Movie Review: The Double (2013)

Genre: Dramedy

Director: Richard Ayoade

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn

Running Time: 93 minutes

Synopsis: Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) leads a sad, solitary, and almost invisible life. Even after seven years at the same job, his boss Mr. Papadopoulos (Wallace Shawn) does not know his name. Simon harbours a crush on work colleague and neighbour Hannah (Mia Wasikowsa), but lacks the courage to approach her. The charismatic and confident James Simon (also Eisenberg), who looks exactly like Simon, is hired at work, forcing the meek Simon to reassess everything about his life.

What Works Well: Director and writer Richard Ayoade's adaptation of the Dostoevsky novel features a Terry Gilliam-like askew society filled with bleak despair, where technology doubles down on the 1960s and police units specialize in investigating (and predicting) suicides. Or this may only be a reflection of Simon's inner irrelevance as a man drifting through life for no apparent purpose. Jesse Eisenberg acts opposite himself and invests in both the doormat and boot roles, gradually confronting realities about initiative and yields proportionate to actions.

What Does Not Work As Well: The pacing is slow, accompanied by a dark and gloomy aesthetic (often artistically pierced by sharp light). The death obsession is only partly mitigated by low-key moments of humour. Ultimately, the narrative is content with sowing confusion about the pathways enabled by personal accountability.

Conclusion: Intellectually stimulating, but happiest in the doldrums.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Louder Than Bombs (2015)

A drama about unspoken truths eroding family ties, Louder Than Bombs quietly pokes at the tender scars of tragedy.

Renowned photojournalist Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert) covered the world's hotspots for the New York Times. She died in a car crash soon after retiring, leaving behind her husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and two teenage sons Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and the younger Conrad (Devin Druid). Several years later, a gallery retrospective of her photos is being planned, and Isabelle's ex-colleague Richard (David Strathairn) is writing a comprehensive remembrance article, in which he will reveal her death was a suicide.

Jonah is now a college professor married to Amy (Megan Ketch), and they have a newborn child. The troubled and non-communicative Conrad still lives with his dad and is addicted to video games. Jonah visits Gene and Conrad to help sort through Isabelle's belongings, revealing the hidden emotional pain still haunting the family.

An exploration of lies and half-truths that appear convenient but only lead to more difficult junctures, Louder Than Bombs achieves the desired discomfort despite uneven plotting. Director Joachim Trier (who co-wrote the screenplay with Eskil Vogt) creates intrigue by gradually revealing multiple sources of unease gnawing at the Reed family, but the multi-pronged insecurities compete for attention.

The promising material splits into at least three streams, and ultimately meanders into shallowness. Gene is a grieving husband and a failed actor who resented Isabelle's globe-trotting success but also feels responsible for pressuring her into career abandonment. Jonah is a smug new parent, but his young marriage to Amy is already in trouble. Conrad is a moody student at the edge of being labelled a danger to himself and his high school, but is also attracted to classmate Melanie (Ruby Jerins). All three are failing to communicate and hiding their feelings from themselves and each other. As the revelatory article draws near, Conrad makes the most progress, his creativity offering an outlet.

In flashbacks, the fourth and perhaps most compelling character is brought in focus. Isabelle was torn between a career that splashed her photos and name across the world, and a family where she felt like an intruder. Only some of her scars were visible, and she was also hiding her own secrets. Isabelle's story makes Louder Than Bombs a good companion piece to 2013's A Thousand Times Good Night.

The cast members deliver earnest performances consistent with the downbeat mood. But hampered by overlapping layers of pretense, the characters are only allowed to aim for safe landings. Louder Than Bombs settles for exposing rather than elaborating on multiple cracks in a family's foundation.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Now You See Me (2013)

A lightweight crime caper, Now You See Me mixes magic and revenge-most-elaborate in a glitzy package, with frills overpowering content.

Four magicians are brought together by a mysterious benefactor for a show in Las Vegas. Illusionist Danny (Jesse Eisenberg), mentalist Merritt (Woody Harrelson), escapist Henley (Isla Fisher), and sleight-of-hand artist Jack (Dave Franco) perform as the Four Horsemen then shock their audience by seemingly stealing money from a French bank to conclude the show.

