Movie Review: No Hard Feelings (2023)

Genre: Raunchy Romantic Comedy  

Director: Gene Stupnitsky  

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: In Long Island, New York, 32 year-old Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) is a financially strapped Uber driver. After her car is repossessed, wealthy couple Allison and Laird Becker (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) offer her a Buick in return for seducing their introverted 19 year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), to help prepare him for college life. What starts out as simple assignment to go on a date and have sex becomes complicated when Maddie and Percy start to get to know each other.

What Works Well: Under the covers of a sex-as-a-transaction raunchy comedy resides a more tender story of stalled lives. Maddie is haunted by a missing father and a questionable responsibility towards her dead mom, while Percy is a victim of bullying and over-parenting. The often witty script finds the funny seams within the interactions between two warm people putting on a cold front, emboldened by Jennifer Lawrence's deft comic timing. The milieu of a working class town overrun by wealthy summer residents adds a humorous edge, augmented by the dubious dynamics between Maddie's married friends Sara and Jim, and Percy's work at a dog shelter.

What Does Not Work As Well: The mental exercise of reversing the gender roles reveals the extent of overreach within the intentionally troublesome foundational premise. Andrew Barth Feldman's young looks adds ickiness to the clandestine seduction plot mechanics, while the creakier scenes betray the limits of improvisation. 

Key Quote:

Maddie (pushily pretending to be interested in adopting a dog): I want a dog right now.

Percy: Well, then, pet ownership may not be for you. You sound a lot like the kind of person we would normally take a dog from.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Ladyhawke (1985)

Genre: Fantasy Romantic Drama  

Director: Richard Donner  

Starring: Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Broderick, Leo McKern, John Wood, Alfred Molina  

Running Time: 121 minutes  

Synopsis: In a medieval setting, pickpocket Phillipe "The Mouse" Gaston (Matthew Broderick) escapes the dungeon of the evil Bishop of Aquila (John Wood). With guards in hot pursuit, Phillipe is saved by mysterious swordsman Etienne of Navarre (Rutger Hauer), who is often accompanied by a hawk. Phillipe learns that the Bishop's vindictive curse turns Etienne into a wolf from dusk to dawn, just as his lover Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) turns from hawk to woman, so they can never meet. Phillipe and the old monk Imperious (Leo McKern) join forces to help the lovers break the curse.

What Works Well: The unique vision of a doomed romance carries a serious but lively tone, and unfolds under brooding skies. Director Richard Donner and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro wrap an evil regime within beautiful countryside vistas and dominant citadels to create a grounded aesthetic pierced by rays of legend and magic. Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer are suitably morose, while the action scenes are rationally edited and arrive at regular intervals courtesy of the Bishop's dogged guards and mercenary pursuit agents. Alfred Molina makes an appearance as a weathered wolf hunter. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The inability of the romantic couple to interact as humans is a natural barrier to passion, leaving the less inspiring Matthew Broderick as the go-between. His conversations with God are fun and his strained relationship with the truth adds personality zing, but Phillipe Gaston is clearly a tertiary character thrust into a lead role. The synthesizer-dominated music soundtrack by Andrew Powell and Alan Parsons is an unfortunate anachronistic flop.

Key Quote:

Phillipe: Are you flesh, or are you spirit?

Isabeau: I am sorrow.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The American Side (2016)

A neo-noir detective thriller, The American Side has stylish intentions but is over-plotted and under-produced.

In the Buffalo and Niagara Falls area, crooked small-time private investigator Charlie Paczynski (Greg Stuhr) is stunned when his partner Kat (Kelsey Siepser) is shot and killed during a seemingly routine entrapment operation targeting Tom Soberin (Harris Yulin). Charlie starts to ask questions and kick down doors, only for Soberin to turn up dead in the river. Distraught scientific researcher Nikki Meeker (Alicja Bachleda) was also looking for Soberin and approaches Charlie for help.

