, Tolson pursues union-organizing side-activities, a romance develops between Lowe and Booke, while Farmer harbours a crush on his female teammate and waits for his opportunity to shine.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, The Great Debaters carries the earnest appeal of scrappy underdogs using intellect and courage to overcome societal barriers and achieve national prominence. The production design recreates an appealing 1930s Texas aesthetic, with the debate topics adding the texture of the era's depression-driven societal issues. The prevailing Jim Crow laws infuse the drama with the ugly potency of an unjust society.

What Does Not Work As Well: The power inherent in the story is more impactful than the execution. Tolson's labour activism, Lowe's philandering, and the romantic entanglements are ultimately small stories that distract from the central narrative. Washington the director pays scant attention to the skills, training, and practice required to succeed at intellectual debates.

Conclusion: Upstanding but not outstanding.



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Movie Review: Phone Booth (2002)

A single-setting suspense thriller, Phone Booth is a compact psychological sniper drama, although the one-note premise unsurprisingly bumps up against obvious limitations.

In Manhattan, Stu Sheppard (Colin Farrell) is a cocky and fast-taking publicist, happy to obfuscate his way through life. Married to Kelly (Radha Mitchell), he is also romancing waitress Pam (Katie Holmes) and calls her regularly from a phone booth near Times Square to avoid cell phone records.

But today Stu answers a call at the booth from a mysterious Caller (Kiefer Sutherland), who threatens Stu's life with a sniper rifle. The Caller wants Stu to reveal his infidelity to Kelly, and apologize for all his other transgressions. After the Caller shoots dead a pimp interfering with the call, the police descend on the scene, as do Kelly and Pam. Captain Ed Ramey (Forest Whitaker) has to try and untangle a dangerous situation.

Written by Larry Cohen and directed by Joel Schumacher, Phone Booth was filmed in ten days and in sequence. The film's events take place in real time, Stu's ordeal wrapping up in 81 minutes, and the desired mood of taut efficiency is effectively sustained. Schumacher's agitated camerawork adds to the disorienting sense of suspense caused by an unseen foe.

The basic theme of repentance and owning up to a pattern of nefarious behaviour is compelling, but also dragged out as Cohen struggles to keep Stu in the phone booth. The plot details surrender to illogic, most obviously to keep Kelly and Pam in danger, and some of the dialogue exchanges meander towards superfluous profanity in search of cheap shock value.

But Colin Farrell stands up to the role's rigours and carves a sweaty path from slick to desperate and frantic, literally holding the film in his hand. On the other end of the line Kiefer Sutherland's voice suggests a worthy villain. Unfortunately the script affords him God-like powers until the moments that matter most, and the duel between the two men deserves better motivation than Stu's small-scale sleaze. 

Without withstanding much scrutiny, Phone Booth answers the call.



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Movie Review: Burden (2018)

A racism drama, Burden explores a small community plagued by white supremacists and one man's personal struggle to build a different life.

The setting is the small town of Laurens, South Carolina in 1996. Local Klu Klux Klan leader Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson) opens The Redneck Shop as a museum to celebrate white supremacy. His protege is Mike Burden (Garrett Hedlund), an army veteran abandoned as a child and raised by Tom. Black Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) is the head of the local Baptist Church and resists the supremacists with a message of love.

The Redneck Shop heightens tensions between the black community and Klan members, including incidents of racial abuse and violence. In the meantime Mike meets single mom Judy (Angela Riseborough) and they start a relationship, with Mike providing a father figure to Judy's young son Franklin. But Judy cannot tolerate being in a relationship with a Klan member, and asks Mike to make a choice, leading to grim consequences.

Based on a true story, Burden ventures into forgotten small town America bypassed by education, employment and economic prospects, where the white population refer to themselves as white trash. Writer and director Andrew Heckler creates a working class milieu devoid of hope and ambition, with the KKK's Tom Griffin and Reverend Kennedy engaged in an ongoing battle for a community's soul. Emotions are always close to the surface and Burden is never subtle, mirroring Laurens as a town stuck between a past that never left and a future that never arrived.

