Movie Review: Reagan (2024)

Genre: Biography  

Director: Sean McNamara  

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, Mena Suvari  

Running Time: 141 minutes  

Synopsis: A veteran Soviet KGB agent (Jon Voight) recounts his long history tracking the career of Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid). He was first noticed by the Soviets in the 1940s when his Hollywood acting career faded but he ascended to the presidency of the actors' union and pushed back against communist sentiments. Upon retiring from acting he turned his attention to politics, studiously learning about the Soviet threat and running for Governor of California with the support of his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller). By the 1970s the White House beckoned, with Reagan focused on winning the Cold War.

What Works Well: Enough incidents are packed into the life of one man to maintain basic engagement.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite huffing and puffing for 141 minutes, this inept hagiography reduces Reagan's life to quips and soundbites signifying nothing. The script deftly avoids any meaningful probing of the man's skills, dilemmas, coalition building talents, political acumen, and shortcomings. Instead, recreations of newsreel highlights and photographs are soullessly stitched together, with plastic mimicry mistaken for acting and cringe-inducing dialogue crowding out substance. Reagan is simplified into a caricature image (communists bad, nuclear weapons bad), with his most famous words written by others, and the KGB perspective is wasted on adversarial reverential worship.

Key Quote:

Reagan (to Soviet leader Gorbachev): As I see it, we don't mistrust each other because we're armed. We're armed because we mistrust each other.

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Movie Review: The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag (1992)

A comedy thriller, The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag has ambitions as an all-out madcap farce, but is only partially successful.

In a small Missouri town, Betty Lou Perkins (Penelope-Ann Miller) is a mousy and meek librarian, ignored by her co-workers and neglected by her police detective husband Alex (Eric Thal). When a mobster-turned-informant is shot dead in a local motel room, Alex is further immersed in his investigative work. While out walking the dog, Betty Lou stumbles upon the gun used for the murder, picks it up and is soon arrested.

Instead of explaining the circumstances Betty Lou decides this is her moment to be at the centre of attention, and falsely hints that she is guilty of committing the murder, shocking Alex and the whole community. Dropped into a jail cell to await a trial hearing, Betty Lou meets prostitute Reba (Cathy Moriarty), who is full of assertiveness advice. Inexperienced lawyer Ann Orkin (Alfre Woodard) offers to represent Betty Lou, while violent mobster boss Beaudeen (William Forsyth) arrives in town, believing that Betty Lou now holds incriminating tapes.

Directed by Allan Moyle, The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag boasts a terrific cast brimming with talented actresses. Penelope-Ann Miller, Alfre Woodard and Cathy Moriarty are joined by Julianne Moore and Catherine Keener in smallish early career roles. And the acting talent is a good fit for the primary theme of a woman finally deciding to stand up for herself.

Of course Betty Lou chooses the wrong time and the worst possible incident to decide that enough is enough and disrupt the prevailing order of her life. Her actions create the ideal conditions for a high energy screwball comedy, but Moyle's directing and the Grace Cary Bickley script are only partially capable of delivering on the premise. The comedy elements are average, and the violence, courtesy of Beaddeen, veers towards unnecessary extremes of psychotic behaviour.

The film is also hampered by lacklustre talent in the male acting department, Eric Thal an unfortunately bland presence and unable to generate neither chemistry nor authentic intensity. The sparse 89 minutes of running time suggest limitations somewhere in the concept development stage, and overall the film contains the whiff of a glorified made-for-television effort.

But Penelope-Ann Miller is a spark in the middle of Betty Lou's wacky exploits, and her quest for meaningful recognition resonates beyond the film's narrow confines. With or without a gun in her handbag, Betty Lou will demand that her voice be heard.

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Movie Review: Adventures In Babysitting (1987)

A teen adventure comedy, Adventures In Babysitting enjoys a wacky ride through urban hazards, boosted by an appealing Elisabeth Shue lead performance.

