Movie Review: The Girl In The Spider's Web (2018)

An action thriller, The Girl In The Spider's Web is overloaded with unlikely narrow escapes, but with enough brooding character angst to maintain interest.

When she was a child, Lisbeth Salander escaped from the estate of her abusive father, a powerful tycoon with connections to Russian mobsters. But her sister Camilla stayed behind and suffered years of exploitation.

Now the adult Lisbeth (Claire Foy) is a hacker based in Stockholm, and a vigilante targeting abusive men. She is contacted by Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), an ex-National Security Agency (NSA) employee, to steal and prevent the misuse of software he wrote for the NSA enabling anyone to take control of the world's military satellites. Lisbeth is successful, but her hack alerts the NSA's Ed Needham (Lakeith Stanfield), who travels to Stockholm to investigate. Gabriella Grane (Synnøve Macody Lund) of the Swedish Security Service does not welcome Ed's intrusion on her soil.

More dangerous is a violent gang that steals the code from Lisbeth before she can hand it to Frans. The software is protected by a pass code known only to Bader and his young son August, and they are both soon in danger. Lisbeth reaches out to reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) for help as the ghosts of the past catch up with her.

An adaptation of the book by David Lagercrantz based on Stieg Larsson's characters, The Girl In The Spider's Web takes the series in a new direction. The screenplay by Jay Basu, Steven Knight, and director Fede Álvarez, is packed full of action, and while the dark mood and subtext of abuse remain, here the emphasis is on a Bond-type conspiracy and a cliffhanger (sometimes literally) every 15 minutes.

Some of the thrills are excellent, including a motorcycle escape on an iced river, and a technology-enabled airport breakout. But others become repetitive and quite over-the-top. With Claire Foy wearing a singular expression of epic pissed-offness, Lisbeth escapes a massive gas explosion that destroys a neighbourhood, a hail of bullets, a really high jump, a torture session in a rubber suit, twice being drugged, and several physical scuffles with burly assassin-types. Her frequent near-death moments become numbing and steal away from the more cerebral and emotional parts of the drama.

And The Girl In The Spider's Web does contain enough ingredients for human-level interactions to deserve toned-down theatrics. Once revealed, the mastermind behind the conspiracy to steal the software provides excellent opportunities for the past and the present to collide, and the triple themes of abuse, revenge, and hacking defining Lisbeth's life merge into a compelling narrative. Meanwhile her relationship with young August is also rich with possibilities for personal growth.

In contrast, the bond between Lisbeth and Mikael suffers the most with the reorientation towards action. Here Mikael is very much a secondary character along for the ride, the writer out of place amidst all the stuntwork and flying limbs.

The Girl In The Spider's Web carries intricate threads, but the execution is more expedient than exquisite.



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Movie Review: Uncut Gems (2019)

A high-energy drama and character study, Uncut Gems draws power from a hustler teetering on the edge of either ruin or the win of a lifetime. 

The setting is 2012 in New York's Diamond District. Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) runs a jewelry business but is in over his head. Addicted to betting on basketball and a serial liar, Howard owes money all over town, including a large amount to his brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian). Howard is married to Dinah (Idina Menzel) but is openly having an affair with his store assistant Julia (Julia Fox). 

With Arno's goons applying increasing pressure, Howard obtains a rare and potentially precious black opal mined in Africa. His client contact Demany (Lakeith Stanfield) brings Celtics basketball star Kevin Garnett (playing himself) into the store, and he is immediately entranced by the rock, believing it has mystical powers and will elevate his game. Howard spots an audacious opportunity of a lifetime to bet on Garnett's performance and cash in on the opal to wipe out his debts.

Exceptionally foul-mouthed and manipulative, Howard Ratner is a compelling and deeply flawed man, but also unfortunately not an individual worth caring about. The writing/directing team of brothers Josh and Benny Safdie invest an over-long 135 minutes into Howard's antics, and while a train wreck fascination is undeniable, protagonist sympathy never materializes and ultimately Uncut Gems is dragged down by the stench of self-destruction.

Displaying few if any redeeming qualities, Howard believes he is smarter than everyone else and can say anything to anyone at anytime just to feed his self-gratifying addictions. In fact he is a pathetic loser with dwindling options, and while pity emerges as the strongest theme, it is doubtful Howard is even worth that.

Embracing the unappealing moral darkness at the center of the film, Adam Sandler sheds his more typical lightweight screen persona and delivers one of his career best performances, bulldozing through multiple chapters of windfalls and catastrophes as Howard craves only the next thrill. With the Safdies overly enamored with the star power of Garnett and singer The Weeknd, the supporting cast is thin and the secondary characters fleeting, Howard's attention span insufficient to give due prominence to anyone else.

The aesthetics are a potent combination of gritty and stylish, although an early visit to the Ethiopian gem mines promises more than it delivers. With an obnoxious soul, Uncut Gems is a loudmouthed rock offering only a grimy shine.



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