Movie Review: Silk Road (2021)

Genre: Biographical Drama Thriller  

Director: Tiller Russell  

Starring: Jason Clarke, Nick Robinson, Alexandra Shipp  

Running Time: 112 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 2011 in Austin, Texas. Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson) is a young man drifting through life with strong libertarian views. After starting a relationship with girlfriend Julia (Alexandra Shipp), he launches a dark web marketplace free from government scrutiny. Using anonymous browsing and cryptocurrency, Silk Road becomes the go-to trading platform for illegal drugs and weapons. Separately, grizzled DEA Agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke) is reassigned to cybercrimes, and eventually starts to investigate Silk Road. But Rick has personal troubles of his own and cannot get his supervisor's attention. 

What Works Well: Based on actual events with added artistic flourishes, this compelling biography explores the outcomes of unconstrained commerce enabled by burgeoning technology. Ulbricht may have initially held utopian objectives, but unimaginable money generated by an anything-goes ethos leads to dark places. Nick Robinson portrays an absolutist running an empire from a laptop and quickly in over his head, and Jason Clarke provides a sturdy counterweight as the DEA agent forced into a late career pivot and not beyond temptation. The private family lives of both men inject texture into the too-wild-for-fiction drama.

What Does Not Work As Well: With the emotions of the two central characters taking precedence, some critical details underpinning Bowden's investigation and the FBI closing in on Ulbricht are hopelessly muddled.

Key Quote:

Ross Ulbricht: Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to change the world.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Swerve (2011)

Genre: Neo-Noir Crime Thriller  

Director: Craig Lahiff  

Starring: Jason Clarke, Emma Booth, David Lyons  

Running Time: 87 minutes  

Synopsis: In rural Australia, Colin (David Lyons) is on a long drive to a job interview when he comes across a road accident involving one dead man, a briefcase full of cash, and the uninjured Jina (Emma Booth). Colin drives Jina back to her home in the small town of Neverest and hands the briefcase to local law officer Frank (Jason Clarke), who also happens to be Jina's husband. Colin is drawn into a web of intrigue involving the troubled couple, ruthless criminal Charlie (Travis McMahon), and Jina's boss Sam (Vince Colosimo).

What Works Well: This is a self-aware neo-noir with a conniving femme fatale, an ill-gotten prize, traces of humour, and complicated love-lust-violence relationships ensnaring characters stifled in the middle of nowhere. Dark histories of malevolence and less complicated present-day greed fuel the plot, while director Craig Lahiff makes excellent use of sun soaked desert vistas and efficiently concludes proceedings within a snappy running time.

What Does Not Work As Well: Most of the plot twists and character actions serve the convenience of the script at the expense of logic. Characters wake up from the dead and escape the inescapable, while multiple murders are uninvestigated and cars fix themselves. By the halfway mark, an anything-goes attitude starts to dominate, threatening fundamental underpinnings.

Conclusion: The curves are crafty but also contrived.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

A science fiction action thriller, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is a festival of simian special effects. The story struggles for relevance in the rumbling rush to the next CGI-generated highlight.

Ten years after a drug intended to treat Alzheimer's disease increased ape intelligence and almost wiped-out humanity, Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads a group of apes building a growing society in the forests outside San Francisco. His son Blue Eyes is learning about leadership, while Caesar's main military leader is the aggressive Kobo (Toby Kebbell).

The apes block a small group of humans, including Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and his partner Ellie (Keri Russell), from exploring the forest to find and reactivate a hydroelectric dam. They are part of a San Francisco settlement led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), growing increasingly desperate for a power source. Malcolm believes he can reason with the apes and Caesar's instinct is to help. But just as Dreyfus does not believe the apes can be allies, Kobo is also suspicious and starts to agitate for war. 

The sequel to Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011) starts off on a rickety foundation with a dumbfoundingly similar title, and the prolonged opening scenes are computer generated National Geographic-type explorations of apes in the forest. It takes a while, but director Matt Reeves eventually finds his footing and settles down to a basic conflict between apes and humans, with peacemakers and warmongers on both sides.