Here a man like Griffin can hold sway over all businesses and the police, and is free to openly practice his virulent form of hatred. He is a master at poisoning hearts and minds at a young age, then wields financial influence to exert continued control. Tom Wilkinson combines cold with smiley, oozing a pure representation of menace. In the opposite corner Forest Whitaker juggles faith with pragmatism as the Baptist reverend Kennedy, his family's patience running thin as he defies naked hate with gestures of kindness.

Caught in the middle is Mike Burden, and Heckler crafts a forceful arc for a simple man confronting deeply instilled demons, helped by internal fortitude and external support. Barely educated, functionally raised by the Klan and physically damaged during his army service, he is trusted enough by Tom to hold the lease to The Redneck Shop. But Burden's soul awakens once subjected to influences exerted purposefully by Judy and innocently by young Franklin and his black friend. Garrett Hedlund conveys Burden's fatigue as he questions all he was raised to believe, just as his gaunt frame wearily navigates odd angles caused by army injuries. 

Burden offers a spark of hope but also clear-eyed realism. One man does stumble upon a moment of reckoning, but a detestable movement remains deeply rooted.



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Movie Review: Southpaw (2015)

A boxing drama, Southpaw piles on the genre cliches in thick layers, but features good production values and a willing cast, along with pounding ring action.

Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the undisputed and undefeated light heavyweight boxing champion. Both he and his wife and confidant Maureen (Rachel McAdams) were orphans who had nothing as children. Now they can afford a lavish lifestyle, a grand mansion and private school for their young daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). Billy does possess a quick temper and depends on Maureen to manage most of life's details.

His aggressive no-defence boxing style also means he takes severe punishments during his bouts, and his latest victory comes with significant facial injuries and a deep cut over his left eye. Maureen pleads with him to consider retiring, but his manager Jordan Mains (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) is eager to line up a string of high profile money-making fights. A tragedy befalls the family, and Billy loses everything. He turns to down-to-earth trainer Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) to rebuild his life and career.

A most traditional fall-and-rise story, Southpaw almost chokes on banality. All the elements are recycled from the rich history of boxing movies, and writer Kurt Sutter surrenders early and often to every possible obvious platitude and broad emotion.

Hope's name, his hardscrabble upbringing, inability to control his temper, and contribution to his own downfall and the loss of a perfect wife and child come straight from the big book of boxing bromide. The triteness continues throughout the second half, a long road to redemption that starts with cleaning toilets and passess through learning what matters in life all the way towards a rousing shot at reclaiming past glories combined with revenge in one fatty roll.

Stuck in a swamp of the mundane, director Antoine Fuqua does have excellent talent working for him in the form of Jake Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker. Gyllenhaal occasionally slips into his almost comatose low-key mode, but otherwise maximizes all the available compassion within the Billy Hope character to provide the movie with a beating heart. Whitaker takes the overly familiar grizzled-trainer-in-a-derelict-gym and gives him undeserved grace and regency.

Fuqua also brings admirable and often bloody intensity to the boxing scenes. Without fully avoiding Hollywood's propensity to portray every bout as non-stop punch-fest, the training scenes do give the strategy aspects some prominence. The same concentration of energy is carried to all of life's events between the bouts, every turn in Hope's fortunes amplified to eleven.

Southpaw is as predictable as a weigh-in brawl, but carries the shine of a boxing ring under the lights.

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Movie Review: Black Panther (2018)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Movie Review: Rogue One (2016)

A spin-off story from the Star Wars universe, Rogue One slots in as a prologue to Episode 4. The story of the team that stole the Death Star plans is intermittently entertaining but also over-orchestrated.

Scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is forced by the Empire's director of weapons development Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) to work on the massive Death Star, a planet-destroying weapon. Years later, Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) defects, carrying a secret message from Galen to the rebels, letting them know that he is designing a vulnerability into the Death Star. The rebels recruit Galen's daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones) to try and steal the plans that expose the weakness.

Jyn teams up with rebel soldier Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and reprogrammed droid K-2SO, and through contact with master smuggler Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) they recruit blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his companion Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) to the cause. The ragtag group have to launch a dangerous mission deep in enemy territory to try and obtain the vital files.

Directed by Gareth Edwards, Rogue One is a sometimes rollicking space adventure, and in its second half occasionally rises to good levels of glossy excitement, Star Wars style. But this is also a story unnecessarily overstuffed with characters, names, events and locations, seemingly for the purpose of setting up additional future spin-off-worthy material for various peripheral people with exotic names.

