Movie Review: Stanley & Iris (1990)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Martin Ritt  

Starring: Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, Swoosie Kurtz, Martha Plimpton, Stephen Root  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: In suburban New England, widow Iris (Jane Fonda) works at a large baking factory. She meets Stanley (Robert De Niro), who works as a cook at the same facility, after he helps her scare off a purse snatcher. They strike up a friendship that evolves into a romance, until Iris discovers that Stanley does not know how to read or write. He is nevertheless helping his father through old age, while Iris is raising her teenaged daughter (Martha Plimpton), and housing her unemployed sister (Swoosie Kurtz).

What Works Well: This low key romance benefits from two reliable stars and a ramshackle small town blue collar milieu. With both Iris and Stanley dealing with economic strains and personal stresses, their romance is tentative, the plot progress taking time to uncover the hidden struggles of broken dreams, less than ideal childhoods, and pay cheque to pay cheque existence.

What Does Not Work As Well: Although Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro are watchable reading the phone book, this is almost what happens here as Iris decides to help Stanley read and write. The pacing is almost painfully slow, the secondary characters fail to register as meaningful, and after all the investment in the granular details of imperfect lives, the final act rushes towards a windfall resolution of all issues. 

Key Quote:

Stanley: I like you, Iris, just about as much as I love you.

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Movie Review: The War With Grandpa (2020)

Genre: Family Comedy  

Director: Tim Hill  

Starring: Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour, Cheech Marin  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: Widowed grandpa Ed Marino (Robert De Niro) reluctantly relocates to the family home of his daughter Sally (Uma Thurman). He settles into the room previously occupied by his 11-year-old grandson Peter (Oakes Fegley), who is disappointed to be shunted into the attic. Egged on by his 6th grade classmates, Peter declares war on grandpa in order to reclaim ownership of his room, resulting in an escalating series of pranks.

What Works Well: The Robert Kimmel Smith book is adapted into a breezy screen comedy, with a steady stream of chuckles. Robert De Niro brings heart to the grandpa role, reluctantly but effectively engaging in the prank war while maintaining an anchor of love and trying to impart words of wisdom to his grandson. In the opposite corner, Oakes Fegley adds mischievous enthusiasm, while the efficient running time keeps the pacing brisk.

What Does Not Work As Well: Co-stars Uma Thurman and Christopher Walken generally embarrass themselves, while Cheech Marin and Jane Seymour are largely wasted. Some of the edgier practical jokes involve the threat of physical harm and reside uneasily within a narrative that is not supposed to involve villains. Some secondary characters (including Peter's classmates) fade away from relevance, and a Christmas theme is wedged into a July setting.

Key Quote:

Grandpa Ed: You're not putting me in a home!

Sally: What if it's our home?

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Movie Review: Killer Elite (2011)

Genre: Action Thriller  

Director: Gary McKendry  

Starring: Jason Statham, Robert De Niro, Clive Owen, Dominic Purcell  
Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1980, hitman Danny (Jason Statham) quits the killing business after coming face-to-face with the young son of his latest victim. He relocates to Australia and becomes romantically involved with Anne (Yvonne Strahovski). A year later Danny's partner Hunter (Robert De Niro) is held hostage by an Arab sheik, forcing Danny back into action. To secure Hunter's freedom, Danny has to find and kill three ex-SAS members responsible for killing the Sheik's three sons. Danny assembles a team including Davies (Dominic Purcell) and Meier (Aden Young), but ex-SAS soldier Spike (Clive Owen) is deployed by the shadowy Feathermen organization to disrupt Danny's mission.

What Works Well: Inspired by real events surrounding the Dhofar Rebellion, this action thriller reaches for a deeper context than typical efforts while still enjoying well-staged and stunt-heavy action scenes. Set in Oman and England, Danny's exploits cut across Cold War Middle East tensions, deniable military engagements, the battle to control oil reserves, and deposed ruler vendettas. A further layer of complexity is introduced by the need to stage the killings as accidents, and Spike emerging as an atypical counterweight to Danny, cut from the same cloth and as much a pawn as all guns for hire. Dominic Purcell's lackadaisical Davies adds irreverent presence.

What Does Not Work As Well: Robert De Niro is an afterthought in an underdeveloped role, and the attempts at character depth (primarily through Danny's relationship with Anne) are superficial. The bone-crunching hand-to-hand combat scenes yield remarkably minor bruising for the survivors, and the late plot revelations meld into a muddle of murky agendas.

Key Quote:

Danny: War isn't over until both sides say it is.