In a leafy suburb of Chicago, high school senior Chris Parker (Shue) is anticipating a big date with her boyfriend, but he makes a lame excuse and cancels. Chris then reluctantly agrees to babysit the neighbourhood kids, 15 year old Brad Anderson (Keith Coogan) and his 8 year old sister Sara (Maia Brewton). Brad has a crush on Chris, and his friend Daryl (Anthony Rapp) ends up hanging around as well. The evening starts out as routine but soon Chris receives a frantic phone call from her friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller), who is stranded at the downtown bus station and in need of rescue.

Chris drags the three kids into her mother's station wagon and heads into the jungle. A flat tire on the freeway initiates an encounter with tow truck driver John Pruitt (John Ford Noonan), setting off a series of wild events including witnessing a stormy domestic dispute, an encounter with car thief Joe Gipp (Calvin Levels), an unwanted detour to a car chop shop where hissing villains await, and a chance meeting with dreamy college kid Dan Lynch (George Newbern). And Chris' resemblance to the latest Playboy magazine's centrefold model just adds to the night's insanity.

Written by David Simkins and featuring the directorial debut of Chris Columbus, Adventures In Babysitting is smart, sharp and funny. Adapting for a teen audience the "one crazy night" premise of 1985's Into The Night and After Hours, the film quickly establishes the dynamics between babysitter and kids, and then piles on the mishaps and laughs as Chris and her troop venture well outside their comfort zone. There is just enough edge to the events of the night to maintain an enjoyable amount of tension without ever threatening to alienate younger audience members.

Columbus plays up the central theme of downtown as a dangerous and unknown place that may as well be on a distant planet for a bunch of suburban kids ill-equipped for the perils of a concrete jungle. Chris' happy and sunny disposition belongs in the suburbs, and she has to learn on the fly to survive encounters with hardened inner city people, places and events. She maintains her composure and keeps a regime of discipline among Brad, Daryl and Sara, her coping techniques providing the film with plenty of charm.

Elisabeth Shue delivers one of the best performances of her career, defining Chris as a capable and resourceful teen, grounded enough to maintain sanity but capable of taking risks to get out of jams. Columbus and Shue combine to deliver the film's highlight, an unexpected appearance on an intimidating blues bar stage that turns into an impromptu improvised song performance by Chris and her charges.

The three kids are given their own personalities to liven up the night. Brad is star-struck as he nurses an understandable crush on his perfect girl-next-door babysitter. Daryl is more down to earth and up for trouble. Young Sara is just having a blast enjoying the best night of her young life, her obsession with comic hero Thor about to pay dividends in the unlikeliest of settings as Vincent D'Onofrio nails a mythical entrance to place an exclamation point on proceedings.

Every parent's too-nutty-to-happen nightmare, Adventures In Babysitting is madcap entertainment.

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Movie Review: Flipped (2010)

A coming-of-age tentative romance, Flipped is a tender story of first crush told with warmth and heart but without straying too far from the familiar path.

It's the early 1960s, and grade eight student Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) cannot shake the attentions of his classmate and across-the-street neighbour Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll). The young but precocious Juli had first set eyes on Bryce six years earlier when the Loskis moved into the community, and she made it her mission in life to win his affection. Always less mature and uncertain how to behave, Bryce had rebuffed her at every opportunity. Now at 14 years old, Juli is beginning to blossom into a young adult, and gains local prominence by trying to protect a beautiful neighbourhood tree from the chainsaw.

The Bakers are a relatively poor family, with Juli's free spirited artist father Richard (Aidan Quinn) dedicated to funding the expensive private health care of his retarded brother. Bryce's grandfather Chet (John Mahoney) moves in with the Loskis and acts as a catalyst and counterweight to Bryce's boorish father Steven (Anthony Edwards). After Bryce manages to unwittingly insult Juli in an incident involving eggs and backyard chickens, Chet sets about building bridges with Juli, her unique spirit reminding him of his recently deceased wife. With both Juli and Bryce learning hard truths about their families, their potential friendship hangs in the balance.