The FBI's Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) teams up with the Interpol's Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent) to investigate, but they are forced to release the magicians due to lack of evidence. Dylan consults with magician debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), who believes the Four Horsemen have planned multiple heists. Sure enough, at their next show in New Orleans they deliver a financial shock to their sponsor, insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), and humiliate Dylan in the process. He doggedly pursues them to try and stop further audacious criminal acts.

A none-too-serious affair, Now You See Me bounces off the energy generated by magic deployed to even the score. Director Louis Leterrier maintains rapid pacing and infuses the aesthetics with jazzy special effects and light shows. The Four Horsemen's performances are less about magic and more about throwing cinematic CGI and hair-raising stunts onto the screen, the outcome frivolous if never boring.

The script (by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt) introduces mystical elements related to a secret society of magicians established in ancient Egypt, but of course has no idea where to go with the hokum. Instead, Now You See Me plays fast and loose with logic while looking for traditional thrill rides like the big fight and the big car chase. Essential plot elements pop up purely to maximize the mindless entertainment quotient; hence, a massive safe containing untold millions is introduced out of nowhere moments before it becomes central to the climax. It's fairly easy to trace the outline of the big final twist, which, in retrospect, makes little sense.

The talented cast members add plenty of star power but are mostly pulled along by the wild antics, all the characters remaining at the sketch level while trading spiky barbs. Woody Harrelson best manages to infuse some wicked personality traits into the mentalist Merritt, while veterans Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine add weight in relatively minor roles. 

Now You See Me pulls off an old trick: dazzling with style to distract from limited substance.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Night Moves (2013)

A crime drama, Night Moves accompanies young environmentalists veering towards an act of terrorism to protest corporate greed and disregard for nature.

In Oregon, activist Josh (Jesse Eisenberg) volunteers on an organic produce farm. His friend Dena (Dakota Fanning) works at a spa, and they join forces with ex-Marine Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) to plan an eco-terrorist attack on a hydroelectric dam. Their objective is to raise awareness about climate change and the harmful impacts of dams on wild fish habitats, without causing casualties.

Dena comes from a rich family and provides the cash to buy a motorboat. The trio then have to purchase enough ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a controlled substance, to create the bomb. Despite careful attention to detail in planning the nighttime explosion, not everything will go according to plan, resulting in serious rifts between the three conspirators.

Moody, dark, and slow, Night Moves explores misguided idealism. Director Kelly Reichardt co-wrote the script with Jonathan Raymond, and adopts a tight focus on three people, allowing the greater issues to simply exist as background context. With deliberate pacing and sparse content, the film feeds on the intensity of deluded adults meandering into a major crime. The Pacific Northwest milieu is suitably moist and dour, but while the rain forest is the source of beauty, the film's low budget is also exposed, particularly in an embarrassingly static driving scene.  

The mostly off-the-grid existence of Josh, Dena, and Harmon is devoid of grand speeches or debates. They function either alone or within a close-knit community of like-minded individuals, and have crossed the line from living sustainably to a yearning for dramatic yet misguided action to wake up the world. 

For the more susceptible and fragile Josh and Dena, the absence of parents and family members is notable, while Harmon's military background affords him greater swagger. Night Moves is most compelling in the lead-up to the attack as a tense dynamic develops between the three conspirators, Dena improvising with tenacity to secure the bomb material, the trio then forced to smooth out an unexpected wrinkle on the night of the bombing.

Energy seeps out of the final act. Reichardt is only interested in the aftermath of the crime from the perspective of the criminals themselves, and Night Moves traces grim disintegrations at the individual and friendship levels. The physical consequences of the terror attack are described in abstract terms, and the subsequent investigation plays no part in the narrative. When disparate coping limits inflict internal depletions, external interventions are superfluous.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Hunting Party (2007)

A journalists-in-peril adventure, The Hunting Party has a potentially good story to tell but features an imbalance between danger and levity.

War zone journalist Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) and his cameraman and close friend Duck (Terrence Howard) enjoy an adrenaline-fuelled life covering the world's most dangerous conflicts. But in 1994, Simon suffers an on-air meltdown while covering the brutal war and ethnic cleansing atrocities in Bosnia. He is fired and his career goes into a downward spiral. Duck eventually loses track of his friend and secures a cushy job as the chief cameraman for the network's main anchor Franklin Harris (James Brolin).