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Movie Review: About My Father (2023)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Laura Terruso  

Starring: Robert De Niro, Sebastian Maniscalco, Leslie Bibb, Kim Cattrall  

Running Time: 89 minutes  

Synopsis: In Chicago, Sebastian (Sebastian Maniscalco) grew up close to his father Salvo (Robert De Niro), a humble but proud hairstylist and immigrant from Sicily. Now Sebastian has fallen love with Ellie (Leslie Bibb), who comes from a wealthy WASPy family. Father and son are both invited to stay at the luxurious estate of Ellie's parents (Kim Cattrall and David Rasche) for the July 4th weekend. Sebastian plans to propose, but Salvo resents his son drifting away from his Italian heritage, and a culture clash ensues.

What Works Well: Loosely based on the life experiences of comedian and co-writer/co-star Sebastian Maniscalco, this comedy benefits most from Robert De Niro's grizzled presence. He runs through the gamut of facial expressions to convey disdain for the haughty world of the rich and his son's decision to shuffle away from his roots. Elsewhere, the comedy is sometimes amiable enough to generate a few laughs.   

What Does Not Work As Well: The over-narrated and over-gesticulated material is predictable and unfortunately sometimes quite dumb, trying but failing to squeeze juice out of exhausted and simplistic us-versus-them themes. Ellie and her parents are blank vanilla characters, and for a grown man Salvo's uncouth behaviour (making a scene at a restaurant, dismissing tennis as an activity, serving a beloved pet for dinner, improvising a haircut) often blows past funny and towards idiotic.

Key Quote:

Salvo: I just hope nothing gets stolen this weekend because these people love to blame the immigrants.

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Movie Review: Red Lights (2012)

Genre: Investigative Thriller  

Director: Rodrigo Cortés  

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: Academic physicists Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Dr. Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) run a side-business debunking psychics and paranormal advocates. Margaret's student Sally (Elizabeth Olsen) joins their investigations and starts a romance with Tom. When celebrity blind psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) surprisingly comes out of retirement, Tom is eager to expose him as a fraud, but Margaret is more careful.

What Works Well: The first act introduces interesting characters and adds depth to Dr. Matheson through a side story involving her son, while the debunking sessions and academic sparring with rival physicist Dr. Shackleton (Toby Jones) are sharp. The cast members battle valiantly to prop-up the disintegrating script.

What Does Not Work As Well: Writer and director Rodrigo Cortés clumsily steers into a bewildering narrative turn about halfway through, and the drama never recovers. The remainder of the film is a toothless exercise in silly special effects, the gritted-teeth obsession with a touring entertainer never close to supporting the weight of unfolding carnage. Another attempt at a late twist arrives with the never-good sudden introduction of narration and carries all the impact of a wet noodle.

Conclusion: Accelerates with promise, but then stops dead.



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Movie Review: The Wizard Of Lies (2017)

Genre: Biographical Crime Drama

Director: Barry Levinson

Starring: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Alessandro Nivola, Hank Azaria

Running Time: 132 minutes

Synopsis: The story of infamous financial fraudster Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) is revealed through flashbacks from his prison interview with journalist Diana B. Henriques (as herself). During the 2008 economic crisis, Madoff's private investment fund collapses. He admits to masterminding a decades-long $65 billion Ponzi scheme and is sentenced to 150 years. Investors' lives are ruined, while his sons (Alessandro Nivola and Nathan Darrow) and wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer), who all claim no knowledge of the fraud, deal with the fallout.

What Works Well: Director Barry Levinson crafts a textured depiction of fake grandeur within a greed-dominated world where one charismatic swindler fooled many people for a long time. The stylistic mosaic mixes documentary-style interviews with fly-on-the-wall family revelations and public episodes of the FBI descending and dismantling Madoff's house of cards, all propelled by a captivating Robert De Niro performance.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite the long running time, Madoff's internal drivers remain frustratingly elusive. While Levinson does well to portray the fraud victims, the balance in the final third tilts towards Madoff's sons, who as (purportedly) clueless scions are ultimately uninteresting. In contrast, more compelling characters including Madoff's right-hand associate Frank (Hank Azaria) are unceremoniously abandoned.

Conclusion: A potent portrait of carnage resulting from unchecked avarice colliding with unbridled deception.



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Movie Review: New York, New York (1977)

A musical drama and romance, New York, New York is a bloated mess with only a few redeeming moments.

On Victory over Japan (V-J) day in New York City, unemployed saxophone player and serial liar Jimmy Doyle (Robert De Niro) spots United Services Organization (USO) singer Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli) at a celebratory party. He repeatedly pesters her, and she repeatedly rebuffs him. They later meet again in a hotel lobby and he continues stalking her. 

Eventually she accompanies him to an audition, which goes badly until she starts singing. They are hired as a duo act and start a romance, but she soon leaves him and returns to her job as a singer with a touring jazz band. He follows her and lands a job with the band. Jimmy and Francine get married and both their careers experience an upswing, but her pregnancy and his jealousy threaten their happiness.