Despite the good intentions and high production values, Rogue One carries the strong nagging sense of a lost opportunity. This could have been a smaller, more intimate and character-driven spy story, more about covert action and smart infiltration techniques as they could exist in the Star Wars universe.

Instead Edwards and screenwriters Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy can't help themselves. After throwing a bewildering number of new names onto the screen Rogue One builds up to a typical and overly-familiar Star Wars climax, dogfights in the sky featuring hundreds of rebel and imperial fighters, massive battleships dominating the skyline, and on the ground the usual multiple breathless cliffhangers, impossible physical feats and running laser battles involving hordes of star troopers. Subtle, this is not.

Jyn and Cassian are the most prominent characters, and they have to work hard amidst the overpopulated script to carve out any time and space to emerge as people worth caring about. They get to exchange a few lines of dialogue about sacrifice and personal choices, but then it's quickly onto the next close escape and brush with death. From among the many secondary characters Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen leave the best impression, with Yen's portrayal of a warrior with some affinity to the Force carrying both humour and poignancy.

Elsewhere, some familiar names make token late appearances, including Darth Vader, R2-D2 and C-3PO. Much less successful is the disconcerting decision to revive via CGI the long-dead Peter Cushing and superimpose his image onto the role of Grand Moff Tarkin. The image of a young Carrie Fisher is also briefly computer manipulated back onto the youthful Leia.

Rogue One offers a familiar space adventure, ticking the usual boxes and choosing the safe and corporately expedient option at every turn.

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Movie Review: Vantage Point (2008)

A clever action thriller, Vantage Point rises above the routine thanks to a patient structure that reveals the twisty plot from the viewpoints of several key characters.

A diplomatic anti-terrorism summit is being held in the small town of Salamanca, Spain. Early in the public ceremony witnessed by large crowds and covered by the international media, United States President Harry Ashton (William Hurt) is shot twice by an unseen assassin; then two explosions rock the city, causing mass casualties and panic, and killing opinionated reporter Angie Jones (Zoe Saladana).

The events are presented from the perspective of multiple witnesses, including television producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), secret service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), local police detective Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) and American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker). Gradually the threads of the conspiracy are revealed, and Barnes stumbles onto a much more complex plot involving layers of decoys, distractions and subterfuge.

Directed by Pete Travis, Vantage Point maintains a high level of energy thanks to slick production values, an intriguing mystery, and a puzzle-like structure. Although the rewinds and repetitions begin to become a bit tiresome about halfway through, there is enough juice in the story to maintain strong momentum.

The film's hook resides in the convoluted plot that is only gradually teased out of the multiple perspectives. Each retelling of the events at the public square pushes a bit deeper into the background and consequence, and it becomes apparent nothing is what it seems to be, no matter how many people witnessed the murderous atrocities. There are layers of deception and counter-deception at play, a chess game unfolding on the public stage but planned in the conspiratorial shadows.

The plot spends as little time as possible on politics and motives, and focuses instead on thrills and spills. An attack on a hotel is a smooth demonstration of one against many, while a long urban car chase recreates Bourne-style intensity but with less manic editing. Meanwhile the large explosion in the square is viewed from multiple angles but never loses its jarring impact. And the film finds a frantic yet tidy conclusion, all the vantage points coming together at the same time and place.

The ensemble cast shares the chapters, and gradually Dennis Quaid moves into centre stage. His character Thomas Barnes is provided with a brief background as a secret service agent still healing from the emotional scars of having taken a bullet to save the President's life during a previous assassination attempt. Given the fragmented scheme unfolding around him, Quaid does well to inject some character intensity into his scenes. Barnes' partner Agent Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) and initially peripheral characters Veronica (Ayelet Zurer), Sam (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Javier (Édgar Ramírez) gain in prominence as more is revealed about the plot.

Vantage Point defines its ambition and stays within it, delivering a controlled multi-angled barrage of thrills.

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Movie Review: The Last Stand (2013)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-politics big screen comeback kicks off with The Last Stand, a ridiculously fun B-movie running on surplus adrenaline.