In 2000, Duck and Franklin along with rookie reporter and nepotism beneficiary Benjamin Strauss (Jesse Eisenberg) arrive in Bosnia to cover the 5 year anniversary of the war-ending peace treaty. Simon re-enters Duck's life, claiming to know the whereabouts of wanted fugitive Dragoslav "The Fox" Bogdanović (Ljubomir Kerekeš), one of the main purveyors of ethnic cleansing. Duck and Benjamin join Hunt on a dangerous journey deep into Serb-controlled territory, where suspicious locals and UN peacekeepers immediately mistake the journalists as a CIA hit-squad, leading to surreal encounters.

Filmed in Croatia and loosely inspired by real events recounted in an Esquire magazine article, The Hunting Party attempts a difficult balancing act. The Bosnian conflict resulted in over 100,000 deaths and horrific acts of massacre and ethnic cleansing in the heart of Europe. While levity can be an antidote for brutality, here writer and director Richard Shepard tries to have it both ways by exposing his trio of intrepid journalists to genuine horror and danger then angling for laughs. The mix rarely works and more often leaves an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.

In 2007 this story was a condemnation of inaction. By chronicling the misadventures of a group of bickering journalists as they get close to The Fox within a couple of days of amateurish searching, the film rightly exposes foot-dragging by an international community seemingly unwilling to seriously go after the architects of war. Since then the wheels of justice have turned, leaving The Hunting Party in mid-narrative territory.

Idea fragments, some more promising than others, are introduced on the periphery of the main plot. Simon Hunt's emotional collapse and career disintegration after repeated exposure to violence is a welcome acknowledgement of post traumatic stress disorder creeping up on the seemingly immune, but deserved more exposition. Much less successful is the hurried injection of a barely-baked romance to personalize his tragedy and turn the quest to find The Fox into a personal vendetta.

Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg are functional without ever departing from stock characterizations. Diane Kruger gets one scene as a mysterious informant demanding money from the CIA (as she is convinced the journalists are all undercover agents) to reveal The Fox's hideout.

Despite exposing snippets from a tragic and cinematically underexposed conflict, The Hunting Party misses its prey.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Café Society (2016)

A romance with mild humour, Café Society finds writer and director Woody Allen exploring familiar love entanglement themes with a light touch.

It's the 1930s, and Phil Stern (Steve Carell) is a slick and successful Hollywood talent agent. His awkward nephew Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) arrives from New York City seeking adventure and a potential career. Phil eventually gives Bobby a job and introduces him to his assistant Veronica (Kristen Stewart). Bobby is immediately smitten, although Veronica discloses she already has a boyfriend she calls Doug.

Back in New York City, Bobby's brother Ben (Corey Stoll) is rising up the ranks of mobsterism and buys into a swish nightclub, while sister Evelyn (Sari Lennick) is married to the intellectual Leonard (Stephen Kunken) and dealing with a boorish neighbour. In Hollywood Bobby befriends married couple Rad and Steve (Parker Posey and Paul Schneider) and continues his pursuit of Veronica, unaware that "Doug" is really Uncle Phil, who keeps on promising Veronica he will leave his wife.

Romance between an older married man and the younger woman, a years-long mutual infatuation that must remain out of reach, and emotionally insecure and hopelessly in love men making and breaking commitments. Woody Allen's favourite themes all make an appearance in Café Society, a film as much about mood and place as it is about plot.

With loving care Allen recreates the sparkly upper echelons of 1930s Hollywood as a swirl around powerful agent Phil Stern, a man on a first name basis with anyone who matters, with a deal in the making and snippets of conversation ready for every person in the room. For both contrast and comparison, back in New York Allen tracks the rise of Ben Dorfman along the mob's career ladder, with short and sharp acts of violence (played for laughs) clearing his path towards managing a glitzy nightclub. From their kitchen parents Rose and Marty Dorfman (Jeannie Berlin and Ken Stott) worry and bicker about the progress of both their sons.