The film is adequate but never threatens to rise anywhere. Despite Andy Serkis' expressive heroics as Caesar, only so much interest can be generated by actors in monkey suits surrounded by digital monkeys hooting and hollering at each other in the forest. And large chunks of the overlong 130 minutes are exactly that.

The hawks on both sides have to get their way for the pixels to be truly unleashed, and the second half is full of bloated computer-generated combat, sometimes effective but often a confusing mess of digital firepower and destruction.

It's a tough slog when most of the human moments are not among the humans. Caesar has a family, allies and enemies, and they must have all watched The Lion King, as the dynamics of treachery and the next generation rising to the challenge play out with full predictability. In contrast Jason Clarke and Keri Russell have the thankless task of interacting with ape suits and green screens to demonstrate basic empathy.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes shows good and bad intentions on both sides, and concludes apes are no better than humans in their capabilities for internecine acts of self-destruction, a thoroughly depressing prospect for all mammals on a small planet.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Serenity (2019)

A film noir drama, Serenity is ambitious but deeply flawed, with a dumbfounding plot twist undermining the narrative into fatal irrelevance.

In the fictional Caribbean-like enclave of Plymouth Island, where everyone appears to know everything about everyone else, Iraq War veteran Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) operates the Serenity as a tourist fishing boat. But instead of looking after his customers he is obsessed with catching an elusive big tuna, and he can barely afford to pay his loyal second-in-command Duke (Djimon Hounsou). Dill provides sexual favours to Constance (Diane Lane) in return for desperately needed cash.

Dill's ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) arrives unexpectedly and offers him $10 million to kill her current abusive husband Frank (Jason Clarke). She urges him to commit the murder for the sake of their son Patrick, who is suffering in an abusive household. In the meantime tweedy sales rep Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong), incongruously dressed in a suit and tie, offers Dill a fish tracking device to help him snag the big tuna. Dill starts to suspect all is not what it seems.

Written and directed by Steven Knight, Serenity ought to be applauded at some level for trying something new. But unfortunately, the second half is unsalvageable, veering into weird waters and blowing a hole in its own hull. Once Knight starts to pull back the curtain on the story he really wants to tell, no worthwhile emotional investment can be justified in the characters or events.

The opening half is a decent enough modern noir mixing reasonably engaging ingredients. Dill is a sweaty and deeply flawed protagonist hiding out in an exotic locale, chasing his unattainable fish, lamenting separation from his son, and never expecting to achieve anything beyond selfish survival and control over his boat. Karen arrives with a tolerable approximation of a femme fatale, offering breathy remorse and unimaginable money in exchange for the small matter of murder. Intended victim Frank oozes slimy evil, a perfect shark food candidate if ever there was one.

Dill agonizes over Karen's offer, and the early involvement of fish-out-of-water sales agent Reid Miller is an initially edgy angle. But then all the promising metaphors and moral dilemmas dissolve into something much more obtuse and remarkably uninteresting. Serenity lists, then just sinks.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: White House Down (2013)

An action thriller about the attempted violent overthrow of the United States President, White House Down carves out territory on the knowing side of preposterous.

Army veteran and Capitol Police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum) is part of the security detail for Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). Cale's 11-year-old daughter Emily (Joey King) accompanies him to the White House, where Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) of the Secret Service interviews Cale for a position on the President's security team. Father and daughter then join a White House tour.

United States President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is seeking global support for a bold but controversial Middle East peace plan. But traitorous Senior Secret Service Agent Martin Walker (James Woods) has assembled a team of mercenaries to storm the White House and overthrow Sawyer's government. The mercenaries are led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke), and include psychotic white supremacist Killick (Kevin Rankin) and computer hacker Skip Tyler (Jimmi Simpson). 

The invaders take over the White House and seize hostages, demanding a $400 million ransom. Cale breaks loose and fights back, managing to extract Sawyer from Walker's clutches, while Emily captures and uploads video of the unfolding drama. Cale needs to keep Sawyer safe and rescue Emily as the full extent of Walker's plot becomes clear.