In an audacious escape during a prisoner transfer in Las Vegas, drug lord Gabriel Cortez (Eduaro Noriega) is freed from the clutches of FBI Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker). Cortez takes Agent Ellen Richards (Génesis Rodríguez) hostage and using a souped-up Chevrolet Corvette speeds towards the border with Mexico. Meanwhile his heavily armed goons under the leadership of Thomas Burrell (Peter Stormare) are constructing a bridge over a narrow ravine near the dusty town of Sommerton Junction, Arizona. Cortez blows through every barricade and check point that Bannister throws in his way along the desert highway. The only thing standing between Cortez and ill-gained freedom is Ray Owens (Schwarzenegger), the grizzled Sheriff of Sommerton.

A former Los Angeles police force drug enforcement agent, Owens moved to Sommerton in search of a quiet life as he fades into retirement. His deputies Mike (Luis Guzmán), Sarah (Jaimie Alexander) and Jerry (Zach Gilford) are inexperienced and generally inept. Outgunned and outnumbered, Owens nevertheless decides to make a stand to stop Cortez, with the help of eccentric local gun collector Lewis Dinkum (Johnny Knoxville) and bad boy Frank Martinez (Rodrigo Santoro).

A cross between Rio Bravo, The Fast And The Furious and a Roadrunner cartoon, The Last Stand is a slick exercise in mindlessly clever action. Directed by Kim Jee-woon with an eye for sly style, the film pops with vivid colours, loud noise, over-the-top violence and quite a bit of wicked humour.

Amidst the calculated mayhem, The Last Stand also manages to throw in some lines of satire and wry observations. Owens is an immigrant seeking rustic calm, and he personally resents Cortez for giving immigrants a bad name. There are references to the craziness of Los Angeles, and a wink towards the carnage about to be unleashed on a sleepy border town. Kim injects copious amounts of local flavour, and the secondary characters populating Sommerton provide an animated backdrop fuelled by dry humour.

But this is a film all about action, and Kim does not disappoint. Once the guns start firing in earnest they really don't stop, and the final 30 minutes feature a sublime battle followed by an old-fashioned man-to-man showdown. The havoc is filmed with almost balletic artistry, Kim demonstrating an eye for cohesive composition and eloquent scene construction. Before the climactic gun battle, Cortez provides all the kinetic energy as he speeds along the highway in a missile of car. The driving scenes are exquisite, capturing unbridled speeds generated by a monstrous engine and sleek aerodynamics along the open road.

Despite all the gloss, The Last Stand never threatens to be anything other than implausible. The story is contrived and shallow, the acting stiff, and the characters lack any semblance of depth. But none of that matters; in many ways this is a throwback to the earliest Arnold movies, when brawn ruled and brains stayed outside the theatre. The man may be much older, but he can still haul around the biggest available machine gun.

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Movie Review: Arrival (2016)

A low-key alien-contact film wielding enormous power, Arrival is a superlative experience, transcending the genre and transforming the mystery of communication into a private and yet monumental journey.

Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) experiences the cancer-induced death of her teenaged daughter and separation from her husband. When twelve alien spacecraft suddenly land at various locations across Earth, Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) of the US Army recruits Louise to the Montana landing site to try and decipher the aliens' communications.

Louise joins forces with theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and together they lead a team of scientists entering the alien spaceship at regular intervals and attempting to understand the intentions of the visitors. Teams at the other landing sites, including China and Australia, are doing the same. The aliens are revealed to be seven-legged gigantic "heptapods" with a sophisticated language written in circular imagery. Louise makes good progress in deciphering the alien language, but when the heptapods seemingly start to make reference to weapons, the Chinese are panicked into an aggressive stance, jeopardizing all communications.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer, Arrival is an exceptionally thoughtful treatment of an eternal question: how will humans react when aliens appear within our midst? With mistrust across national borders and tensions simmering closer to home between militaristic and scientific approaches to problem solving, the likelihood of a successful interaction with aliens starts with a low probability and stumbles on from there. The human propensities for doubt, fear, mistakes and misunderstandings always tilt the odds towards violence.

Villeneuve and Hessler balance the film on this knife's edge early on and leave it there for the two hour duration. The aliens' intentions are unknown. They clearly possess incredibly advanced technology, and the implications to humanity could range from annihilation to a transformative leap forward. The military types represented by Weber and CIA Agent David Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) create just enough space and time for the civilians to do their work, but the threat of a turn to brutality hovers over Louise and Ian.