Charlie's investigation leads him to competing industrialists Borden Chase (Matthew Broderick) and Sterling Whitmore (Robert Forster), who are both looking for a secret design by famous inventor Nikola Tesla that could alter human destiny. Borden's sister Emily (Camilla Belle) may have her own agenda, government Agent Barry (Janeane Garofalo) is tracking down the bad guys, local police detectives are chasing shadows, and a group of Serbian thugs are just as intent on getting their hands on Tesla's drawings.

Directed by Jenna Ricker and co-written by Stuhr, The American Side is an independent, low-budget production, aiming to recreate classic noir style and mood. Attempting to breathe deeply from the Buffalo setting and the energy of the roaring Niagara Falls, the film is unfortunately just plain hokey, an almost laughably amateurish juxtaposition of 1940s attitude and dialogue with an incongruous modern setting seemingly devoid of cell phones and computers.

Borrowing heavily from films like The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly and The Third Man, The American Side never finds its own voice, and remains a mishmash of ideas barely held together by a poorly developed, derivative and over-burdened plot full of holes, inconsistencies and loose ends. Despite the presence of talent like Broderick, Forster, Yulin, Garofalo and none other than Robert Vaughn, the acting is uniformly wooden and the lines of dialogue are read with little conviction.

Some of the visuals capture the noir spirit, a few of the snarky lines do land effectively, and with better direction and a polished script Greg Stuhr can be imagined as an effective and seedy anti-hero. But here the action is clunky, good intentions slipping into the waterfall, drowning in the whoosh of an unforgiving talent deficit.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Godzilla (1998)

A rampaging monster movie, Godzilla enjoys some moments but is otherwise overlong and underpowered.

Radiation caused by nuclear weapons testing on South Pacific islands causes the mutation of a lizard into a building-sized monster. A Japanese fishing vessel is attacked and sunk, then the creature leaves footprints in Panama and Jamaica. Dr. Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), an expert in the long term effects of radiation exposure, is recruited to join scientist Dr. Elsie Chapman (Vicki Lewis) and Col. Anthony Hicks (Kevin Dunn) to understand and subdue the beast.

Finally Godzilla emerges onto the docklands of Manhattan causing chaos and carnage before suddenly disappearing. Nick's ex-girlfriend Audrey (Maria Pitillo) is struggling to break into serious journalism, and along with television cameraman Victor (Hank Azaria) they latch onto the story. Meanwhile a group of French intelligence officers led by Philippe Roaché (Jean Reno) join the search.

Hollywood's first attempt to adapt the cautionary legend about the dangers of nuclear armament from its Japanese origins to an American context, Godzilla is a misfire. At an astonishing 2 hours and 20 minutes, the film is endless, the bloat evident in a disjointed script devoid of emotion. The monster itself gets bored and disappears for a long stretch from its own movie, replaced by a gaggle of angry and hungry baby Godzillas.

Director Roland Emmerich co-wrote the script with Dean Devlin, and baked in a fundamental weakness in not providing the gigantic creature with a personality. Neither despicably evil as in Alien nor gradually sympathetic such as King Kong, Godzilla just romps around Manhattan every now and then, and then ridiculously disappears. How a high-rise sized creature can hide underground is just one of the film's many jaw-dropping internal inconsistencies.

With most of the budget obviously dedicated to the bloodless, painless and goreless special effects, the film is hampered by a second-rate cast. Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and Hank Azaria would have provided terrific support to a couple of bona fide leading stars. Here they are required to carry the film, and are crushed by the load.

Godzilla takes a long detour for an elaborate set-piece at Madison Square Gardens, a hide-and-seek film-within-a-film featuring hundreds of baby (but still large and nimble) monsters besieging the main characters. From a narrative perspective it's an ill-conceived distraction, but ironically provides some of the movie's most entertaining tongue-in-cheek moments. But regardless, no amount of creatures on the loose is going to save this monstrosity of a movie.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Family Business (1989)

A multi-generational crime drama, Family Business is a dour exercise in stretching a simple idea well past its breaking point.