While the material is warmly recognizable as Allen operating well within his comfort zone, it is all too safe. Precious little about Café Society is fresh or demanding, as the film meanders its way towards indecisive lovers settling for selfish choices that best fit both Hollywood's dream factory and New York's grittier scene. The writing is sometimes clever but also often too eager to over-reach for the profound zinger. Allen's directing is confidently laidback, allowing the actors' motions to occupy the patient cameras. His uncredited narration is quite unnecessary.

At 33 years old Jesse Eisenberg can still just about pull off his young-man-opening-his-eyes-to-the-world schtick, but at least here he gets to grow with the role as Bobby evolves into a self-assured family and business man. Carell has a lesser arc as Phil Stern, a man confident about everything except the value of his long-lasting marriage. Kristen Stewart is fine as the naturally seductive muse to both Eisenberg as protégé and Carell as mentor, and she emerges as the convincing focal point for both men. Blake Lively appears relatively late as another Veronica in Bobby's life.

Resisting the urge to tackle any new and thorny challenges, Café Society settles for easy on the eyes and intellectually cozy.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Hummingbird Project (2018)

A business drama, The Hummingbird Project tackles a potentially dry subject with some verve, despite never quite engaging at the human level.

In New York City, stock trader Vince Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) works at the firm run by Eva Torres (Salma Hayek). His socially awkward but technically brilliant cousin Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) is Eva's technology guru, part of the team continuously trying to improve transaction speed to gain millisecond advantages. Vince finds a backer to finance his dream of building the fastest fibre optic line from Kansas to New Jersey. Access to the line can then be sold to traders, generating millions in profits.

Vince and Anton quit their jobs, enraging Eva, and team up with construction expert Mark Vega (Michael Mando). Building in a straight line will require negotiating with numerous property owners, crossing rivers and swamps, and the small matter of drilling through the Appalachian Mountains. Vince will also have to deal with unwelcome health news and Eva's determined efforts to torpedo the project, while Anton struggles to make his software as efficient as possible.

The Michael Lewis non-fiction book Flash Boys (2014) highlighted the dangers and eccentricities of the high speed stock trading world, and how the race to gain milliseconds in transaction speeds drives the madcap construction of dedicated fibre optic lines across the country. It's an arcane subject at best, so credit to Canadian writer and director Kim Nguyen for conceiving a fictional movie (not based on the book) tackling the same subject matter.

The Hummingbird Project tries to create human subjects worth caring about, and Nguyen colours in just enough personality to help move the action along. Vince and Anton Zaleski are sons of Eastern European immigrants living the dream and chasing more, Vince the always persuasive dealmaker while Anton is the prototypical dour coder. Less successful is Eva as the one-dimensional antagonist, sketched in as a cartoonish villain.

The script's real investment is out in the field, where the idea of building a communications conduit in an absolute straight line takes shape. The sheer audacity of such a project is at the heart of the film, and Nguyen provides a taste of the challenges to be overcome, from negotiating with individual landowners to flying in drilling equipment by gigantic helicopter to the base of the Appalachians, where there are no roads.

Of course almost everything that can go wrong does, Vince's dream threatened by serious personal challenges and obstacles as mundane as an obstinate Amish community, while on the sidelines Eva tries every trick to halt the line in its tracks.

Although the acting performances are secondary, Alexander Skarsgård is a pleasant surprise, entirely losing his Tarzan features and transforming into a bald, haunched and entirely pessimistic anti-social tech geek.

The Hummingbird Project is a version of the American Dream where millions are sunk in pursuit of an imperceptible advantage for dubious purposes, and making a quick buck is defined literally.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Squid And The Whale (2005)

A social drama with biting humour, The Squid And The Whale is a clear-eyed look at the devastating consequences of middle-class divorce.

It's the 1980s in Brooklyn, and the marriage of Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) finally disintegrates. He is a middle-aged and already has-been pompous academic who can no longer find a publisher, while she is an emerging writer. Their 16 year old son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) idolizes his dad and quickly takes his side, particularly when he learns that Joan has been carrying on a long-term affair. The younger twelve year old Frank (Owen Kline) is simply traumatized and starts to act out in all the wrong directions.

