Movie Review: And While We Were Here (2012)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Kat Coiro  

Starring: Kate Bosworth, Jamie Blackley, Iddo Goldberg, Claire Bloom  

Running Time: 80 minutes  

Synopsis: British married couple Jane and Leonard (Kate Bosworth and Iddo Goldberg) arrive in Naples, where viola player Leonard has an assignment with the local orchestra. The couple's relationship is strained by the fallout of an unsuccessful pregnancy. Left alone during the day, Jane listens to tapes of her grandmother (Claire Bloom) recounting World War Two memoires. She also explores nearby Ischia Island, where she meets 19-year-old free-spirited drifter Caleb (Jamie Blackley). They spend time together and start an affair, with Jane questioning her life's trajectory.

What Works Well: The on-location filming in Naples and Ischia is scenic and laid-back. In contrast, the cold corpse of Jane and Leonard's marriage is portrayed with effectively cruel starkness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The sparse content struggles to meaningfully occupy the short running time, resulting in plenty of dreamy montage interludes. Kate Bosworth mostly stares into the mid-distance, and the behaviour of all three central characters is more annoying than convincing. Caleb stalks rather than romances Jane, and Leonard's abject cluelessness about his wife's needs makes him a deserving dumped husband. While central to her psyche, Jane using Caleb as a convenient toy boy adds to the sense of emotional detachment.

Key Quote:

Caleb: You make me nervous.

Jane: You make me calm.

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Movie Review: Wonderland (2003)

A crime drama inspired by real events, Wonderland spends all its time with sordid characters, offering unsatisfactory story fragments and an overabundance of style.

It's 1981 in Los Angeles, and former porn star John Holmes (Val Kilmer) is scraping a living by drifting around drug dealers. His girlfriend Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth) stands by her man despite his abrupt and unexplained absences. After scoring some drugs, John returns to their motel room in an agitated state. The next morning the media reports four people have been murdered at a known drug house on Wonderland Avenue.

One of the victims is the girlfriend of drug dealer David Lind (Dylan McDermott). He reveals to the police the murders were retaliation by goons working for crime lord Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian), because the victims had earlier robbed Nash's house. Lind claims Holmes was involved in both the original robbery and the revenge murders. Holmes is arrested; he has a different version of events, while his estranged wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow) tries to remain uninvolved.

The strongest emotion elicited by watching Wonderland is the overwhelming need to take a shower. With the marginal exception of Sharon, director and co-writer David Cox populates his film with sleazoids, slimeballs, and losers. Whether any of them live or die is of little relevance, as none of them are provided with meaningful depth, backstory, or empathetic attributes. 

The possible involvement of an ex-porn star provides a dose of notoriety for a case of irrelevant bad guys killing other irrelevant bad guys, but the extent of Holmes' guilt or innocence never registers as a compelling dramatic hinge. The witless plot zooms in from multiple perspectives on events immediately before and after the robbery and subsequent murders, in a case of opposing unreliable narratives colliding into a stalemate. With nothing settled at the end of 104 minutes, walls of postscript text attempt to fill in the blanks but only confirm the lack of focus. 

Lind and Holmes are brought to life in suitably grungy performances by Dylan McDermott and Val Kilmer, but they are far from eliciting sympathy. Kate Bosworth is also invested in Dawn, but can do little with the prototypical character of a naive young woman unaware of the sewer she's in. Lisa Kudrow allows Sharon to rise above, the only character aware of the stink and moving in the other direction.

In the absence of meaningful arcs and substance, Cox defaults to layering on the style, and at least Wonderland offers challenging visuals and an artistically attractive interpretation of ripped-from-the-headlines. The images pop, but the story lacks wonder.



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Movie Review: Homefront (2013)

A basic action drama about an ex-government agent tangling with small-town drug pushers, Homefront brawls through predictably satisfactory territory. 

In a messy operation, New Orleans-based Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) undercover officer Phil Broker (Jason Statham) disrupts the methamphetamine lab of gangster Danny T (Chuck Zito). Disillusioned with unnecessary bloodshed, Phil retires to the small rural Louisiana town of Rayville to raise his young daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic) in peace.