Silly, noisy, often stupid, overlong and saddled with graceless CGI, White House Down is also watchable because it never takes itself too seriously. While Olympus Has Fallen, also released in 2013 with a similar plot, is grittier and better, here director Roland Emmerich lets loose his (literal) flag-waving tendencies while destroying chunks of the White House (again), and whenever faced with a choice between subtle and ludicrous, chooses over-the-top. The entertainment level is of the brainless variety, but within that constraint, fun can found.

And so Cale and Sawyer engage in a ridiculous car chase, driving in circles around the fountain of the White House lawn. The bad guys alternate between one-shot, one-kill expediency and cross-eyed incompetence, depending on the script requirements. CGI-created machines crash at regular intervals in a horrible dissolution of unconvincing pixels, and any quip is a good quip, whether smart or sophomoric.

The extended preamble to introduce the characters and set the context is welcome. But the film is otherwise overlong at a wholly unnecessary 131 minutes, and despite the length, critical plot points are half-baked. It's deep into the crisis before Walker's real intentions are finally revealed in a jumbled rush, and until then the ransom demand is a limp excuse for the unfolding carnage.

The reliable cast is filled with talent and helps overcome some of the goofiness. Channing Tatum is up to the task of saving the day, and bites into the role of John Cale with grim determination to (in no particular order) keep the President safe, extricate his daughter from the clutches of maniacal seditionists, and earn himself a position with the Secret Service in the world's worst on-the-job interview. The White House may be down, but as long as a job can still be earned, it's not quite out.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Mudbound (2017)

A sprawling drama, Mudbound is the story of two families, one white and one Black, co-existing in segregated Mississippi of the 1940s. Friendships, racism, joint experiences, and the struggle to make a living all pose challenges to the various family members.

In the early 1940s, Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) of Memphis relocates with his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan), two daughters, and his racist Pappy (Jonathan Banks) to a farm he just bought in Mississippi. The Black Jackson family, consisting of Hap (Rob Morgan), his wife Florence (Mary J. Blige), oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) and other children, are already tenanted on the land.

The two families get along uneasily, Hap working the land for lowly pay, Florence hired by Laura to help around the house, but Pappy always ready to spew his hatred. When the United States enters the Second World War, Ronsel serves as a tank commander while Henry's brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) joins the air force as a bomber pilot. Both return to the farm as changed men and strike up a camaraderie. Jamie drinks heavily to combat his post-war trauma while Ronsel, after helping defeat fascism, finds it difficult to accept entrenched segregationist attitudes. But much worse is to come for both men.

An adaptation of the 2008 book by Hillary Jordan, Mudbound is traditional but still captivating story telling. Director Dee Rees co-wrote the screenplay with Virgil Williams, and creates a rich slice of American history, carrying echoes of slavery and vivid portrayals of segregation, injustice, war, and the green shoots of potential healing between oppressor and oppressed.

The evolving tensions between the races underpin the drama. The virulent Pappy is a lost cause, and despite his advancing age remains capable of enormous harm in words and actions. Henry is more tolerant but nevertheless obtuse in his attitude towards the Jacksons. Laura treats Florence with more respect, but feels entitled enough to have Florence care for Laura's children at the expense of Florence's family. And finally Ronsel and Jamie are the future, two men exposed to the world and experienced in what unites humanity, and now well beyond judging each other by skin colour. But in 1940s rural Mississippi, their friendship is an unacceptable aberration. 

At two hours and 14 minutes the running time is stretched, and the middle act sags into relatively routine "day in the life" chapters, never less than engaging but definitely lacking in impetus. This arrives in the final 30 minutes, a harrowing reminder of the horrors lurking in the rural South where seeing a Black man sitting in the front passenger seat of a white man's truck is cause enough for bigoted outrage.

Although some scenes are too dark, Rachel Morrison's cinematography celebrates the perpetual mud and rain essential to give a life of hard toil and farming a chance. The ensemble cast members each get a few scenes to shine (and provide snippets of narration from multiple perspectives), but are not asked to stretch as most of the characters are familiar and tightly drawn within a small arc.