In New York City, Vito McMullen (Dustin Hoffman) works in the meat distribution industry, having distanced himself from his father Jessie (Sean Connery), a life-long thief. Vito has worked hard to ensure that his son Adam (Matthew Broderick), now in his early twenties, gets a good education and never comes close to a life of crime.

But Adam is restless for adventure. He drops out of university and hatches a plan to break into a high-tech company headquarters to steal DNA research vials and log books worth $1 million. Jessie immediately and enthusiastically agrees to help. Vito is unable to talk his son and his father out of the heist, and so joins to try and protect Adam. The theft at first appears to go well, but then things go very wrong.

Directed by Sidney Lumet, Family Business never gets off the ground. The stellar cast features three actors at the top of their fame, Connery enjoying a late career resurrection, Hoffman at his mid-age peak and Broderick the hot young star. The actors do their best but are simply too powerful for the underdeveloped material, and the flimsy Vincent Patrick story sinks under the weight of the talent pushing against it.

Although the stars ensure a base level of watchability and the germs of some good ideas spark the occasional moment of interest, the film is overall slow and boring, the tension and drama never convince, and given the talent involved, the key characters remain surprisingly shallow. The backstories of the three men are sketched in the broadest of strokes through juvenile tales. The supporting characters, in the form of wives and mothers, are next to non-existent.

With the absence of substance embarrassingly obvious, the film is filled with bloat. There are two prolonged family dinner scenes celebrating Jewish heritage, two wakes celebrating the Irish spirit complete with two renditions of Oh Danny Boy, both equally unnecessary. Fathers and sons regularly slap or punch each other between hopelessly trite arguments about parenting methods, what really matters in life, and sons expressing disappointment in their fathers.

Lumet reaches for a theme about the sacrifice of the father not being appreciated by the son. It was the choice of Vito to try and build a respectable life for Adam and he should have known better: Jessie's fun-loving, grab-life-by-the-balls approach was always the way to go. And that's about as far as the message of the film extends, one hour and fifty minutes of tiresome fatherhood pop psychology punctuated by the single action sequence.

An unfortunate waste of talent on both sides of the camera, Family Business is a bust.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: WarGames (1983)

A technological teen comedy romance thriller, WarGames successfully mixes genres and takes an early look at the world of young geeks and computer hacking.

At the secret Colorado base for the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), systems engineer Dr. John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) believes that computers should replace stress-prone humans to fulfill missile launch orders. In Seattle, high school student David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) has no interest in his classes but plenty of motivation to explore the burgeoning world of computer gaming and networks. As he starts a friendship with classmate Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), David goes looking for the latest gaming code and accidentally hacks his way into the military WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) simulation supercomputer, part of the NORAD network.

David thinks he is playing as game called Global Thermonuclear War, but WOPR was not programmed to understand the difference between scenarios and actual war, causing panic in the war room as the line between reality and simulation is lost and the US military machine is mobilized to respond to a seemingly massive attack by the USSR. David and Jennifer have to track down WOPR's reclusive creator Dr. Stephen Falken (John Wood) to try and stop the chaos.

Directed by John Badham, WarGames defies easy categorization. It's a a high school comedy, a techno-thriller, a young romance and a fulmination against military incompetence, complete with the most impressive war room set since Dr. Strangelove. It is not unexpected that some parts of the film creakily rub against each other, but overall Badham and his team of screenwriters make it work, and it has withstood the test of time remarkably well. A crackling current of irreverent, sly humour permeates the movie, Badham playing up some stereotypes with sharp wit and a quick wink.

The film is in many ways groundbreaking. David as a teenager with no interest in school but a bedroom full of computer equipment and an intrinsic ability to understand technology and circumvent security is a pioneer hacker, a milestone to a future generational shift. The portrayal of the military as an organization both harnessing the awesome power of computer technology and simultaneously wrestling with its implications and vulnerabilities remains remarkably applicable decades later. WOPR as a self-learning computer points the way to the future world of artificial intelligence. The set design is also astonishingly inventive, the NORAD headquarters a dazzling example of imagination matching future realities.