Flipped is pleasantly sweet, sometimes poignant and with its heart firmly throbbing towards nostalgia. But there is also no denying that the film is not much more than three back-to-back episodes of The Wonder Years television show. Flipped introduces he said, she said narration of the same incidents to contrast Bryce and Juli's perspectives, but otherwise the film ploughs very familiar territory: coming of age in the 1960s, the exaggerated traumas of life in junior high school, and early experiences in understanding the greater world.

Director and co-writer Rob Reiner is a safe pair of hands. The decision to relocate Wendelin Van Draanen's young adult novel from the early 1990s to the early 1960s opens up the film's appeal to a wider audience, the wistful pull of the early 1960s still holding strong resonance. The actual events that drive Juli and Bryce towards various points of conflict are the types of episodes that build early personal adulthood memories. The beautiful neighbourhood tree is threatened; Juli cares deeply, Bryce not so much. Juli wins a science fair competition, much to Bryce's chagrin. She reaches out to the entire neighbourhood with fresh egg donations; Bryce's family haughtily reject the gesture, disgusted by the Bakers' backyard.

It is left to wise old head Chet to cut past the social barriers and spot in Juli the emergence of a remarkable young woman. Bryce's mom Patsy (Rebecca De Mornay) follows up with an invitation to dinner that is another turning point in the growing up process, exposing Bryce for the fist time to his father's true colours. And gradually Reiner builds his way to a respectful resolution, as Bryce clumsily but doggedly seeks the inflection point between child and adult.

Although some snippets of the crystallizing adult world, including Juli's retarded uncle, are dealt with in just the right amount, Reiner leaves many other sub-plots in frustratingly poor condition. Bryce's father Steven casts a long shadow over the family, but the film only pokes at his repressed frustrations and then leaves him suffering. Grandpa Chet is a key catalyst, but drops out unceremoniously. And both Bryce and Juli have interesting siblings who deserved bigger roles.

Madeline Carroll is excellent as Juli, demonstrating a good emotional range and nailing the traumas of adolescence. Callan McAuliffe as Bryce has less to do and comes across as more wooden. Aidan Quinn, Rebecca De Mornay, John Mahoney, Penelope Ann Miller and Anthony Edwards provide the supporting case with a welcome gloss.

Flipped is gentle and pleasingly engaging, but leaves no lasting impact.

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Movie Review: Carlito's Way (1993)

A familiar crime drama with a good cast and quality execution, Carlito's Way suffers from an inability to break away from overexposed genre elements.

New York City, the late 1970s. Puerto Rican mobster Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) is shot at close range at a train station. As he lies between life and death, he remembers his most recent adventures in crime. His lawyer and good friend David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn) helped to release Carlito from prison on a technicality after serving just 5 years of a 30 years sentence on narcotics charges. Carlito vows to go straight, but at every turn, his former associates and reputation drag him back towards a life of crime. He finds himself inadvertently involved in a shootout at a drug deal gone bad, before Kleinfeld helps him settle down to manage Club Paradise, a hangout where assorted criminals and wannabe mobsters flash their money.

Carlito reconnects with former girlfriend and dancer Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), but she is not sure that she wants to restart a relationship despite his dreams of relocating to a quiet life on a Caribbean island. At the club, Carlito is disgusted by a new generation of cocky gangsters, including Benny Blanco (John Leguizamo). Meanwhile District Attorney Bill Norwalk (James Rebhorn) is doing all he can to put Carlito back behind bars, while Kleinfeld develops a bad cocaine addiction and tangles with incarcerated mobster Tony T, sucking Carlito into further trouble.

Directed by Brian De Palma and based on books by Edwin Torres, there is not much wrong with Carlito's Way, but equally, not much that is new or original. This is a standard fare crime drama, delivered with an emphasis on quality and solid-enough performances. It is also several notches below what De Palma and Pacino offered in 1983's Scarface, and on the heels of excellent gangster films like De Palma's Untouchables and Scorsese's Goodfellas, Carlito's Way drops into a no-man's land where predictability meets retreads.