Two families representing history in progress, Mudbound is rich soil, suitable for burying the painful past and building difficult foundations for the future.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Devil All The Time (2020)

A sprawling multi-generation epic, The Devil All The Time is an intersecting drama engrossed in themes of faith, moral corruption, crime and revenge.

While serving in the Pacific during World War Two, Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård) has a harrowing encounter with a dying Marine. After the war Willard returns home to the rural West Virginia - Ohio border region and marries Charlotte (Haley Bennett). They have a son Arvin and Willard turns to religion to help combat his war-induced demons. His mother Emma (Kristin Griffith) had wanted him to marry Helen (Mia Wasikowska), who instead weds travelling fake healer Roy (Harry Melling) and they have a daughter Lenora.

Tragedies disrupt Arvin and Lenora's young lives and by 1957 they have both moved in with Emma to be raised as step-siblings. In 1965 Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) is suffering high school bullying due to her devout nature, while Arvin (Tom Holland) tries to protect her. Ahead of them are challenging encounters with sleazy Reverend Preston Teagardin (Robert Pattinson), murderous couple Carl (Jason Clarke) and Sandy (Riley Keough) Henderson, and Sandy's brother, corrupt sheriff Lee Bodecker (Sebastian Stan).

An adaptation of the 2011 novel by Donald Ray Pollock (who contributes the narration) and co-produced by Jake Gyllenhaal, The Devil All The Time settles down for a captivating 138 minutes of fluid character-driven storytelling. Breathing deeply from the rustic milieu of small backwater communities where religious fervour obscures reason with startling outcomes, director and co-writer Antonio Campos conjures up overlapping arcs spanning 20 years in the lives of memorable people.

Evil intentions skulking within religious verbiage and outlaw acts stemming from good intentions are the combustible fuel mix. From the moment he stumbles upon a badly wounded soldier nailed to a battlefield cross, Willard then his son Arvin confront a succession of moral dilemmas where the wrong action may be the right thing to do. In a time and place with limited other resources, faith is the most readily available route promising some version of salvation, but here malevolence awaits, charlatans lurking to exploit the vulnerable.

With about 10 influential characters and numerous events to cover, Campos maintains a superb level of intensity by deploying brisk pacing, spikes of gore and a dash of cogent flashbacks to reveal fate's invisible hand at work. From an early 1945 scene at a diner where both Carl and Willard meet their future brides all the way to the final showdown in the shadow of a once-standing cross echoing back to the war, The Devil All The Time carries the sly winks of the past, present and future huddled together. 

The ensemble cast members share the screen time with laudable efficiency, exploiting their moments to maximum effect and quickly establishing inherent conflicts. Harry Melling is suitably unhinged as Roy, his spider jar trick a highlight only until he surpasses his own derangement. Robert Pattinson as a predator disguised as the new preacher in town emits a stench powerful enough to waft right off the screen, while Bill Skarsgård and Tom Holland convince as successive generations of the same conflicted man.

The Devil All The Time is also everywhere and in everyone, some souls succumbing, others resisting by perilously outflanking evil.



All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Aftermath (2019)

A drama and romance set in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, The Aftermath explores the fresh scars of war at a personal level against the backdrop of wide scale destruction.

A few months after the Allied victory, Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) joins her husband Colonel Lewis Morgan (Jason Clarke) of the British Army in Hamburg, where he is stationed to help in the rebuilding process of an essentially destroyed city. They take over the intact suburban mansion of local architect and arts lover Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgård) and his daughter Freda. Lewis invites the Luberts to stay and live in the attic rather than sending them to a camp.

Rachael and Lewis' relationship has been strained since the death of their young son Michael during the Blitz. Equally, Stefan and Freda are grieving the loss of his wife, who died in the 1943 firebombing of Hamburg. With Lewis frequently away chasing down Hitler's last loyalists, Rachael and Stefan develop a mutual attraction and start a torrid affair. Meanwhile Freda falls in with a group of youth intent on continuing the war with hit-and-run strikes on Allied targets.

The Aftermath is old-fashioned in a generally admirable way, and looks gorgeous in creating a sense of time and place. A bombed-out Hamburg populated by hollow-eyed and near-starving war survivors put to work clearing up the rubble is juxtaposed with the eloquent Lubert mansion, decorated with the latest architectural delights available to the upper echelons of 1940s German society.