WarGames has a few chase scenes and moments of staged thrills, but primarily works its way towards more cerebral aspirations. The tragicomic character of Dr. Falken becomes a central figure, a man disenchanted with life having dedicated his career to understanding war at a deeper level than humanly possible only to suffer a devastating personal tragedy. No longer interested in winners and losers and only waiting for the one outcome, Falken slips into a father figure role for David, and doesn't so much solve the crisis as point the way. And credit goes to Badham for having the courage to allow the hot war threat to be resolved prior to revealing the film's real heart, as WOPR finally grasps the meaning of learning when it comes to war.

Matthew Broderick is perfect in the role of David Lightman, his screen persona of the lighthearted street smart misfit suitably deployed both on the domestic front and in the war room. Ally Sheedy creates the perfect girlfriend-to-be, and with help from the mischievous script she quickly turns Jennifer into a real person: fun-loving, sweaty, roguish, initially dubious of David's surreptitious computer wizardry but ultimately a helpful resource.

WarGames is both cheeky and perceptive, a clever film with a deft touch and timeless message.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

A comedy about friendship and coming of age, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a deceptively simple story about a high school teen getting a jump start on life as an adult.

Resourceful Chicago high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) feigns sickness, fools his parents (Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward) and skips school for the day. After some effort, he convinces his uptight and frequently sick friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to also take the day off. Together they concoct a plan to smuggle Ferris' girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) out of school, from under the nose of principal Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), a ruse that involves driving the precious vintage Ferrari belonging to Cameron's dad. Ferris also spreads rumours that he is practically on his death bed, triggering an outpouring of sympathy that spreads throughout the city.

Both Rooney and Ferris' sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) are convinced that Ferris is not sick at all and separately set out to catch him in the act. Meanwhile Ferris, Cameron and Sloane enjoy a day that includes trips to the Sears Tower observation deck, a Cubs baseball game, a meal at a snooty restaurant, visits to the art gallery and the mercantile exchange, and impromptu participation on a parade float. Rooney and Jeannie suffer their own misadventures as they try to uncover what the trio are up to, and Ferris will need all his wits to wrap up the day with no one the wiser.

Written and directed by John Hughes in the heart of his personal golden era, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is the definitive teen dream movie. The film is funny, fast-paced and also the perfect Chicago travelogue, Hughes showcasing the best that his favourite city has to offer on a gloriously sunny day. The central character is cool, calm and courageous, always several smart steps ahead of anyone trying to ruin his day. And the film's mantra of life moves pretty fast -- if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it, may as well be the most perfect pre-written excuse to occasionally step off the treadmill and test all of society's rules.

Ferris narrates the film and regularly breaks the fourth wall, adding to his appeal and firmly pulling the audience to his side and against his adversaries. And Ferris' opponents are easy to boo, with Rooney the worst type of bug-eyed foam-at-the-mouth authority figure, and Jeannie the sibling too worried about what her brother is up to rather than carving her own path (her perspective only changes upon meeting her own rebel in the form of Charlie Sheen).

Building on his break-out success in 1983's WarGames, Broderick finds his perfect role as Ferris Bueller. His boyish charm and the sly but disarming smile are deployed to full effect, and it's impossible to dislike his roguishness. Indeed, a large part of the film's appeal lies in Ferris being universally liked by all the high school factions, an impossible ideal that elevates the character's powers to legendary status in teen circles.

While superficially about a kid who takes a day off, Hughes has a couple of not-so-hidden agendas, and he reveals them early. Not too many high school kids skipping school choose to go to an art gallery, the mercantile exchange, or a stuffy restaurant. Fewer still would propose marriage to their girlfriend. These are literal and figurative adult actions and destinations, and the intrepid Ferris is using his last day off crack open the door to the grown-up world that he and his friends will need to soon live in.