Fresh from the success of Taxi Driver, director Martin Scorsese intended his next project as an homage to classic Hollywood musicals and a salute to New York City. Unfortunately Scorsese (among others on the project) was battling substance abuse issues, and despite some clever directorial touches and good László Kovács cinematography, New York, New York is a near-disaster and a crushing bore. Improvised dialogue, uninteresting lead characters with no background and no developmental arcs, non-existent secondary characters, poor narrative continuity, and bad editing all extend for an excruciating 163 minutes.

The tone is set in a genuinely awful and endless first scene featuring 35 minutes of repetitive annoyance. Jimmy Doyle is best described as creepy and despicable, and De Niro's performance is proportionately insufferable. A fundamental and painfully obvious problem is a non-script by Mardik Martin and Earl Mac Rauch, which must have been discarded early with the actors asked to just wing it. The outcome is scene after scene of De Niro thinking up ways on the fly to act like a boor, Minnelli visibly flustered or bewildered as her co-star misbehaves and manhandles. 

Scorsese was also having an affair with Minnelli, and therefore she shares no chemistry with De Niro, not that anyone can display any affinity for a character like Doyle. With the romance and narrative elements both in tatters, the music steps in to offer some redemption. The movie's best moments occur when the actors just shut up and the musicians are allowed to play. The final 40 minutes mercifully dispose of any narrative pretensions and simply focus on a series of Minnelli concert performances, culminating in her spirited rendition of the title song, written for the movie by John Kander and Fred Ebb. 

Ironically, New York, New York cannot make it there, and cannot make it anywhere.



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Movie Review: True Confessions (1981)

A neo-noir crime drama, True Confessions lines up the requisite components but misplaces all the potential.

In the early 1960s, Los Angeles police Detective Tom Spellacy (Robert Duvall) visits his brother Monsignor Desmond Spellacy (Robert De Niro) at an isolate parish in the middle of the desert. Desmond announces he is dying from a failing heart. In flashback, the brothers recall a seminal event in their relationship.

In 1947, Desmond is a powerful up-and-coming figure in the church, the right-hand man and fixer for the Cardinal (Cyril Cusack). The church has a long-standing partnership with slimy businessman Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), whose construction company benefits from building religious facilities for the expanding city. In his less respectable early days Jack financed a whorehouse managed by Brenda (Rose Gregorio). Now his finances are wobbling, and Desmond is eager to cut ties with Amsterdam to clean-up the church's image.

Meanwhile, Tom is building a reputation as a dogged detective working with his more seasoned partner Detective Frank Crotty (Kenneth McMillan). Tom helps Desmond cover up any scandal from the death of a reverend at Brenda's brothel. The detectives then have to deal with the gory murder of Lois Fazenda (Missy Cleveland), her body found cut in half and drained of blood. Tom's investigation into Lois' background uncovers sordid activities dangerously close to his brother Desmond.

Despite the presence of heavyweight acting talent in the form of Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall, True Confessions is a lost opportunity. The script by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, adapting Dunne's book, is littered with raw material derived from the infamous Black Dahlia case by way of Chinatown, with the added moral complexity of a religious veneer cloaking corruption. But director Ulu Grosbard opts for a talky, slow and often stumbling composition, barely coherent events unfolding through scene after scene of mumbled dialogue drowned by background noise.

Seemingly more interested in frilly and inconsequential style points, at no point does Grosbard come close to achieving momentum or emotional resonance, and the misdeeds supposedly motivating murder are a muddled mess. The reverend's death at the brothel and later the demise of another secondary character are lost investments. A sub-quest involving honest monsignor Fargo (Burgess Meredith) consumes inordinate time. The business dealings between the Cardinal and Jack are explained at sketch level, and the supposedly perilous connections between the very dead Lois, Jack and Desmond are treated with tangential incompetence, robbing the film of any impact.

True Confessions is left with an elegant recreation of 1940s Los Angeles, and the two Roberts delivering understated but uneven performances. De Niro is better served by the Monsignor character, while Duvall's bull-in-a-china-shop antics are another example of a script going to a place because other scripts went there, and not because it makes any sense.

Duvall and De Niro do share thoughtful scenes together, but unfortunately their pregnant pauses best serve to expose the lack of coherent substance.



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Movie Review: Wag The Dog (1997)

A satire about the power of spin doctoring in politics, Wag The Dog is never less than over the top, but also always funny.

The United States presidential election is eleven days away. The President is running for re-election, but is suddenly facing damaging accusations of sexual misconduct. Renowned spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) is called in to manage the crisis. Working with presidential aid Winifred Ames (Anne Heche), he starts to conceive of a war scenario with Albania to distract the press.