But the film's weakness is also strongly associated with its sense of nostalgia. Absent a couple steamy sex scenes, The Aftermath could have been produced by the Hollywood of the late 1940s or early 1950s. The pacing is slow, the dialogue repressed, and the emotions, once they emerge, are theatrically overclocked. Director James Kent is unable to tease out much narrative sophistication from the Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse adaptation of Rhidian Brook's novel.

The story is just about strong enough to stand on its own, the sense of personal loss within both families echoing the greater calamity of a world war that left entire cities in rubble. Flashes of victor's triumphalism and the resoluteness of the vanquished are evident, but quickly confined to the shadows of a greater common tragedy.

Kent does find a few scenes with palpable resonance, one highlight featuring the piano as a unifying instrument of soulful loss bringing Rachael and Freda closer together.

The romance elements combine classic misery-loves-company and neglected wife themes, with Keira Knightley better than Alexander Skarsgård at finding and selling the internal emptiness, in her case stemming from a husband who took refuge in emotional neglect rather than face the loss of his son.

As elegant as it is predictable, The Aftermath laments the intimate and immense carnage of a devastating conflict.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Pet Sematary (2019)

A horror film about meddling with life after death, Pet Sematary offers chilling ambiance but is over-reliant on traditional jump scares.

In search of a slower pace and more family time, Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) relocates his life from Boston to rural Maine. His wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), nine year old daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and infant son Gage are initially happy with the transition, although the massive trucks speeding along the nearby country road are disconcerting. Rachel harbours deep guilt from childhood over the gruesome death of her sister. Her mood is not improved when the family discover a spooky pet cemetery in the woods behind their new home.

Meanwhile, Louis starts work at a local clinic and experiences a disturbing incident when a young man dies violently but appears to haunt Louis with talk of calamities to come. When Ellie's pet cat Church expires, grizzled neighbour Jud (John Lithgow) guides Louis to haunted grounds beyond the cemetery where whatever is buried comes back alive. Louis takes a chance to try and bring Church to life, starting a violent chain of unintended consequences.

The 1983 Stephen King novel was first adapted to the screen in 1989. Thirty years later, co-directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer working from a Jeff Buhler script recreate King's vision of a forbidden yet tempting place where willing humans have the ability to experiment with regenerating life. The film is effective in creating a bleak mood with death haunting the family's past and present. A steady start introduces the family dynamics and their ominous new surroundings, and once Lewis' patient dies quickly followed by Ellie's cat, the second half offers a tightening grip of unrelenting horror.

Pet Sematary delves into themes of persistent guilt casting a lifelong shadow. Rachel blames herself for the traumatic death of her deformed sister at a young age, an incident replayed and leveraged by Kölsch and Widmyer to good effect. Back in the present Lewis is overwhelmed with guilt when things start going wrong for the family he relocated to new surroundings, increasing the dark appeal of meddling with nature in a desperate attempt to set things right.

And the film does find a focus on the intoxicating magnetism of controlling life and death. Jud is honest about the inexorable pull of the haunted soils. The ramifications of meddling with the dead are not all good, and yet the enormous power to reinstate life cannot be resisted, especially when combined with human emotional failings and the medical imperative to save lives even when all seems lost.

While the story offers plenty of opportunities for interpretation, on the screen Kölsch and Widmyer resort to relatively safe and traditional genre elements. Things go bump in the night, doors creek, the wind howls, and intimidating creatures make sudden appearances from the shadows. It's all reasonably effective, but also quite predictable.

Pet Sematary may not break much new ground, but does place a worthwhile marker in familiar territory.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: First Man (2018)

A biographical drama, First Man recounts the story of Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon, in the years leading up to the seminal Apollo 11 mission.

It's 1961, and NASA test pilot Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) experiences a series of in-flight mishaps. At home, tragedy strikes with the death of his young daughter from cancer. A detail-oriented and introverted aeronautical engineer, Armstrong signs up for the Gemini program, the first phase of the US push to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Armstrong and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) relocate to Houston, where he strikes up loose friendships with other astronauts-in-training, including Ed White (Jason Clarke).