And the greater purpose of the day emerges in the relationship between Ferris and Cameron. Initially Ferris' insistence that Cameron join him in skipping school appears self-serving (he needs to drive that Ferrari!), but Cameron's quietly tortured character emerges as the one spot of darkness at the heart of the film. Ferris' agenda blossoms as the afternoon progresses, and rather than achieving personal fulfillment, his goal is revealed to be much more about providing an emotional lift to a friend in need, the most satisfying act on a most lively day off.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Freshman (1990)

A crime comedy mixing mobster satire with broad laughs, The Freshman benefits from a fine Marlon Brando performance riffing on his godfather persona, and an engaged Matthew Broderick. The film is astute and entertainingly frivolous in equal patches.

Clark Kellog (Broderick), raised by his wildlife-loving but otherwise obtuse step-father Dwight (Kenneth Welsh), leaves his rural Vermont home behind and heads to New York University to study film making. Within minutes of arriving in the big city, Clark meets the fast-talking Victor (Bruno Kirby), who offers Clark a ride but promptly steals all his money and luggage. Eventually Victor makes amends by introducing Clark to his uncle Carmine Sabatini (Brando), a businessman with a lucrative job offer that can't be refused.

Sabatini professes great admiration for Clark, who is intimidated into accepting a well-paid job as a driver tasked with transferring unspecified cargo from the airport to New Jersey. He also meets Sabatini's daughter Tina (Penelope Ann Miller), and with bewildering speed she professes her love for Clark and starts to talk of marriage. The cargo turns out to be a rare Komodo dragon being illegally imported into the care of the mysterious Larry London (Maximilian Schell), a flamboyant chef. Clark realizes that he has been sucked into an illicit and bizarre scheme involving gourmet meals featuring near-extinct species. He quickly wants out, but escaping Sabatini's web will be a complicated process.

The running joke in The Freshman is that everyone recognizes Carmine Sabatini as a spitting image of Don Corleone, but no one quite gets to say it. Brando mumbles his way through the role and has great fun recreating one of his greatest screen characters, but in this case the crime boss appears to be involved in nothing more serious than arranging over-priced banquets for air-headed rich guests.

The Freshman is filled with this kind of attractive asymmetry, where characters appear to be stereotypes but then step sideways into unfamiliar and quirky territory. Sabatini's pregnant pronouncements can be construed as either profound or simplistic, and his affection towards Clark may or may not be a real surrogate father-son bond, Victor oscillates between scruffy thief and resourceful potential brother-in-law, while Tina innocently combines mobster's daughter with a potentially genuine attachment to Clark. Larry London hints at a Nazi-laced evil past, but he could also be just an inventive cook.

Director and writer Andrew Bergman succeeds for the most part in threading the needle where Clark's ludicrous adventure stays on the right side of plausibly ridiculous. Broderick's fresh-faced, wide-eyed persona is a good match for Brando's dark and domineering boss, and the two create the film's best moments in several long conversational scenes. The Komodo dragon is also excellent and dominates a quite perfect comedy sequence as Clark and his film school friend (Frank Whaley) grapple with the reptile on an eventful trip from the airport to a hidden New Jersey zoo-of-sorts.

Some of the story details are less well constructed, and late on Bergman quick-fries a plot about corrupt conservation officers, while step-father Dwight reappears but is shortchanged into sitting in the back of a car and saying little.

The Freshman is a refined comedy which delivers a range of laughs without taking itself too seriously.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Matthew Broderick

All movies starring Matthew Broderick and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

WarGames (1983)

Ladyhawke (1985)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Glory (1989)

Family Business (1989)

The Freshman (1990)

The Cable Guy (1996)

Godzilla (1998)

Tower Heist (2011)

New Year's Eve (2011, uncredited)

Trainwreck (2015, as himself)

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

The American Side (2016)

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

No Hard Feelings (2023)

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

Movie Review: Tower Heist (2011)

A rather bland revenge caper comedy thriller, Tower Heist assembles a large cast and then wastes it on an underdeveloped story. There are moments of fun to be had thanks to the star power on display, but the overall package is a disappointment.