And it is never a certainty that peaceful interaction is the appropriate response when human survival is at stake. Louise is in a race against time to burst through the language barrier, and every time she has to argue that "weapon" maybe means "tool", the level of skepticism rises.

Arrival does not yield to cushy best-of-humanity-coming-together tendencies. Although there is tentative cooperation between the world powers grappling with the same aliens, the collaboration is tenuous at best. As the story unfolds, Louise realizes that the challenge of communicating between humans will be as critical as connecting with the aliens.

Stylistically, the film triumphs with a muted, almost dour aesthetic representative of a hurried human response to a seminal event, punctuated by the elemental beauty of the alien spacecraft. The interactions between the human characters and across the species divide are difficult and slow. There are no quick breakthroughs, as there is no hasty bonding between Louise and Ian.

The majesty of Arrival resides in Louise's mental awakening, a journey represented by flashes and visions she experiences as her immersive interactions with the aliens' language grow more intense. There are tantalizing but still opaque clues as to where her journey will end, and Villenueve builds the narrative to a breathtakingly magnificent climax, a resolution both deeply personal for Louise and comprehensively holistic for humanity.

Amy Adams delivers a haunting performance, filled with the apprehensions of a woman thrust into an equipment-heavy world at the pointy end of historic events. Adams allows Louise to be at once determined, full of self-doubt, and wrestling with overwhelming events both within the alien craft and in her increasingly lucid consciousness.

Broad in scope and yet profoundly intimate, Arrival takes its place among the great cinematic achievements imagining humanity's initial contacts with other beings.

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Movie Review: Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

A Vietnam War comedy drama, Good Morning, Vietnam ignited Robin Williams' film career. His manic performance as Armed Forces DJ Adrian Cronauer showcases his genius comic talents, and director Barry Levinson surrounds him with a weighty story that satirizes war without undermining its gravity.

It's 1965 and the US troop build-up in Vietnam is gaining strength. The Saigon-based Armed Forces Radio Service broadcasts bland announcements, heavily censored news and anemic music. Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer (Williams) arrives as the new DJ, and immediately shakes the place up. He launches into high energy and hilarious monologues, plays rock 'n' roll music, makes fun of the news and the military, and threatens to ignore the censors. His supervisors Lieutenant Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and Sergeant Major Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) are horrified, but the troops quickly become fans and the new DJ achieves celebrity status.

Despite the protestations of his assistant Private Eddie Garlick (Forest Whitaker), Cronauer spots local beauty Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana) and starts to romantically pursue her. He establishes a friendship with her brother Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran) and designates himself as an English language teacher to get closer to Trinh, and starts to understand the local culture and customs. But the war is getting more serious, bombings and bloodshed arrive in Saigon, and the military brass start to lose patience with Cronauer and his antics.

Good Morning, Vietnam is an often raucous comedy with a heavy heart. Director Barry Levinson constructs an anti-war film propelled by a counter-culture hero, but also manages to separate the soldiers from their superiors, and the politicians from the troops. The war is portrayed as both an idiotic policy and a massive troop deployment adventure, an army doing what it does in bumbling through a foreign land, while politicians blindly equate increased numbers with better odds of winning. Meanwhile there are civilians and families witnessing their land being torn apart, and its all playing out to a soundtrack of revolutionary rock.

After having struggled for several years to translate his undoubted talent into an appealing big screen presence, Good Morning, Vietnam is Williams' spectacular film career launch party. Once experienced, his performance as Cronauer is impossible to forget. He is a force of nature, his mostly improvised rapid fire delivery of sarcastic and biting humour from behind the broadcast microphone is unconstrained in content and intensity. Keeping up with Williams is exhilarating and exhausting, and the film derives boundless energy from his manic intensity.

But there is a lot more to the film than the central performance. The script by Mitch Markowitz, loosely inspired by the real Cronauer's experiences, mercilessly satirizes the military leadership, but in its second half is also a serious look at the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Cronauer's pursuit of Trinh, his brush with the culture, and his eventual wanderings within the labyrinths of Vietnam's jungles (he walks in circles) and Saigon's back alleys (he gets quickly disoriented) are unmistakable metaphors.