Conrad and Winifred recruit Hollywood movie producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to help the cause. He assembles a group of creative artists to create the justification for war, complete with a made-up story of a suitcase nuclear bomb hidden in Canada, fake Albanian village vignettes, manufactured patriotic songs and imaginary victims. When CIA agents disrupt the bogus war narrative, Conrad and Stanley pivot towards a prisoner-of-war sob story featuring Sergeant William Schumann (Woody Harrelson) as a soldier in need of rescue.

In 1998 President Bill Clinton became embroiled in the sex scandal featuring White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and by 1999 the United States was bombing Yugoslavia. By 2016 the concept of fake news and alternative facts had become part of the political lexicon. But before all the jaw-dropping reality came the prescient fiction. Director Barry Levinson brought Wag The Dog to the screen with almost perfect timing, screenwriters Hilary Henkin and David Mamet adapting the 1993 book American Hero by Larry Beinhart just in time to grab an I-told-you-so front seat to history.

In turns funny, ludicrous and cutting, the film never pretends to be anything other than a broad satire. The spin doctoring to create and then capitalize upon a non-existent war is beyond any realms of reality, but Levinson runs with it as a plot device to poke fun at the extremes of both Washington DC and Hollywood. Nothing is sacred, least of all the truth, as Conrad, Stanley and their assembled entourage of talented artists allow their imaginations to run wild. They then possess and can deploy unlimited resources to turn their fantasies into a polished visual and aural reality to dominate the attention of a nation.

And even when CIA agents shine a light upon the grand ruse of a non-existent war with Albania, the subterfuge does not stop. Now the story of Sergeant William Schumann, complete with the nickname Old Shoe, is concocted. Just when it seems the film is stretching its own incredulity too thin, Woody Harrelson arrives with a hilariously edgy performance deserving its own narrative. The Schumann character proves too hot to handle even for the combined manipulative skills of Conrad and Stanley, and still they will not give up on their lofty plan to achieve mass distraction.

The lead performances are happy to yield to the enormous wackiness. Veterans Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman easily bounce each off other with relaxed portrayals of men good at what they do, comfortable in their own skin, and aware they are still stronger as a team. In an underwritten role, Anne Heche suffers in comparison. Willie Nelson appears as a grizzled songwriter recruited to provide the soundtrack to a crisis, although Levinson is guilty of giving all the incidental mock artefacts too much screen time, as well as a surplus of self-congratulatory moments.

Wag The Dog is happy to propose that everything perceived as fact may be an artistic creation in service of nefarious objectives. The rich and powerful not only influence history, but also bankroll the peddling of absurd alternative realities to serve selfish agendas. It's an entertaining premise, and at least in spirit, painfully close to the truth.

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Movie Review: The Irishman (2019)

A sprawling gangland epic, The Irishman weaves a multi-decade story of violence and corruption among mobsters and unions.

At a nursing home, the elderly Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) reminisces about his life, starting in the 1950s when he was an army veteran working as a truck driver in the Philadelphia area. He meets influential mob boss Russell "Russ" Bufalino (Joe Pesci), an associate of respected mobster Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel). Starting out as a chauffeur and graduating to assassin, Frank proves himself loyal to Russ. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) runs the powerful Teamsters union, and authorizes pension fund investments in mafia-backed projects.

When Hoffa's position is threatened by rival Tony "Pro" (Stephen Graham), Russell dispatches Frank to prop him up, and the two men become close friends. The appointment of Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General causes Hoffa no shortage of trouble, and he eventually lands in jail. Upon his release in the early 1970s Hoffa insists on wrestling back control of the union, but his behaviour starts to antagonize powerful mob figures, placing Frank in an awkward position.

Reaching deep into the heart and soul of the epic gangster film, Martin Scorsese rolls back the decades and assembles a grand ode to the genre. The Irishman carries echoes of The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America and Scorsese's own Goodfellas and Casino, but also makes its own mark as a more sombre, contemplative effort. Style, pizzazz and moments of violence underpin the drama without overwhelming it, the emphasis instead placed on men perpetuating an era and then looking back upon it.

Given free rein by Netflix to nurture and create his vision, Scorsese adapts the 2004 non-fiction book I Heard You Paint Houses (a mob reference to blood-splattered walls) by Charles Brandt, chronicling Frank Sheeran's startling life-long association with the mafia and Hoffa. The film runs for 209 minutes covering events from the 1950s to the early 2000s, but thanks to the stellar cast, a powerful Steven Zaillian script and nimble editing, The Irishman earns its length and never drags.

Scorsese's focus is on strong male characters grappling with necessary relationships, friendships and betrayals over the years. Crusty and cut-throat as they are, the men nevertheless forge bonds of respect, reciprocity and loyalty within their crime ridden world. Frank nurtures twin affinities with Russ and Hoffa and over the years becomes an essential communication bridge, the one person trusted by both the mobsters and union boss. His status transforms from enviable to tenuous as personal and business interests diverge.