The Gemini program, guided by Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler) and Director Robert Gilruth (Ciarán Hinds), experiences highs and lows, and the threat of serious mishaps is never far. The Apollo program then launches, and along with the more convivial Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll), Armstrong is in prime contention to lead the first mission to the moon. But he remains aloof and unwilling to communicate openly with his family.

Directed by Damien Chazelle and based on the book by James R. Hansen, First Man is, as the title implies, more about the man than the mission. It's an intriguingly personal perspective on what is generally portrayed as a triumphant national endeavour. Rather than the more gung-ho astronaut spirit featured in movies like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, Chazelle delves into the emotional toll of going to work in a pioneering program where death was a constant companion, every phone call and door knock pregnant with potential for bad news, and colleagues almost routinely did not come home to their families at the end of the day.

With his methodical, detail-oriented and dogged determination to get the job done, Armstrong was perfectly placed for success, but at a price. His coldly analytical approach left no space for emotion, and as much as he was a loving husband and father, expressing feelings, sharing thoughts and conveying risks were simply not in his toolbox. As the space program heats up, his home mannerisms get colder.

With the focus on a single individual, Chazelle runs into problems with pacing and context. The film is stubbornly not interested in any characters other than Neil and Janet. The multitude of other astronauts and space program officials are essentially faceless and colourless, with only Ed White barely making it over the line as a defined person.

Equally, Chazelle largely neglects to explain the overarching space program, the political Cold War space context or the purpose of the individual missions. The enormity of the endeavor and the scientific challenges receive perhaps two scenes lasting less than a minute each. This becomes a significant problem when Chazelle invests inordinate screentime with Armstrong strapped into the shaky and noisy spacecrafts. The overall flight objectives and the astronaut's skills in achieving them are reduced to repetitive scenes of clicking random switches and observing jerky dials.

As a result, First Man is too long at 141 minutes. The story is simply not rich enough to justify the length, and most of the scenes go on for longer than they need to. Gosling and Foy do provide some excellent private moments as a couple linked by a strong but mostly quiet bond, while Chazelle crafts a sumptuous climax with the moon landing and subsequent scenes on the lunar surface. First Man does leave footprints in new areas, but never quite soars.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Chappaquiddick (2017)

A drama based on the infamous incident that ended one life and one Presidential campaign, Chappaquiddick is a faithful recreation of the murky story, but remains emotionally stranded.

It's 1969, and Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) is the only surviving Kennedy brother. He is mulling a future run for the presidency and trying to convince Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), a secretary who worked on his brother Bobby's campaign, to join his team. With his entourage, including cousin and fixer Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), Ted spends a day on Martha's Vineyard to compete in a yacht race.

After a party that evening in Chappaquiddick, a despondent and slightly inebriated Ted drives with Mary Jo towards the ferry terminal. He takes a wrong turn, drives off the road on a narrow bridge and the car lands upside down in a water channel. Ted somehow extricates himself but Mary Jo drowns. Despite the pleas of his team members Ted is slow to report the incident. With his presidential ambitions in tatters, he turns to his ailing father Joseph Sr. (Bruce Dern) for help, and a massive damage control machine kicks into action.

Directed by John Curran, Chappaquiddick covers familiar ground in workmanlike fashion. The tragedy that cost the life of a young woman and ruined the aspirations of the youngest Kennedy has always been shrouded in controversy thanks in part to the subsequent intense spin unleashed by the Kennedy lawyers, and the film does not try to fill in the unknown blanks.

How Kennedy made it out of the car, why did Mary Jo not escape the same way, how much effort did Kennedy put into rescuing her and why Gargan and others thought that leaving Kennedy on his own after the incident could possibly be a good idea are all questions that remain submerged in the dark waters below the bridge.

The film does try to delve into Kennedy's state of mind, a combination of shock, denial, alcohol, and disorientation presented as a potential explanation for his erratic attempts to first avoid confronting the facts and then try to hide some of the truths in the immediate aftermath. The few brief scenes showing the interaction between Ted, always perceived as the weak son, and his father Joseph, frail and near-death but still carrying frightfully domineering power, emerge as highlights.