The narration adds little to the narrative, and continuously spoon-feeds Carlito's repeatedly stated desire to steer away from crime. But perhaps the film's weakest element is lack of character depth. Beyond many references to Carlito's "street" upbringing shaping his code of conduct, all the other characters remain flat representations of the girlfriend, the associates and the hoodlums. Even the supposedly central character of Kleinfeld is represented as a coked-up lawyer getting in over his head; the script offers nothing in the way of background for Sean Penn to sink his teeth into.

The action scenes are adequate without ever threatening to raise the pulse. De Palma frequently deploys pleasingly fluid long takes to capture high energy motion, giving the quicker scenes a sense of calm rationality. The main highlight comes early when Carlito stumbles into a seedy barber shop back room and contributes to a bloodbath. Otherwise, a prolonged subway chase teeters on the edge of comic overkill. The climax at Grand Central Station is good, but the film starts with Carlito gunned down, so much of the sting is removed from the tail.

Al Pacino does enough to maintain interest, staying away from excesses but ensuring sufficient intensity when needed. Penelope Ann Miller sticks to an almost spectral representation of the ideal girlfriend for a hoodlum, the dancer unable to find a break away from strip clubs much in the same way Carlito can't escape his destiny as a criminal. Viggo Mortensen appears in one scene as a formerly smooth criminal who has fallen onto hard times.

With a music score filled with mid to late 1970s disco tunes, Carlito's Way recreates an era of decadence and the thugs looking for a shortcut to riches. It's an unremarkable if competent reiteration of an often-told story.

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The Movies Of Penelope Ann Miller

All movies starring Penelope Ann Miller and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Adventures In Babysitting (1987)

The Freshman (1990)

Kindergarden Cop (1990)

Awakenings (1990)

The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag (1992)

Carlito's Way (1993)

Along Came A Spider (2001)

Flipped (2010)

The Artist (2011)

Reagan (2024)

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The Movie Star Index is 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.

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Movie Review: Awakenings (1990)

A medical drama set in the world of catatonic patients, Awakenings benefits from an inspirational story and extraordinary performances, but does suffer from some excessive dosages of syrup.

In 1969, the socially awkward Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) joins the staff of a New York Hospital and stumbles upon an almost forgotten wing where unresponsive patients in long-term catatonic states are cared for, including a man called Leonard (Robert De Niro). With help from nurse Eleanor Costello (Julie Kavner), Sayer discovers that the patients do respond to sudden stimuli. He suspects that their brains may still be functioning at some level, and investigates a potentially common cause for their condition: they all contracted encephalitis as children.

After consulting with expert Dr. Peter Ingham (Max Von Sydow), Sayer hypothesizes that the patients are suffering an extreme form of Parkinson's disease triggered by the encephalitis. When the new experimental drug L-Dopa becomes available, Sayer administers it on a trial basis to Leonard. It takes a strong dose, but Leonard is suddenly awakened, and appears to make a remarkable recovery. With Leonard exploring the world around him including befriending frequent hospital visitor Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), Sayer convinces the hospital administrators, including the skeptical Dr. Kaufman (John Heard), to similarly treat all the catatonic patients. But the euphoria of success is soon tempered by the emotional and physical implications of the medication.

Awakenings is based on a true episode from the life of British neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. Directed by Penny Marshall from a Steven Zaillian script, the film opens with Leonard as young boy gradually losing his ability to write coherently, before jumping ahead about 40 years. From then on Awakenings is almost entirely set at the nondescript hospital, a kind and gentle place where the catatonic patients receive decent care but are otherwise all but forgotten.

The film proceeds at a slow and steady pace, Sayer (a restrained Robin Williams performance) the one major character exploring his way through the hospital and other than Costello, finding few sympathetic ears. Kaufman and his colleagues are not too interested in doing much of anything for the long-term catatonic patients, and Sayer faces passive negativity in trying to overcome the inertia of a do-minimum treatment regime.

Once the L-Dopa medication is administered, Leonard awakens and becomes the second major presence. This gives the film a major boost as De Niro steps forward and gets to deploy his impressive skills as a man getting reacquainted with a world he unwillingly left as a young boy decades ago. Leonard then begins to struggle with unanticipated side-effects, and De Niro lets loose in an impressive display of physical discomfort and mental anguish. The combination of Williams and De Niro (who was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award) both in top form is irresistible, and they carry Awakenings towards some impressive emotional peaks.