The conflicted emotions buffeting Frank's life provide the film with a rich central character, and Robert De Niro delivers one of his best late-career performances to convey the complexity of a man comfortable with killing but yet craving and valuing meaningful interpersonal bonds. De Niro and Scorsese use the film's eloquent denouement to fully round out Frank as an old man using his remaining time for reflection, pockets of regret competing with pride.

Russ Bufalino emerges as the most compelling secondary character, Joe Pesci coming out of retirement to exude the quiet disposition of power. Jimmy Hoffa is more broadly drawn as a scrappy boss who perceives the Teamsters union as his own business. Hoffa has no individual identity without being at the helm, and as a result Al Pacino is constrained into a loud, shouty and repetitive performance.

The three lead actors play their characters across the decades, and superimposed digital technology is used to de-age their faces for the early years. It's a semi-successful experiment: the images appear seamless, but the combination of young faces and clearly old bodies and postures is incongruous.

Despite the mammoth length, Scorsese shortchanges the men's families. The women and children remain unfortunate afterthoughts, occasionally dipping into the narrative to pull on the strings of contrition before dropping right out again.

But The Irishman does not disguise its intentions as an intimate portrait of a few hard men painted on a huge canvass of time. Their business was crime and manipulation, their roles fulfilled according to the underworld code where cooperation yields wealth just as stubborn impedance means death.

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Movie Review: Joker (2019)

A mental anguish drama, Joker is a disturbing origins story infused with a dark mood.

In a dilapidating Gotham City, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) suffers from mental issues, including uncontrollable bouts of awkward laughing. He works as a clown-for-hire, and lives with his mother Penny (Frances Conroy), who speaks highly of mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen). Arthur has unrealistic hopes of a career as a stand-up comic, and admires late night television talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro).

Arthur is assaulted by a group of thugs, then budget cuts curtail the social services available to him. A colleague provides him with a gun, presumably for self defence. He meets his neighbour, single mom Sophie (Zazie Beetz), but then loses his job and sinks deeper into despair. While wearing clown makeup Arthur tangles with a group of obnoxious men on the subway, and Wayne's glib reaction to the incident sparks class warfare street protests. Arthur starts to discover shocking secrets about his mother and his past, pushing him over the edge of sanity.

The primary villain in the Batman universe receives his own background story, and Joker is a gloomy descent into despondency. Director and co-writer Todd Phillips conceives of soulless wickedness emerging as a reaction to an uncaring world filled with rampant bullying, where a fragile man like Arthur Fleck does not so much fall through the cracks as is shoved through them.

Colleagues make fun of him, goons kick him in the street, and budget cuts take away his limited opportunities for subsidized help. Unfit for any meaningful work and unable to control his embarrassing laughter to even perform as a comic, Arthur is close to unsalvageable. Once he peels away the layers of his mother's secrets and with a gun in his hand, he turns into something much more dangerous.

The joys of evil cause a rare twinkle in his eye. Arthur notices how his subway incident brings a sense of power, media attention and people to the streets. The celebrity he craves by dreaming of an appearance on the Murray Franklin show is now within reach, but along a twisted pathway littered with victims.

Arthur's gradual transformation from societal victim to murderous freak is the film's sole obsession to the exclusion of any other plot elements, and as a result all the secondary characters are thinly defined. But in the title role Joaquin Phoenix dominates, delivering a haunting performance filled with coiled intensity. He alternates between pitiful, willing and menacing, dark eyes burning with building hatred at a world singularly lacking in empathy for men like him.

Phillips freely borrows aesthetics and themes from Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy as he steers Joker to several visual highlights, Phoenix physically throwing himself into statuesque posturing and scenes of urban landscape dominance through sheer presence. The costumes and make-up are chilling and build to a classic look as Joker finally introduces himself to a large television audience. The man looks funny, but he will now ensure no one else is laughing.

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Movie Review: The Comedian (2016)

A romantic comedy and drama, The Comedian is frequently foul mouthed but rarely funny or romantic.

In New York City, Jackie Burke (Robert De Niro) is an aging and caustic stand-up comic, well past his prime and best known for starring in the sitcom Eddie's Home from 30 years ago. His agent Miller (Edie Falco) struggles to find him work, and things get much worse when he assaults a heckler at a nostalgia night performance and is sentenced to 30 days in jail and 100 hours of community service. Upon his release Jackie is forced to borrow money from his brother Jimmy (Danny DeVito), whose wife Flo (Patti LuPone) cannot stand Jackie.

While fulfilling his community service hours Jackie meets Harmony Schiltz (Leslie Mann), who is also serving a community sentence for assaulting her cheating husband. They start a tentative friendship, she accompanies him to his niece's wedding, and he meets her overbearing father Mac (Harvey Keitel). But Harmony relocates to Florida, and Jackie is invited by his longtime rival Dick D'Angelo (Charles Grodin) to perform at an appreciation event for comedy legend May Conner (Cloris Leachman), where further surprises await.