In downtown Manhattan, Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) is the manager of The Tower, the most prestigious high rise residential address in the city. His crew includes veteran doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson), the tentative desk clerk Charlie (Casey Affleck), housemaid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe) and rookie elevator operator Enrique (Michael Peña). They all work for General Manager Mr. Simon (Judd Hirsch), looking after every need of the very rich tenants.

The most famous and wealthiest resident is billionaire Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), an investment fund manager who occupies the lavish penthouse, complete with Steve McQueen's bright red Ferrari as a centrepiece decoration. Without warning, Shaw is arrested for stealing $2 billion. Kovaks and his team had all their pension money invested with Shaw, and they lose everything. With FBI agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni) leading the investigation into Shaw's business dealings, Kovaks assembles his colleagues as well as bankrupt Wall Street investor Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and common criminal Slide (Eddie Murphy) to plan a daring theft of Shaw's secret safe, located in a wall enclosure within the penthouse.

Tower Heist has shiny outside packaging, but a listless core. The film looks slick and sounds great, the bass-and-horns theme courtesy of Christophe Beck packing plenty of promise. The talented array of stars do their part to help make the experience half-way watchable. Stiller throws himself into the role and manufactures a decent level of conviction, while Broderick hits the better comic tones with a brooding turn as an investor chewed up and spit out by Wall Street's merciless carousel.

Murphy is in good crude form, recalling the edgy, urban and profane Murphy of old as the one true thief among wannabe crooks, although his scrappy street-level experience is ill-suited to a high-rise heist. Alda (finding his inner Bernie Madoff), Affleck, Peña, Leoni, Sidibe and Hirsch ensure that every corner of the tower is occupied by familiar faces.

With most of the budget invested in the cast and the needlessly complicated backdrop of the Thanksgiving parade, little is left for a decent script, and Tower Heist quickly falls apart. The break-in plan is half-baked to the point of emerging from the oven as a sloppy mess, and the attempts at generating some heat between Josh and Claire misfire, although Leoni sparkles in one scene where the FBI agent disappears behind the fog of alcohol and the woman comes to the fore.

Once director Brett Ratner moves the action to the execution phase, all the tension gets caught up in that red Ferrari, and the film devolves into a single silly gag, over the top, outside the building and beyond the bounds of reason. Tower Heist gets stuck in the elevator, with great company but going nowhere.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Cable Guy (1996)

A stalker comic drama, The Cable Guy is part laugh-out funny and part creep-out serious. Jim Carrey stretches his persona into new territory, but ultimately the story occasionally trips on the gap between silly and tense.

Steve (Matthew Broderick) needs to install cable television service in his new apartment, having been kicked out of his old place by girlfriend Robin (Leslie Mann). The cable guy Chip (Jim Carrey) arrives, appears quite strange, but quickly installs the cable while also rearranging Steve's furniture. Acting on a tip from his buddy Rick (Jack Black), Steve offers Chip a bribe in return for turning on pay-TV channels. Chip agrees, labels Steve a preferred customer, and pretends that they are now close friends.

Chip takes Steve on tour of a gigantic satellite dish that feeds the cable service. Afterwards, Chip starts to stalk Steve, interfering with his basketball game, installing unwanted high-grade audio and video equipment in his living room, throwing a wild party and insisting on going out for dinner together. Every time Steve tries to end the friendship, Chip ups the stakes with threats or pleas for pity. Finally, Chip starts to interfere in the relationship between Steve and Robin, as well as within Steve's family.

Directed by Ben Stiller, The Cable Guy generally works but with some static and distortion. Mostly played for laughs, Chip's more threatening behaviour inserts dark tones that can appear out of place. Carrey and Broderick maintain balance and a generally light mood, often overcoming the film's uneven moments with pure charisma.

The Lou Holtz Jr. script does struggle with the dosage between fun and fear, and runs out of good ideas fairly early. Once the premise is set, there is little of substance to build upon lonely and strange guy stalking normal dude with a combination of gifts, victim cards and life meddling. With the dynamic between the two characters mostly static, Stiller is forced into prolonging some pretty mediocre scenes well past their sell-by date, a medieval-style battle between Steve and Chip in a knight-themed restaurant serving as a particularly tedious example.