While the film has undoubted good intentions and plenty of heart, the lingering suspicion begins to creep in that the story is much ado about not very much. Sacks was adept at writing about his achievements, Hollywood is always good at manufacturing heroes and inflating accomplishments, and the two come together for a grand rendition of what ultimately was a limited success story, more a footnote than a breakthrough.

Which still takes nothing away from a well-constructed and human-centered drama, an uplifting but grounded story of hope and science briefly lifting a dark veil of despair.

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Movie Review: Kindergarten Cop (1990)

An enjoyable light-weight thriller with large doses of pointy comedy and some low-key romance, Kindergarten Cop established Arnold Schwarzenegger as a major cross-genre star.

Detective John Kimble (Schwarzenegger) has been on the tail of psychotic drug trafficker Cullen Crisp Sr.(Richard Tyson) for a long time. Crisp, meantime, is tracking down his ex-wife Rachel who disappeared with their young son Cullen Jr. after purportedly stealing $3 million of Crisp's drug money. A tip points to Rachel hiding out in Astoria, Oregon. With Crisp temporarily locked up and fighting a murder charge, Kimble teams up with Detective Phoebe O'Hara (Pamela Reed) and they head to Astoria to try and track down Rachel before Crisp gets to her.

With Rachel living under an unknown assumed identity, Kimble inserts himself into the local elementary school as a substitute kindergarten teacher, much to the dismay of principal Schlowski (Linda Hunt), and sets about trying to identify which of the kids may be Cullen Jr. There are plenty of candidates, and as Kimble finds his feet as a teacher and learns to deal with the kids, the community warms up to him, and he starts a tentative romance with Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller), another teacher at the school. Egged on by his obsessed mother Eleanor, Crisp also makes his way to Astoria, aiming to abduct his son and take revenge on his ex-wife.

Kindergarten Cop does struggle at times to define itself. The film covers the spectrum from a demented, dangerous villain to cutesy six year old kids, passing through a fledgling romance and plenty of humour. The mix of comedy, violence and courtship is occasionally lumpy, and points to a movie perhaps trying to be too many things to too broad an audience, as Schwarzenegger strives to proactively appeal to a less macho-obsessed demographic.

Despite the film's schizophrenic personality, director Ivan Reitman is able to maintain good control. Working from a script by Murray Salem, Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris filled with sharp one-liners and some genuinely funny words coming out of the kids' mouth, Reitman delivers a zippy, entertaining film. Kindergarten Cop does not have a dull moment, with the story moving briskly to set-up the premise, Schwarzenegger having his classroom fun and courtship with Miller's schoolteacher, all leading to a dramatic climax at the school. The scenes of violence at an elementary school are relatively benign in terms of harm to kids, but remain quite disturbing in the context of more recent real events.

The scenic, almost idyllic setting in the small town of Astoria is a big plus, as is the large number of prominent roles dedicated to women. Kindergarten Cop is a welcome showcase for good and sometimes underrated actresses: Miller, Reed, Hunt, Baker, Cathy Moriarty and Jayne Brooke (the latter two as mothers who may be Rachel-in-hiding) all shine. Reed in particular demonstrates a strong spunk factor and deft comic timing as Detective O'Hara. Richard Tyson may be one dimensional as the bogeyman, but he is disturbing, and Baker as his mom reveals the destructive forces of manic mothering.

As for Schwarzenegger himself, Twins (1988) had established the potential for a range wider than pure action, and here he slips into whatever persona each individual scene requires. From kick-ass undercover cop in the opening 20 minutes to the doofus in the classroom matching wits with elementary kids, to the unsure man falling first in like then in love with a fellow teacher, Schwarzenegger demonstrates workable versatility and broadening ambition.

Kindergarten Cop graduates into grade school maybe not at the top of the class, but certainly with honours.

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