Like America, Cronauer may think he has all the answers, all the swagger and all the confidence to get what he wants, but the country, the city and the people are much more complex than he imagines, and with the best of intentions he stumbles into an unintended mess. Unlike the glib tripe served up by MASH, here war is of course a target, but the violence of war always hurts, and the conflict's long term implications are on display for those who wish to probe.

Williams needed straight men to withstand his barrage of humour, and the supporting cast deliver. Bruno Kirby and J.T. Walsh have rarely been better as Hauk and Dickerson, stiff military officers who suffer the most when Cronauer jerks their precious radio station towards pandemonium. Forest Whitaker represents the soldiers who quickly get and adopt the new DJ as one of their own, and celebrate his exuberance like a fresh breeze in the jungle heat.

Good Morning, Vietnam ends with revelations, hard truths, and a soft ball game. Some lessons will be learned by individuals on the ground, but there is less hope for the detached decision makers in offices. And as always, pieces of broken language and sports culture are left strewn on the dusty streets, sometimes the only useful legacy of warfare.

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Movie review: Species (1995)

A science fiction horror film inspired by Alien, Species competently transforms the premise to a murderous hybrid alien on the loose in Los Angeles, but suffers from plastic characters and routine execution.

A secret government space exploration lab has made contact with a seemingly friendly superior alien race. The aliens transmit an ingenious DNA sequence, and scientists under the direction of Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) mix the code with human genes to create a girl they call Sil (Michelle Williams). When she starts experiencing painful nightmares, Fitch decides to exterminate Sil with cyanide. She breaks out, escapes the facility and makes her way to Los Angeles. Killing when cornered, Sil quickly grows into a woman (Natasha Henstridge), and starts seeking men to procreate with.

Fitch assembles a team of experts to hunt down Sil. Press (Michael Madsen) is a specialist in exterminating inconvenient fugitives on behalf of the government, and he is joined by Dan (Forest Whitaker), who has special empathetic powers, while Stephen (Alfred Molina) and Laura (Marg Helgenberger) are scientists. With Fitch they track Sil to Los Angeles, where she is leaving a trail of corpses in her pursuit of the perfect man to mate with.

With the monster effects created by H.R. Giger, the similarities with the Alien universe are numerous. Here again the alien is close to indestructible, seeks to breed, and uses humans to grow. When the Species alien beneath the skin is revealed, it may as well be the close cousin of the critters battled repeatedly by Ripley and company. Even the black-green tone and spaced title font on the film poster is derivative.

Species is never less than moderately exciting as an action movie with good, yucky special effects, and the occasional gory scare. But director Roger Donaldson, working from a Dennis Feldman script, is unable to do much with the premise. A fundamental problem resides with the characters of Fitch and his team members, who are underdeveloped, quite simplistic and generally unsympathetic. With no human protagonists worth investing in, Sil herself emerges as the most compelling character. And as a half-alien in a strange world, there is plenty for her to learn and then manipulate to gain the advantage over humans, LA style. Most appropriately, she picks up most of what she needs to know by watching television.

Sil's journey from frightened child to irresistible schemer is helped by newcomer Natasha Henstridge saying little and happily trading on her looks and sex appeal. She may be an alien in heat, but she is also in frequently naked human form, and the combination of seductive vulnerability and killer instinct becomes the driving force of the film.

But too often, the film defaults to stock humans-chasing-alien. A routine, prolonged, seemingly interminable climax in cave-like sewers below Los Angeles, trying hard to simulate a distant planet environment, sucks the remaining energy out of the film. Ironically, Species is at its most compelling when the alien is above the surface, disguised as just another California blonde.

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Movie Review: Panic Room (2002)

A women-under-siege suspense thriller, Panic Room is a competently delivered film with a committed Jodie Foster performance and fluid directing from David Fincher. Despite all the polish, many predictable elements of the home invasion sub-genre do creep in.

Recent divorcée Meg Altman (Foster) and her mouthy 11 year old daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) purchase a swish four-story townhouse in tony Upper Manhattan, previously owned by an ailing millionaire with secrets. The home features a reinforced panic room designed to protect occupants against home invaders. On their first night at the home, Meg and Sarah are awakened by three intruders: Junior (Jared Leto), Burnham (Forest Whitaker), and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam).