The performances are serviceable without scaling any heights. The film's tone is steady, Curran not searching for contrived peaks of emotion, and Jason Clarke is suitably introverted but still revealing flashes of the Kennedy entitlement running through his blood.

Chappaquiddick is a story of the rich and powerful navigating a crisis, seeking an outcome that only the privileged can aspire to. In refusing to condemn or lionize Ted Kennedy the film makes its points, but does it quietly.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Texas Killing Fields (2011)

A bleak crime drama, Texas Killing Fields offers a moody atmosphere, but is undermined and ultimately sunk by a cluttered and wayward script.

In Texas City, the body of a brutally murdered young woman is discovered. Detectives Mike Souder (Sam Worthington) and Brian Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) start to investigate. Meanwhile Detective Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain) is responsible for the surrounding rural area, notorious for the high number of murdered and missing women dating back to the 1970s. Pam also has a missing woman case on her hands and calls for help from Brian and Mike, the latter being her former husband.

Complicating life for the detectives is concern for Anne Sliger (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young teenager living with her white trash single mother Lucie (Sheryl Lee) and older brother Eugene (James Hebert). Lucie is a local whore of sorts, and the menacing Rhino (Stephen Graham) appears to move into her house to help himself to a piece of her action.

Mike wants to focus his effort on the Texas City murder, while Brian, a deeply religious man, is more inclined to widen the investigation to help Pam and include the surrounding swampy fields. Mike zeroes in on pimps Levon (Jon Eyez) and Rule (Jason Clarke) as potentially involved in murder, while Brian enlists the services of a phone company contact to try and triangulate the origins of cell phone calls linked to the murders. The detectives soon find themselves being taunted and drawn into a deadly game with the mysterious killer.

Inspired by real events and directed by Ami Canaan Mann (daughter of Michael Mann), Texas Killing Fields throws plenty of characters and events of the screen, but fails to make any of them count. Three detectives, four creepy possible villains, several victims, many crime scenes, plus a few side-plots: there is plenty going on, and unfortunately none of it captivates. The film is stylishly assembled and the lead performances are professional enough, but the final product is badly let down by a confused script and poor execution.

The film is written by Don Ferrarone and it does appear that in trying to create a dramatic fictional narrative, the enormity of the real life agonies and tragedies of the Texas Killing Fields along Interstate 45 overwhelmed the writing. The resultant tone is simply off. Somehow, the most important debate presented in the film is whether Mike and Brian should or should not help Pam, who is outside their jurisdiction. On multiple occasions Mike berates Brian for venturing into the hinterlands instead of sticking close to home. With everything going on, it's a stupefying issue to repeatedly waste screen time on.

Meanwhile, we learn precious little about Mike, Brian and Pam, except that they are grim faced, dour and fairly snappy with each other. The ashes of the relationship between Mike and Pam just scatter in the wind, serving no purpose. Similarly Brian's religious fervor is introduced and forgotten.

The murder suspects fare much worse. Levon, Rule, Rhino and Eugene must be despicable characters because they scowl at the camera, have tattoos, and generally look the way pedophiles and pimps are supposed to. They remain prototypical bad guys with no backstory. Even less is known about the murder victims and their families. And then Mann throws into the mix even more peripheral characters in the form of prostitutes and runaway kids, who drift in and out of various scenes and serve to further distract from a focus that is never found.

With Worthington, Morgan and Chastain stuck in angry detective mode, it is left to Chloë Grace Moretz and Sheryl Lee to deliver the most affecting performances in relatively small roles. Moretz is steady, her vulnerability representing potential victims who come from hopelessly broken homes. Lee is the stand-out performer as Lucie, a woman so far gone into desperation that she routinely kicks her daughter out of the house to better serve her sleazy clients.

