Movie Review: Parkland (2013)

Genre: Historical Drama  

Director: Peter Landesman  

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

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

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

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

Key Quote: 

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

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Movie Review: Father Stu (2022)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Rosalind Ross  

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jackie Weaver, Malcolm McDowell  

Running Time: 124 minutes  

Synopsis: In Montana of the 1980s, Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg) is drifting through life as an amateur boxer. His mother Kathleen (Jacki Weaver) lives nearby, but his frequently drunk father Bill (Mel Gibson) is in California, the family having never recovered from the childhood death of Stu's brother. When the boxing injuries add up, Stu relocates to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He falls in love with Carmen (Teresa Ruiz), a devout Catholic. She introduces him to her church community before an accident changes his outlook.

What Works Well: Director and writer Rosalind Ross sprinkles humour into a search-for-purpose biographical drama, and allows Stu to remain true to himself as his life takes unexpected twists. The spiritual tones are prominent but well controlled by healthy skepticism, and the romance between Stu and Carmen is an effective catalyst. In a commanding central performance full of zest, Mark Wahlberg undergoes a couple a startling physical transformations from unkempt boxer to a man of religion. He is ably supported by Mel Gibson's angry-at-the-world father and Jacki Weaver's still-hopeful mother.

What Does Not Work As Well: The aesthetics, sets, and sense of time and place rarely rise above monotonous blandness, while the title's revelation of Stu's ultimate destination ensures his journey is amiable but also predictable.

Conclusion: A feel-good story about finding passion while confronting adversity.



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Movie Review: Goldstone (2016)

A crime drama, Goldstone benefits from a slow-burning pace and magnificently desolate landscapes in a story of greed and corruption consuming local culture.

In the Australian outback, hard-drinking Aboriginal federal detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) arrives at the small mining town of Goldstone to investigate the case of a missing young Asian woman. The town is dominated by the Furnace Creek mining company, and local law officer Josh Waters (Alex Russell) is content to ignore any talk of crime and remains uncooperative with Jay.

To enable a massive expansion of mining operations, Goldstone's Mayor Maureen (Jacki Weaver) is secretly working with Furnace Creek's foreman Johnny (David Wenham) to buy-off the local Aboriginal tribe. Indigenous band council member Tommy (Tommy Lewis) receives bundles of cash from Maureen to keep the tribe quiet, but band elder Jimmy (David Gulpilil) refuses to fall in line.

Jay uncovers a human smuggling operation financed by Furnace Creek forcing young Asian women into prostitution to serve the men at the mine. Josh awakens to his duties and starts to make life uncomfortable for Maureen, who threatens violence.

When a local is a stranger in his own land, trouble is sure to follow. In Goldstone, writer and director Ivan Sen invades the soul of Jay Swan and finds a deeply damaged man, mourning the loss of his daughter and repeatedly advised by whites (Josh and Maureen) and aboriginals (Tommy) to pack up and get out. But Jay is on a sanctioned mission to uncover the fate of a missing woman, this time a stranger forced into a strange land, and he is certain that by tugging on this one thread a whole lot of rot will be revealed.

The film builds dangerous power from Aaron Pedersen's brooding, dishevelled performance, and Jay's deployment of silence for strategic advantage. Many scenes feature the detective dominating his surroundings without saying a word, leaving others to talk their way into trouble. And his silence is a perfect companion to the unforgiving beauty of the Australian desert, Sen frequently using expansive overhead shots to emphasize just how overwhelmingly lonely and empty the terrain can be. 

Jacki Weaver contributes the other memorable performance: a perpetually smiling mayor, as adept at baking pies as she is at uttering threats from lips oppressed by excessive lipstick.

The plot is assembled from familiar pieces, including the alcohol-friendly protagonist harbouring a deep hurt, the slow-to-build alliance between two men, and the evil corporation stomping all over environmental and cultural concerns with the help of corrupt officials and plenty of dirty money.

But despite a rush to bring out the guns for the rather prosaic final chapter, Sen delivers a searing and sun-drenched crime drama, a battle of wills between individuals as a microcosm of the grand debate around limits of resource extraction and land stewardship. Some scores will be settled, but intransigent conflicts will rumble on.



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The Movies Of Jacki Weaver

All movies starring Jacki Weaver and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Five-Year Engagement (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Parkland (2013)

Magic In The Moonlight (2014)

Goldstone (2016)

The Disaster Artist (2017)

Widows (2018)

Bird Box (2018)

Father Stu (2022)

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