Meg and Sarah make it into the panic room and lock themselves in. But Junior and his crew are after money hidden in a safe within the panic room. With Meg unable to call for outside help and the invaders struggling to break into the panic room, a tense standoff ensues. As the night progresses, Meg learns that Junior has a connection to the previous owner of the house, while Burnham's occupation places him at an advantage in trying to gain access to the panic room. Raoul, meanwhile, is a violent wildcard, and Sarah suffers from a condition that will make it even more difficult for her to survive the ordeal.

With the well-worn premise easily describable in three words, it's up to Fincher to create an entertaining drama and stretch proceedings while maintaining interest over almost two hours. He digs deep into his bag of tricks and finds enough pizazz to give Panic Room a decent shine. With the townhouse itself stepping in as the alternative star of the film, Fincher adopts a philosophy of fluid camera movement and long takes, often simulating the point-of-view passing through walls and ceilings. The break-in scene is a masterpiece of assumed continuity, the cameras tracking the invaders' movements outside the house, testing multiple entry points at various levels before finally achieving access.

In terms of content, the film settles down to the two women in the room gathering their courage and trying to plot an escape or a rescue, and the three men outside the room trying to breach the panic room's defences. That there is bickering on both sides of the wall is a given. Meg and Sarah are dealing with the debris of Meg's divorce and are often barely civil with each other. Junior is obsessed, Burnham is circumspect and Raoul is simmering with the threat of violence. The men are the furthest thing from a well-oiled criminal trio, and the fissures between them are established early. The squabbling throughout the house allows the David Koepp script to delve into the characters during the frequent lulls in action, and the film finds a modest balance between suspense scenes and background context.

The final act reverses occupancies and powers into more mindless action territory, as the guns and sledgehammers swing into action, an additional character is brought into the house, there are typical Ramboesque heroics, he's-still-not-dead! surprises and bodies that start to pile up. In short, the more calculable, less cerebral elements are brought to the fore. And as is usual for this fare, the bad guys find ways to become especially incompetent when it matters most.

Jodie Foster delivers a grim performance filled with reluctant courage, giving Meg the inner fortitude to fight on all fronts. A young Kristen Stewart matches Foster, and does her part to create inner family tension while also hinting at the maturing young woman within the girl trapped in the panic room. The three invaders are brought to life with a good mixture of hesitancy and menace by the quite watchable Leto, Whitaker and Yoakam.

Panic Room may not find too many new corners to explore, but the film at least looks good treading over the reasonably familiar real estate.

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Movie Review: The Butler (2013)

The story of a black butler who served at the White House under numerous administrations, The Butler is a mildly enjoyable drama centred on the history of the black civil rights movement as experienced from a unique vantage point.

On a Georgia cotton plantation in the 1920s, Cecil Gaines is a young boy helping his parents in the fields when his mother is raped and his father is killed by the farm's owner (Alex Pettyfer). The plantation's matriarch (Vanessa Redgrave) takes pity on Cecil and converts him to a house servant. As a teenager, Cecil leaves his origins behind and makes his way north, stumbling into a job at a modest hotel and eventually securing a position at the fancy Excelsior Hotel in Washington DC. By the late 1950s Cecil (Forest Whitaker) is offered the coveted position of White House butler, with Eisenhower (Robin Williams) and his Vice President Nixon (John Cusack) in office.

Cecil marries Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) and they start a family, although his long hours at work take a toll on their marriage. Their son Louis (David Oyelowo) grows into an idealistic young man seeking to translate theoretical black rights into actual societal change in the South. Much to Cecil's consternation, Louis becomes an activist who lands in jail with alarming regularity, and eventually joins Dr. Martin Luther King's circle. Meanwhile, Cecil observes the successive administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy (James Marsden), Johnson (Liev Schreiber), and Nixon grapple with the changing social landscape, as blacks slowly and painfully gain the rights to equal treatment.

Very loosely inspired by the life of Eugene Allen, who worked as a White House butler for 34 years, The Butler (also known as Lee Daniels' The Butler) is a staid recounting of the civil rights movements from the late 1950s to the election of Barack Obama as the first black President. Directed by Daniels, the film revisits familiar material from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan eras (Carter and Ford are afterthoughts), as Cecil Gaines finds himself with an unlikely front row seat to more than 30 years of White House history.