At a running time of two hours, The Comedian is a solid 30 minutes too long. And most of these minutes are consumed by Jackie unspooling stand-up routines, most of them impromptu, but all of them exceptionally vulgar. Jackie is a deserved has-been, and his brand of humour is to insult as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Instead of making the point once and moving on, director Taylor Hackford repeatedly surrenders the microphone to De Niro as Jackie, and he proceeds to hurl an endless stream of bathroom and body function "jokes", consigning the film to the same gutter as the lead character.

Elsewhere four different script writers could not conjure up much of a story. This is bland older-man-meets-younger-woman-and-quickly-loses-her territory. The presence of stalwarts from the 1970s and 1980s in almost every role threatens to rescue patches of the film, but the combined talent of Harvey Keitel, Cloris Leachman, Danny DeVito and Charles Grodin is ultimately insufficient and they too run aground on the rocks of the mostly witless material.

Given the film's bloated length, it's remarkable how little is revealed about Jackie and Harmony, other than they are both short-tempered refugees from broken relationships and enjoy a full-throated screaming match. Perhaps they deserve each other, but these two abrasive characters cannot sustain much of a movie.

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Movie Review: The Mission (1986)

A historical drama, The Mission explores the role of religion and colonization in the lives of South America's indigenous communities.

It's the 1750s in the remote jungles where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay come together. The Guarani natives dispatch a Jesuit priest to his death over a waterfall. The replacement priest is Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), and he uses music to gain acceptance, and starts to build a mission with the help of other Jesuits including Father Fielding (Liam Neeson).

Captain Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) is a former military man and now a mercenary who captures Guarani for sale to slavers. After learning his lover Carlotta (Cherie Lunghi) is now enamoured with his brother Felipe (Aidan Quinn), Rodrigo falls into a severe depression. Gabriel emotionally rescues him and Rodrigo completes an arduous journey of penance and joins the newly created mission, eventually becoming a Jesuit priest himself.

Spain, Portugal and the Church vie for power in the region, and a new map is drawn up, placing the Jesuit missions in peril. Gabriel, Rodrigo and the other priests have to decide whether self-defence can be achieved through love or violence.

Directed by Roland Joffé and written by Robert Bolt, The Mission is inspired by real events, although the specific people and incidents are fictional or amalgamated. This is a multi-faceted story, starting with Rodrigo's reformation then expanding from the personal to the political. The Jesuits become pawns in a much bigger struggle, and the film carries echoes of all colonial conflicts where locals are victimized with shifting strategic priorities.

The Mission is a feast for the eyes and the ears. Joffé captures the beauty of an untamed jungle with lush greenery and magnificent waterfalls, the Guarani protected by seemingly impossible cliff walls. However, no barrier is imposing enough for the Jesuits intent on spreading the word of God, and overcoming nature's challenges is just another test to be overcome for the steadfast Gabriel.

Ennio Morricone contributes a majestic music score combining Spanish and native themes and instruments. It is rightly considered one of his most enduring works, and for the most part Joffé deploys the score judiciously.

The film's style does lean towards the heavy handed. With long pauses and stares, Joffé often triple underlines his key moments, eroding the sense of realism. Irons and De Niro play along, the two actors content to subdue most of their emotions and allow ponderous silences to speak volumes.

The settings alternate between the jungle experience and the nearby city where political machinations unfold, officials from Spain, Portugal and the Church carving up the continent with an eye towards unfolding alliances and implications back in Europe. The scenes of conniving and dealmaking are adequate, but The Mission is most at home in the wilderness.

The Mission finds an impressive climax, the definition of trust, loyalty and devoted service challenged at deeply personal levels. The questions asked are eternal, the answers elusive as ever.

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Movie Review: Midnight Run (1988)

A buddy comedy road trip action film, Midnight Run collects mostly good things from its various genre components and assembles an enjoyable romp.

In Los Angeles, ex-cop Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a bounty hunter hired by bail bondsman Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano) to find and retrieve mob accountant John "the Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), who has gone into hiding. John stole $15 million from mobster Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina) and donated it to charity. In addition to mobster goons, John is also being chased by FBI Special Agent Alonzo Mosely (Yaphet Kotto) as well as Jack's rival, bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton).

Jack has no trouble locating and capturing John in New York, but transferring him back to LA by the designated deadline proves troublesome. John has a fear of flying, which means the cross-country journey switches to trains, buses and cars, with the two bickering men constantly while having to dodge Mosely, Marvin and Serrano's men. Along the way the high-strung Jack and the low-key John get to know each other, and eventually discover they have more in common than Jack cares to admit.