Despite earnest intentions and no shortage of talent, Texas Killing Fields is messier than grasslands trampled by an unruly herd, and a regrettably wasted opportunity.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Lawless (2012)

A prohibition-era action drama based on real events, Lawless mixes violence with family bonds and local skirmishes for control of the illicit alcohol trade. As three brothers from rural Virginia face off against big city criminals, there are plenty of predicable elements but also some snazzy moments of excitement.

It's 1931, and brothers Forrest, Howard and Jack Bondurant (Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke and Shia LaBeouf) are among the more successful families independently manufacturing and distributing alcohol in rural Franklin County, Virginia. Forrest is the brains, Howard the muscle, and the youngest Jack is the driver, considered by Forrest to be not-yet-ready for the serious business of intimidation and deal-making. The brothers operate under a mythology of invincibility, partially justified by Forrest's war-time adventures. The local sheriffs are friendly and kept under control with a regular supply of booze.

Maggie (Jessica Chastain), a dancer escaping from the chaos of Chicago, offers her waitressing services to the Bondurants and initiates an across-the-room relationship with Forrest. Meanwhile, Jack starts to romantically pursue Bertha (Mia Wasikowaska), the local reverend's daughter. With plenty of money to be made in the illegal alcohol trade, the big-time gangsters move into the Bondurant's turf. Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) is sent in to do the dirty work of bringing the ragtag moonshiners under the control of Chicago mobsters. Forrest is the only producer who resists, leading to increasing levels of violence as Rakes tightens the noose of intimidation and Forrest lashes back.

Lawless is based on true events as described in the book The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant, Jack's grandson. Director John Hillcoat aims for a Bonnie And Clyde type vibe, with the Bondurants as 1930s outlaws to cheer for because they are likable rogues and everyone else is as bad or even more corrupt. To a certain extent the film succeeds as a romp on the backroads of the moonshine industry, with some wild but at least somewhat true episodes of throat slitting, broad daylight street gun battles, and ingeniously hidden distilleries pumping out unfathomable amounts of alcohol.

Fun as the adventures are, the film is also lacking in the necessary charm. Forrest is the closest Hillcoat comes to finding a compelling character, with Tom Hardy delivering an entertainingly gruff and mumble-filled performance. But about half way through the film his presence is sidelined for a long stretch, and the narrative momentum suffers.

The story is predominantly told through Jack's eyes, the least interesting of the brothers, and his moments of growth and development are both few and jarring when they happen. Jack's rather prolonged pursuit of Bertha fails to ignite.  Also disappointing is an underdeveloped role for Jessica Chastain as Maggie. She gets one good scene of proactive yet sensitive seduction, but otherwise settles firmly into the background.

What the protagonists may lack in flair, Special Deputy Charlie Rakes more than makes up for in over-the-top despicable smarm. Guy Pearce does not hold back in creating an easy-to-hate villain, from the ridiculous hair to the city slicker clothes and sniffy condescending attitude. The clash between Forrest and Rakes is a spicy collision between idealized rural honesty and exaggerated urbanite arrogance. Also adding some edge is Gary Oldman, who makes a couple of relatively brief but effective appearances as Floyd Banner, another well-financed gangster muscling in on the alcohol business.

The backdrops are provided by Benoît Delhomme's cinematography, and he creates a landscape only marginally disturbed by human settlement. Mountainous rural Virginia of the 1930s is a bleak, gray place, a comfortable home for the locals but relatively foreboding to outsiders, a perfect base from which an illegal industry can thrive.

Lawless achieves and maintains a middling level of engagement. Much like the moonshine itself, the quality varies by the batch but the underlying buzz is always there.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Jason Clarke

All movies starring Jason Clarke and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Twilight (1998)

Public Enemies (2009)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Trust (2010)

Swerve (2011)

Texas Killing Fields (2011)

Lawless (2012)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

The Great Gatsby (2013)

White House Down (2013)

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

Everest (2015)

Mudbound (2017)

Chappaquiddick (2017)

First Man (2018)

Serenity (2019)

The Aftermath (2019)

Pet Sematary (2019)

The Devil All The Time (2020)

Silk Road (2021)

The Desperate Hour (2021, voice only)

Oppenheimer (2023)

A House Of Dynamite (2025)

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