A real-crime courtroom drama runs in the background on numerous television channels within the film, featuring Stiller as a murderous twin who was a former sitcom child star. The parallel story seems intended as a representation of the new low for television culture, but Stiller the director treats it as an odd distraction, leaving lingering doubts as to whether the idea was ever fully baked.

Better is the overarching theme of the film. Chip is a victim of a childhood spent in front of the television as babysitter, his growth stunted, and his mind atrophied into an inability to conduct normal social interactions. The Cable Guy effectively plays with the cascading consequences of one wrong move, Steve's problems stemming from his singular request for Chip to illegally enable channels in return for a bribe.

Carrey is excellent in the title role, combining comedy and menace to good effect and frequently letting loose with his unique brand of physical comedy, but this time with sinister undertones. Broderick's laid-back attitude similarly works well, Steve a relatively predictable canvass for Chip to paint his plot on. George Segal and Diane Baker have small turns as Steve's parents, while Owen Wilson appears as Robin' new suitor.

The Cable Guy provides a good picture, but can't avoid some crossed wires.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Glory (1989)

Based on the true story of the first all-black unit assembled by the Union to fight in the Civil War, Glory is a sincere drama, capturing some of the earliest steps in the long struggle towards civil rights.

Union Colonel Robert Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is relatively young, but has already experienced Civil War combat, and the bitter taste of a heavy defeat at the Battle of Antietam. With the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in ten rebel states, Shaw, still in his twenties, is tasked to lead the new all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. A large number of ex-slaves join the unit, including the hot-headed Silas Trip (Denzel Washington), the older and wiser John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), and Shaw's former house servant, the studious Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher).

With the help of his second-in-command Major Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes), Shaw starts the process of training the men and readying them for combat. The newly minted soldiers learn quickly and are eager to prove their abilities, but the unit receives minimal attention from headquarters, and it takes a long time for the 54th to be supplied with proper boots, uniforms, and pay. Once fully trained and equipped, Shaw has to forcefully insist that his unit is more than a symbolic gesture, and that the 54th should be allowed to join combat operations. He finally gets his wishes in the assault on the Confederate Fort Wagner.

With the 54th having seen limited combat action, Glory is less a war film than an exploration of a quiet seismic shift, a society redefining itself through men in training during war, the change unfolding in a barely controlled mess. The script by Kevin Jarre focuses on the human details, black men entering the white man's world, yearning to be treated as equals but facing attitudes that are both entrenched and yet enabling change, with the changes both incredibly rapid and yet not rapid enough.

The Union wants to create the 54th but does not want to treat the unit equally; the army invests in training the former slaves but does not want to put them into battle; and the black men know that neither they nor their ancestors ever had it as good, and yet their condition remains unequal and therefore not good enough. Glory rides along a seam in history, a time of tumultuous change both in defining the soul of a nation and redrawing the practical implications to its people.

Edward Zwick directs with deliberate pacing, allowing the characters of Shaw, Trip, Rawlins and Searles to evolve and find their place in the chaos of civil war.

Matthew Broderick's performance is hesitant, the film and the role simply too big for him, but this is a case where the hesitancy actually fits the context. Shaw was promoted beyond his experience and abilities, and his command of the unit would be more bravado and theory than true application of earned knowledge. Broderick rarely appears comfortable, and in trying to lead a collection of coloured men into a brave new world of freedom, likely neither did Shaw.

Denzel Washington adds the dash and energy as the young ex-slave with a large chip on his shoulder, and earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Silas Trip may be angry, ungrateful, selfish, and looking for a fight at every opportunity, but Jarre also allows him to be the most perceptive soldier. Regardless of who wins the war, Trip is under no illusions about the future. For black men, meaningful change is a not few months away, but rather generations removed.

Glory's final battle, while overdrawn at the edges, is beautifully filmed and captures the lyrical horror of war. Zwick is in his element finding the human hearts in the middle of inhuman carnage, as a brave victory for the ages emerges from the brutal defeat of the day.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.