Bernard moves out of the family house and rents a derelict place of his own, and the boys are forced to shuttle between parents. Walt finds a girlfriend in sweet Sophie (Halley Feiffer), but his father's advice interferes with their relationship. The sexual tension amps up when Bernard's college student Lili (Anna Paquin) moves in and stirs the pot with both Bernard and Walt. Meanwhile Joan finds herself a new lover, accelerating Frank's anxiety.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, The Squid And The Whale is an adept 81 minutes of cutting social commentary. The semi-autobiographical script never blinks: this is a small family thrust into a full-blown crisis, four members running in different directions, doing their best to hurt each other, lives broken and altered forever.

And as ugly as the debris looks, Baumback also finds the dry humour. Bernard wallows in a legend of his stature that exists only in his mind. He pontificates about literature several leagues above his capabilities, only for Walt to mimic his father with even less credibility. Joan is no better, having long since given up on her husband, wrecking the marriage with her affairs and quickly moving on to the next lover, this one even more damaging to the family, as soon as Bernard moves out.

Underneath the daily anguish is a prevailing sense of sadness and waste as two boys are led astray. Walt is quick to internalize his father's fake arrogance, with consequences both at his school music competition and with potential girlfriend Sophie. The more sensitive Frank's dissolution borders on tragedy, his cries of help emerging in the form of alcohol consumption and uncontrolled sexual exhibitions.

The four lead cast members are all excellent, but Jeff Daniels deserves the most credit. His take on Bernard as a failed husband, failed father and failed author who still thinks he is somehow superior to everyone else is a classic example of unchecked egotism.

Baumbach struggles to elegantly land his film, which ends with partial resolutions but enough abruptness to suggest that money, time or ideas ran out. But The Squid And The Whale is nevertheless an impressive peek at the often overlooked carnage caused by broken domesticity.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: American Ultra (2015)

A comedy action thriller, American Ultra aims for a hip and carefree attitude but has limited material to work with.

In the small town of Liman, West Virginia, Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) is a laid back stoner who works at a suburban discount grocery store. He is deeply in love with his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), and wants to propose marriage, but can't quite find the right moment.

At CIA headquarters, Agent Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) orders Mike's assassination, much to the horror of agent Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton). Mike was part of a failed top secret program conceived by Lasseter to convert petty criminals into trained killers. Now Yates want to mop the program up and not leave any loose threads, although Mike has no memory of his training.

Lasseter gets to Mike first and activates him. He is ready when the assassination team arrives, and is able to fight back. Yates locks down the town and mobilizes a massive effort to corner Mike and wipe him out. Mike has to stay alive, figure out what is going on and still find a way to propose to Phoebe.

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh and written by Max Landis, American Ultra is Jason Bourne for the stoner set. The story of an efficient killing machine oblivious to his own potential suddenly tangling with his mother agency in a take-no-prisoners struggle to the death is extremely familiar. Landis gives it a comic spin with a loose, humorous vibe, allowing Mike's dopey, soft spoken, could-not-hurt-a-fly mannerisms to rub against his trained, kill-with-bare-hands abilities.

The film works as far as Eisenberg and Stewart take it, and the couple stay with the material to the end, despite the plot running out of string. Eisenberg was born to play slightly bemused characters nevertheless happy to dive into the latest mess, and he makes Mike's plight worthwhile. Stewart's dark-behind-the-eyes persona is perfect for Phoebe, a woman seemingly tolerating a loser of a boyfriend but with secrets of her own. Both are surprisingly good when they spring into blood-splattered action.

And that is mostly what American Ultra offers up in its second half. Once the pattern is set with Yates unleashing the might of the CIA and Lasseter doing her best to help Mike, not much more happens beyond a series of set pieces as Mike fights off the latest batch of well-armed killers and tries to inch his way to survival. Nourizadeh injects plenty of style and energy into the combat scenes, and also tries to give the antagonists some menacing personality. But Topher Grace's take on Yates is limited, and Walton Goggins can't do much with the hitman Laugher who, well, laughs a lot. John Leguizamo and Bill Pullman provide support in small roles.

A weird combination of wry humour and hard-edged action, American Ultra is as curious as a secret agent in a perpetual haze, and just as constrained.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: To Rome With Love (2012)

An episodic comedy romance with some fantasy elements, Woody Allen's To Rome With Love offers mild amusement but minimal substance through four unrelated vignettes.