Maddy tangles with the school bully, and Broker humiliates the bully's parents Cassie and Jimmy Klum (Kate Bosworth and Marcus Hester). Cassie turns to her brother and local meth manufacturer "Gator" Bodine (James Franco) to settle scores. Gator and his girlfriend Sheryl Marie (Winona Ryder) uncover Broker's background and conspire with the imprisoned Danny T to cause more trouble for Broker and Maddy.

A solid, unspectacular, and eminently calculable drama, Homefront delivers exactly what should be expected from a film starring Jason Statham with a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone. Regardless of the plot's progress, about every 10 minutes Broker gets to display his superior combat skills, taking on one or many foes with a near-certain outcome: Broker standing tall, everyone else crumpled in a heap. It's an almost comforting level of normalcy in action film making.

Stallone adds enough notes of humanity between Broker and his daughter Maddy to surround the skull bashing with familial warmth. And the character of drug addicted redneck mama bear Cassie, with Kate Bosworth in excellent form, injects a welcome variability.

But otherwise director Gary Fleder manages to bungle many of the action scene with barely rational angles and lazy editing, while the plot fills several cliche bingo cards: father and daughter lamenting the loss of the idyllic wife/mother, the horse-riding child placed in harms way, the pet in peril, the Black sidekick (Omar Benson Miller), the corrupt local cop (Clancy Brown), and the hints of a romance between the tough protagonist and the perky school psychologist (Rachelle Lefevre, way too perky for this backwater of a little town). 

Star charisma helps navigate the routine terrain, Jason Statham's stoic heroism and Dave Franco's slimy villainy creating worthy adversaries. Winona Ryder is too good for the fast-fried role of a trashy errand girl on the cusp of finding a conscience. Homefront wins no awards for originality, but is too busy breaking bones to care.



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The Movies Of Kate Bosworth

All movies starring Kate Bosworth and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Wonderland (2003)

21 (2008)

And While We Were Here (2012)

Movie 43 (2013)

Homefront (2013)

Still Alice (2014)

Heist (2015)

Before I Wake (2016)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Before I Wake (2016)

A suspense drama with some horror moments, Before I Wake explores deep-seated grief as a powerful force.

Eight year old orphan Cody Morgan (Jacob Tremblay) has had a troubled life, and social worker Natalie Friedman (Annabeth Gish) places him with newly approved foster parents Jessie and Mark Hobson (Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane). The Hobsons are still recovering from the accidental drowning death of their own young son Sean, and Jessie is attending a grief support group.

They soon discover that Cody loves butterflies, but is fearful of falling asleep and consumes stimulants to try and stay awake, believing the "Canker Man" is out to get him. When Cody does fall asleep, remarkable things happen in the Hobson household, with butterflies and other compelling visions appearing. But then really bad and evil events are also triggered by Cody's nightmares, and soon the lives of Jessie and Mark lives thrown into turmoil.

Directed and co-written by Mike Flanagan, Before I Wake is a fulfilling serving of horror as commentary on psychological scars. The film features a satisfactory number of bump-in-the-night moments, chills and scares, but is also unafraid to turn on the lights, bring in some moments of joy and delve into the human condition when drowning in emotional anguish.

Behind the creepy images of dead people coming to life, dreams and nightmares invading reality and butterflies either instilling beauty or shrouding menace, the film works as a metaphor for human duality, the capacity within each family member to add unbridled joy or devastating anguish. Fear of the unknown, letting go of the past and the insidious damage caused by harboring blame and resentment are other themes percolating within the narrative.

The cast features plenty of quality. Jacob Tremblay is immediately likable in one of his earliest screen roles (Before I Wake was filmed in 2013 and languished due to studio financial troubles). Tremblay conveys the innocence of a child still hopeful of finding happiness in life and effortlessly combines his character's extreme intellect with anxious fragility. Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane are sturdy as the parents struggling against the cracks appearing in their relationship due to their profound loss.

Before I Wake ends with a strong sense of purpose and courage, but also just errs on the side of over-tidiness in resolving all the emotional threads. Dreams are internal conversations worth having, but a flutter of mystery is always welcome.

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Movie Review: Heist (2015)

A derivative crime thriller, Heist liberally borrows ideas from other sources but still sinks into its own yawning plot holes. A decent cast barely avoids a total write-off.