The Butler suffers from being an observer of history rather than having any meaningful part in shaping it. Cecil Gaines actually instigates precious little over the more than two hours of running time. History happens around him, and he catches snippets of it. While the focus on the civil rights struggle provides an admirably concise summary of an essential slice of American history, the film never gains traction as a drama and does not generate any emotion momentum. All the screen time invested on Gaines' family life, including Gloria' frustration with her husband's long absences, her drinking problems, and her toying with the idea of an extra-marital affair with a neighbour (Terrence Howard) is quite mundane and more tedious than engaging.

Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong go looking for sources of tension, and find them more in the fully manufactured story of Louis Gaines. The activist son fighting at street level in the deep South for the meaningful fulfillment of black rights is carrying on his father's legacy, but of course Cecil only sees a headstrong young man potentially throwing away a hard-earned opportunity for a respectable life. Louis appears to show up at every major incident in black history, including Dr. Martin Luther King's motel room on the day he was killed. The estrangement between father and son takes over as the focal point of the film, but is too easily fabricated and just as conveniently resolved.

Forest Whitaker is fully committed in portraying Cecil from a young man carving out the early stages of his life to a stooped old grandfather witnessing the election of the first black US President. The performance is good, but is more concerned with studious aging rather than capturing any compelling dynamism. David Oyelowo provides the most watchable character, bringing a steely eyed intensity to the generation of black youth that pushed a dream into real change. The huge supporting cast includes Cuba Gooding, Jr. as another White House butler, while Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda bring Ronald and Nancy Reagan to the screen.

The Butler moves with elegance, and allows events to surround him while maintaining a watchful eye. The film offers as interesting a perspective as can be expected from the standpoint of the silent witness.

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Movie Review: Consenting Adults (1992)

A klutzy thriller with an uneven tone, Consenting Adults tries to convey a slick erotic vibe but then morphs into ridiculous murder territory and sinks under the weight of its misguided pretensions.

Richard and Priscilla Parker (Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) are a typical suburban couple, working in the music industry, raising their daughter, grappling with some debt issues, and dealing with a passion-reduced marriage. Eddie and Kay Otis (Kevin Spacey and Rebecca Miller) move in as the new couple next door. Eddie is a fast-talking, risk-taking bundle of energy, with a solution to every problem, no qualms about bending the law, and a pushy personality.

The two couples become friends, and Richard can't help but be attracted to the winsome Kay, an amateur blues singer with a husky voice. Eddie pulls an insurance scam to generate some quick money for the Parkers, and then starts to hint at a wife-swap, initially horrifying Richard. But sensing that Priscilla may be open to the experience, Richard warms up to the idea. Then a bloody murder is committed, turning Richard's life completely upside down.

Directed by Alan J. Pakula, the first 45 minutes of Consenting Adults is a fairly interesting exploration of close to middle age angst, and the pressures of work, kids, and finances as they attack the stability of a marriage and leave it vulnerable to outside temptations. Eddie is a catalyst to stir the Parker relationship, and stir he does. Eddie offers a window into an attractive lifestyle where, with just a bit of innovative skirting of societal laws, everything can be refreshed.

The first half of the film peaks with the promise of the Parkers succumbing to sexual experimentation as the next step in spicing up their lives towards the dark side, and then the film falls apart. Whether or not intended as a clumsy thou-shall-pay-the-price-for-coveting-thy-neighbour's-wife morality tale, Consenting Adults jettisons all its thoughtful content and disintegrates into cheap, large plot-hole filled murder and mayhem territory, culminating in asinine Ramboesque infiltrations and no less a weapon than an Uzi submachine gun making a late appearance to settle scores.

Kevin Kline delivers what must be one the worst performances of his career. He spends the first half of the film in a dumbfounded, dormant trance, before suddenly turning into an action hero with Bruce Willis capabilities. Kevin Spacey dominates with his excitable portrayal of Eddie, an infectious personality that devours life. But even Eddie falls off the cliff of sanity, along with the back-half of the film. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Rebecca Miller are fine, but also underutilized. Forest Whitaker as an insurance company investigator and E.G. Marshall as a crusty lawyer make late appearances before disappearing into irrelevance, making way for the flying bullets and swinging baseball bats.

Consenting Adults is frozen between attempted cerebral thriller and botched cretinous action, and is finally just caught with its pants down.

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