American tourist Hayley (Alison Pill) meets and falls in love with Italian lawyer Michelangelo. When Hayley's parents Jerry and Phyllis (Allen and Judy Davis) arrive in Rome for a visit, Jerry, a recently retired opera producer, discovers that Michelangelo's father Giancarlo, a funeral home director, has a magnificent singing voice, but only when he is in the shower.

Young student architect Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) lives with his girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig). When Sally's alluring friend Monica (Ellen Page) comes for a visit, Jack can't help but fall in love with Monica's seemingly sophisticated charms. John Foy (Alec Baldwin), a successful architect revisiting Rome where he once lived, provides spectral advise to Jack. John and Jack may be the same person, 30 years apart.

Antonio and Milly are newlyweds from a rural town who have just relocated to Rome to start a new life and seek better jobs. Inadvertently separated, Antonio finds himself in the compromising company of vivacious prostitute Anna (Penelope Cruz); he has to pretend that Anna is Milly in front of his stuffy relatives. Meanwhile Milly stumbles onto a film set and allows herself to be seduced by famous Italian movie star actor Luca Salta.

Leopoldo (Robert Benigni) is an average office clerk with a mundane life. One day he wakes up and inexplicably finds himself an unlikely celebrity, with media and paparazzi hordes chasing after him with microphones and cameras and documenting his every move.

A flighty exercise in saluting the ethereal beauty of a city, To Rome With Love is almost astonishing in its lack of depth. While all four stories offer a benign level of enjoyment, the film is the equivalent of flipping through a glossy travel magazine; the articles are at best quick glance-through fluff, the pictures professional but also exceptionally familiar. The entire exercise is wholly forgettable moments after it ends.

While none of the stories carry any impact, a couple offer some marginal entertainment. Allen sporadically infuses a common theme of unexpected but non-threatening interventions altering the planned course of life, with the diversions from a charted course coming with both a smile and no explanation needed. The imaginative elements of the film work well, John Foy as a ghostly presence drifting in and out of Jack's life and Leopoldo's sudden detour into an alternate celebrity reality carrying some intrigue.

Antonio and Milly experiencing a chaotic start to their life in Rome appears to be a parable for the temptations of the big city, and is less successful. Least interesting of all is Allen inserting his typical neurotic New Yorker persona into the Roman context. The tiresome opera-singer-in-the-shower story starts out as not funny and is then stretched well past its breaking point.

To Rome With Love is Allen at his flimsiest, offering some old-world eye candy with a side of empty calories.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Jesse Eisenberg

All movies starring Jesse Eisenberg and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Squid And The Whale (2005)

The Hunting Party (2007)

Adventureland (2009)

Solitary Man (2009)

Zombieland (2009)

The Social Network (2010)

To Rome With Love (2012)

Now You See Me (2013)

Night Moves (2013)

The Double (2013)

Louder Than Bombs (2015)

American Ultra (2015)

Café Society (2016)

The Hummingbird Project (2018)

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

Movie Review: Adventureland (2009)

A teenage romance with a mix of comedy and drama, Adventureland seeks the wistfulness of a troubled young romance. The film enjoys a few good moments but is unable to escape the limitations of quite boring central characters.

In Pittsburgh of 1987, acknowledged virgin James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is dumped by his latest short-term girlfriend. He nevertheless graduates from high school with grand plans to spend the summer in Europe and then attend journalism school at Columbia University. But when his dad's demotion stresses the family finances, James finds himself short of money and has to accept a summer job at the Adventureland local amusement park, considered pretty much the most degrading job a local teenager can find.

The park is run by Bobby (Bill Hader) and his sister Paulette (Kristen Wiig), and James makes friends with lanky and cynical co-worker Joel (Martin Starr). James soon sets eyes on another colleague, the enigmatic Emily (Kristen Stewart), better known as Em, and they start a tentative courtship. But unknown to anyone, Em is carrying on an affair with the park's hunky maintenance technician Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), a married man who claims to be an almost-famous musician who once shared the stage with Lou Reed. Things do start to get serious between James and Em, although the arrival of sexpot teenager Lisa P (Margarita Levieva) to work at the park complicates matters.