Luke Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a card dealer at the casino run by Francis "The Pope" Silva (Robert De Niro) and regularly frequented by money laundering Asian mobsters. Vaughn was formerly The Pope's protégé, a position now occupied by Derrick “The Dog” Prince (Morris Chestnut). Vaughn's young daughter is sick and he needs to quickly raise $300,000 for her life-saving operation, but The Pope turns down his request for a loan. In desperation Vaughn teams up with fellow-employee Jason Cox (Dave Bautista) and they plan an after-hours robbery of the casino.

The heist yields $3 million but the getaway goes wrong, and Vaughn, Cox and their wounded accomplice Dante (Stephen Cyrus Sepher, who also wrote and co-produced the film) hijack a city bus driven by Bernie (D.B. Sweeney), with police officer Kris Bajos (Gina Carano) in hot pursuit. The combustible Cox threatens mayhem, and it's left to Vaughn to negotiate with Kris to try and diffuse the situation. Meanwhile The Pope lets Dog loose to retrieve the stolen loot and also has to deal with failing health and an estranged daughter Sydney (Kate Bosworth).

A simplistic mash-up of The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 with Speed, Heist does not try too hard. Dependant almost entirely on the performances by De Niro and Morgan, director Scott Mann barely sketches in the plot, leaving out most of the required logic and just riding the kinetic energy of a high-stakes theft-from-thieves gone wrong.

The plot holes happily ride along the bus, and range from Kris the police officer breaking every rule in the book to The Pope seemingly having an army of goons and infiltrators at his disposal, and culminating in a reveal near the climax that is fully dependent on wild coincidences.

Set against the fast and loose plot is a welcome attempt to flesh out the two central characters. It is corny, but amidst all the burning petrol The Pope's quietly tense encounter with his daughter is the highlight of the film and at least sets up an interesting parallel dynamic with Vaughn. The latter's need-to-save-my-daughter imperative provides a shaky foundation for his return to a life of crime, but is also enough to differentiate Vaughn from the pure evil of his fellow criminals.

De Niro and Morgan are much better than the rudimentary material, but take the project seriously enough to register some moments of welcome depth, both men lamenting lives that could have gone better. It's not enough to elevate Heist to a decent film, but at least the acting talent on the bus goes round and round along with all the other recycled debris.

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Movie Review: 21 (2008)

Based on true events, 21 is an entertaining drama examining what happens when the glitter and seductiveness of the Las Vegas gambling world are used as ill-conceived shortcuts on the road of real life.

21 is based on the events described in the book Bringing Down The House, by Ben Mezrich. The movie was accused of white-washing what in reality was a predominantly Asian-American Blackjack Team. While the decision to cast white actors in all the leading roles is understandable from the perspective of increasing the film's marketability, it is a sad statement on society that actor ethnicity remains a major factor in determining commercial success.

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a student at MIT, a math wizard, and looking to get into Harvard Medical School. He is recruited by one of his professors, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), to join the Blackjack Team: a group of students organized by Rosa to use a card-counting system and win big at Blackjack during weekend trips to Las Vegas casinos.

At first reluctant but seduced by the idea of making enough money to pay for medical school, Campbell joins the team, falls in love with team-member Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), and over 17 glitzy Vegas weekends makes more money than he ever imagined possible. He enjoys the fast and loose life style of the big-time winning gambler, but things start to fall apart when he loses his friends at MIT; tensions erupt between the Blackjack Team members; and Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a burly Vegas security chief with a mean streak, smells something wrong with Campbell's unlikely winning streak.

Director Robert Luketic ensures that 21 looks great, whether in luxury-drenched Vegas or the more staid and academic Boston environment. Kevin Spacey keeps his balance walking the fine line between smiling math professor and conniving blackjack strategist, alternating between charming and badgering his students to win him money. Laurence Fishburne does not need to bother with the charming part, he just bulldozes his way to uncovering those who try to win at Blackjack by counting. Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth are an appealing mix of student naivete and young adults forced to deal with the challenges of an alternate world.

Slick, engaging and thought-provoking, 21 doesn't bring down the house, but it does shake it up.

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