Coming off the success of Beverly Hills Cop, director Martin Brest teams up with star Robert De Niro, looking for lighter fare after The Untouchables. The result is a bouncy opposites-attract cross-America journey, featuring an unlikely emerging friendship between two superficially polar-opposite men. The film never dawdles in any one place geographically or contextually, Brest hustling the action along and making excellent use of various locations and a cast deep in supporting talent.

Midnight Run does go on much longer than it needs to. The film clocks in at 126 minutes, and there is no reason for what is essentially a lightweight comedy to drag on for more than two hours. The George Gallo script runs out of the best ideas early on, and the second half of the film features plenty of regurgitation, both in the slowly evolving dynamic between Jack and John and in the repetitive action scenes. The FBI and Serrano's men botch several opportunities each to get their man, and after a while all the incidents of governmental and villainous incompetence start to meld together.

But the film works most of the time, thanks in large part to the central relationship between accountant-criminal John Mardukas and jagged bounty hunter Jack Walsh. Charles Grodin as Mardukas is smooth, calm and the perfect foil for Robert De Niro's passive-aggressive but resourceful Walsh, and the strength of the script resides in the two men's journey from hostility to civility.

The action scenes are more patchy in conception and execution, and feature the usual assortment of shootouts and chases with occasional helicopter interventions. The best comic lines come from the boorish Marvin Dorfler, a more dense and sloppy version of Walsh and not afraid to express his unfiltered thoughts in all their foul-mouthed glory.

Midnight Run extends its sprint into a dogged marathon, but enjoys plenty of quality junctures along the way.

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Movie Review: Righteous Kill (2008)

A police drama featuring two veteran acting heavyweights, Righteous Kill wastes its cast on a tired and lacklustre premise and a dreadful twist.

A grainy tape appears to show police detective Turk (Robert De Niro) confessing to a series of extrajudicial murders, violently disposing of criminals who escape the law. In flashback, it is revealed that Turk (Robert De Niro) and fellow veteran detective Rooster (Al Pacino) have been partners for a long time, with Turk frequently combustible and Rooster more laidback. Turk blows steam through a sex-only relationship with detective Karen Corelli (Carla Gugino), who likes her intercourse sessions on the rough side.

A while back Turk resorted to planting evidence to apprehend a rapist and killer who had cheated the justice system. Soon thereafter, the murders of other criminals start. A short poem is left at the scene of each crime, earning the serial killer the moniker "Poetry Boy". With Lieutenant Hingis (Brian Dennehy) demanding answers, Turk and Rooster alternately cooperate and clash with younger detectives Perez (John Leguizamo) and Riley (Donnie Wahlberg). Suspicion begins to swirl around Turk, but the murder rate only accelerates.

De Niro and Pacino co-starred in the stellar Heat, but here they share many more scenes and are often on the screen together. 30 years prior they were two of the most celebrated and intense actors on the planet, and it's testament to their talent and endurance that Righteous Kill only matters because they are in it.

But that's where any notions that this is a good film come to a grinding and comprehensive stop. Directed by Jon Avnet and written by Russell Gewirtz, Righteous Kill is devoid of tension, suspense, action or any semblance of artistry. The murders are mechanical, soulless and mostly presented in a context vacuum, and the premise of cops turning into killers to clean up the mistakes of the justice system was old back in the 1970s.

The rest of the movie consists of anywhere between two and five cops on the screen talking, bickering and regurgitating the same arguments. They insult each other and get in each other's faces before sullenly going off to the next murder scene. Rinse and repeat. The robotic scenes are only interrupted by Turk's narrated confession on a grainy recording, a set-up for a cheap movie trick that would have been rejected in an introductory scriptwriting class. Rather than rescue the film, the twist ending buries it deeper in the dustbin.

Watching De Niro and Pacino is never less than worthwhile; it's such a pity that this collaboration arrived so late, and on such a righteously feeble project.

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Movie Review: The Intern (2015)

A charming intergenerational workplace comedy, The Intern benefits from smart character dynamics and elegant execution.

In New York City, Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is 70 years old, widowed, retired, and looking for a new challenge. After a 40-year career spent with a phone book publisher, Ben is hired as a Senior Intern with the successful e-commerce apparel company About The Fit and assigned to help the company's founder and CEO Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Despite his old fashioned suits and habits, Ben quickly becomes popular with the company's young workforce. He catches the eye of in-house masseuse Fiona (Rene Russo), who is thrilled to find another mature co-worker.

Initially the harried Jules has no time for Ben, but gradually he gains her trust, first as her driver then as a confidant and friend. He learns that the company's investors are seeking a new CEO to help manage the explosive growth and reduce Jules' workload. She is reluctant to give up control, but also wants to do the right thing. Ben also meets Jules' stay-at-home husband Matt (Anders Holm) and young daughter Paige, and starts to notice the stresses on the home front.

Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, The Intern chooses weighty modern themes and tackles them with unusual astuteness. The subject matters include the challenges women face as leaders, particularly in managing family time; the cultural gap between boomers and millennials; the awkward re-entry into the workforce at an older age; and the difficult transition from start-up to an established business with explosive growth.

Even the sub-themes are relevant. The Millenials' struggle to find affordable housing and the awkward dynamics of a new romance at an older age play out in the background. To Meyers' credit, the film demonstrates a deft touch and teases out all the necessary conflict points while sidestepping melodramatics and overt lecturing.

The two main characters are well written and contribute enormously to the film's appeal. Neither Ben nor Jules are perfect. He is old fashioned, almost too reverential, and finds it difficult to express his thoughts. She is overworked, overcommitted, overstimulated and always distracted when home. And yet both are genuine and well-meaning, and The Intern is more about common ground and welcome new perspectives than it is about a clash of generations. Ben offers Jules a sturdy sounding board and the voice of experience; she offers him a renewed lease on life. Both move towards new beginnings as a result of the internship.

Refreshingly, the film excludes any form of antagonist or contrived crises. Everytime the film threatens to go in such directions Meyers pulls it back into the pragmatic realm, and apart from a comic interlude related to an errant e-mail, The Intern exudes the welcome warmth of grounded humanity.

In one of his much better late career outings, Robert De Niro holds the film's centre and delivers a controlled performance, allowing Ben's calm maturity to shine through, enhanced by his understanding and acceptance of how the world has evolved. Anne Hathaway contributes the energy of a frazzled executive running on adrenaline, and shines in a couple of revelatory scenes.

Witty and composed, The Intern brings out the best of the old and the new.

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Movie Review: The King Of Comedy (1982)

A psychological drama, The King Of Comedy examines the world of celebrity obsession with eerie foresight.

In New York City, Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) is the popular host of the premier late night television talk show, welcoming celebrity entertainers for performances and interviews. Langford attracts the attention of hordes of autograph seekers and stalkers, including Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro). In his mid-thirties and still living with his mother, Rupert is delusional and imagines himself as the next great comic. He finagles a meeting in Jerry's limousine, and builds upon it a fantasy life in which he is a major star.

Rupert starts stalking Jerry's office to try and secure a spot on the show, and tangles with production assistant Cathy Long (Shelley Hack) and security staff. He tries to embroil high school classmate Rita (Diahnne Abbott) into his make believe world, while frequently clashing with fellow stalker Masha (Sandra Bernhard), who is equally unstable. When Jerry takes a firm stand to block Rupert out of his life, the wannabe comic resorts to increasingly desperate measures.

Despite the film's title and the involvement of funny man Jerry Lewis, The King Of Comedy is neither funny nor intended to be. This is a sometimes wrenching drama laced with satire reflecting the tragic rise of celebrity culture, where talentless losers feel entitled to the spotlight because everyone needs their 15 minutes of fame.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul D. Zimmerman, The King Of Comedy is also a startling journey into the mind of a twisted man. Made all the more effective by a matter-of-fact, non-sensational style, the film delves into what makes Rupert Pupkin so unsettling: superficially, he functions in society. Just below the surface, he lives in an alternative reality of his own making. His two worlds are always rubbing against each other, creating a sense of disquieting unease.

Mental illness is never an easy topic to tackle on the screen, and Rupert Pupkin is perhaps one of cinema's most effective attempts. Annoying as he is, Pupkin is also a victim of his condition in a society that both perpetuates his thirst for fame and is ill-equipped to help him deal with it. He is a character to be both detested and pitied, and De Niro's sober performance challenges both emotions.

As a broader theme, The King Of Comedy proved to be remarkably prescient. The irrational desire to be universally liked has only exploded in the decades since Rupert Pupkin. Social media has enabled the emergence of talent-deficient reality stars famous for being famous, revealing how astonishingly close Pupkin is to the surface of the human psyche as a whole.

In one of his most memorable roles, De Niro is always oily and sometimes chilling as Pupkin. Smiley, persistent and carrying a whiff of cheap danger, De Niro goes to the edge of reason but never crosses over into outright loony territory. And in a casting masterstroke Scorsese extracts a serious performance from Jerry Lewis. Langford is only jovial and friendly when the cameras roll; otherwise he is all business running a high profile show and dodging a never ending stream of autograph seekers and fake well-wishers.

The weakest parts of the film feature Sandra Bernhard as Masha, her character poorly defined and existing solely in the turbulent air created by Pupkin. Diahnne Abbott fares a bit better as the former classmate being dragged into Pupkin's fantasies.

The King Of Comedy lands a deserved blow to the societal gut, at the void where tenacity and talent become interchangeable. Failure succeeds, success fails, and failure is success. Welcome to the age of undeserved notoriety masquerading as stardom.

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Movie Review: The Big Wedding (2013)

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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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