Directed and written by Greg Mottola fresh from his success helming Superbad, Adventureland aims for a touch of romantic nostalgia within the confines of a quite miserable amusement park, where the games are rigged, kids' puke is part of the ambience, and immature classless men stroke their masculinity by chasing large fuzzy toys. In terms of finding a setting for a love story, Adventureland is original and Mottola sprinkles in regular doses of amusement park human yuk to keep his tale grounded.

Less successful are the central characters. Neither James nor Em offer much that is new, and they are teenagers that have been seen many times before, and in better films than this. It does not help that Mottola overplays the teenage angst angle in a fruitless search for some depth. James and Em both come from seemingly well-to-do middle class families, yet in pursuit of the requisite "troubled background" James' inability to afford a trip to Europe and Em's failure to get along with her step-mother are presented as crises of existential proportions. All the parents in the film are presented as disconnected and distant, in another area where the script falls short.

Mottola appears more interested in jamming as many 1980s songs into the film as possible, and the soundtrack is relentless, quickly tiresome (many of the music selections simply are not that good), and quite loud, often drowning out the lines of dialogue.

Jesse Eisenberg puts on his best I'm-a-bit-of-a-doofus-but-I'm-still-cool persona, and it's well suited to the movie. Kristen Stewart is all about a dark exterior hiding something that is always smoldering, whether its passion or anger at the world in general. Ryan Reynolds sleeps walks through his few scenes. The supporting cast is patchy, and includes good performances from Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, a ridiculously over-the-top sultry turn from Margarita Levieva, and a few too many forgettable hangers-on.

Adventureland features long stretches where not much happens other than standard teenage anxiety, plenty of alcohol consumption, and even more pot smoking. When in doubt and in search of a cause, break out the illicit substances.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Solitary Man (2009)

An impressive study of a late-onset middle age crisis, Solitary Man delves into the damaged soul of a man on a desperate run from change.

Aging car dealer tycoon Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas) is advised by his doctor that his heart may not be healthy, and more tests are needed. Ben refuses to follow up with any further exams. Six years later, Ben's life is in a downward spiral. He has left his wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon), and his business is in trouble. Found guilty of fraud, Ben had to pay a ruinous fine just to stay out of prison. He is now in a relationship with Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker), primarily because she has high-level contacts that can help him land a sweet new car dealership location.

Ben tries to maintain a relationship with his daughter Susan (Jenna Fischer) and his young grandson, but his erratic behaviour doesn't help: Ben has become an irresponsible sex addict, particularly lusting after college girls. He accompanies Jordan's daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) to a college interview weekend, where they meet earnest student Daniel (Jesse Eisenberg). Ben and Allyson sleep together, which ruptures Ben's relationship with Jordan, destroying his business prospects and driving him deeper into the financial hole. He has to turn to humble campus restaurant owner Jimmy (Danny DeVito) for a job, but his troubles are far from over.

At almost exactly 90 minutes, Solitary Man is an efficient drama about the fear of losing the prime of life. Written by Brian Koppelman and co-directed by Koppelman and David Levien, the film follows the trajectory of Ben Kalmen as he veers off course and into an orbit of his own making, where rules can be flaunted with no consequence as long as the march of time is covered by a veneer of superficiality. Kalmen is a tortured soul denying the certainty of aging, seeking immediate and accelerated profit and youthful sex in a futile attempt to compensate for the creeping years.

Michael Douglas delivers one of his most complete performances, understated, determined and raw, finding the anchor of self-deception that keeps Ben grounded in his own world while reality slips by, his life deconstruction obvious to all except himself. In support, Imogen Poots is particularly memorable as Allyson, coldly demonstrating the other side of the coin, revealing why college-aged girls may enjoy a fling with a much older man. It's not about being attracted to power anymore; the experience has much more to do with ticking off fantasies and pushing the buttons of irritating parents.

The other women in the movie suffer somewhat at the hand of the sharp editing, Susan Sarandon and Mary-Louise Parker particularly short-changed. Jesse Eisenberg's role as a potential protege is also underwritten. Jenna Fischer fares better as Ben's suffering daughter, trying to keep her young boy in touch with his grandpa while resenting her father's descent into a life of irresponsibility.

Not surprisingly, Kalmen's suppression of the self-evident leads him headlong into a brick wall, a figurative and literal physical bruising which at least forces pause and reflection. The trip towards selfish self-gratification may seem exhilarating, but it ends in a lonely place.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.