Movie Review: Antitrust (2001)

Genre: Techno Thriller  

Director: Peter Howitt  

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook, Richard Roundtree  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: Gary Winston (Tim Robbins) is the celebrity CEO of dominant tech company Nurv. He recruits talented computer programmer Milo (Ryan Phillippe) to work on a critical project, although Milo's altruistic best friend Teddy refuses to join Nurv, preferring instead to develop open source code. Milo settles down in Portland with his girlfriend Alice (Claire Forlani), and at work he befriends fellow Nurv programmer Lisa (Rachael Leigh Cook). When a murder occurs, Milo is forced to confront the reality of his new employer.

What Works Well: This is a surprisingly effective and prescient condemnation of technology monopolies. Howard Franklin's script takes hard shots at dominant companies subsuming the competition, and director Peter Howitt maximizes the impact of computer screens filled with code, remaining true to programming's general look and feel. Character revelations, multiple plot twists, and brisk pacing add gloss to the techno thrills, and the best moment is Hitchcockian in its simple adherence to old fashioned suspense: sitting down to a meal that may just be deadly.

What Does Not Work As Well: Of course the plot holes are plentiful and visible, including Milo's ability to outsmart a comprehensive campus security system; and to access a critical home office computer system then explain his way out of trouble when caught.

Key Quote:

Gary Winston: This business is binary. You are a one or a zero. Alive or dead. There is no second place.

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Movie Review: Stop-Loss (2008)

An examination of combat-induced post traumatic stress disorder and the added strain of an army forcibly re-enlisting soldiers, Stop-Loss shines a familiar light on the human cost of war.

During a tour of duty in Iraq, US Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) leads his squad into an ambush. In the ensuing intense battle the squad suffers losses: Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk) is severely wounded, "Preacher" is killed, and Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is traumatized. King storms a building to save his close friend Sergeant Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum), but in the process causes many civilian deaths, including women and children.

Back in their small Texas community of Brezos, King, Shriver and Burgess are celebrated as heroes. Shriver exhibits signs of PTSD and strikes his girlfriend Michelle (Abbie Cornish) while Burgess embarks on an alcohol-fuelled self-destructive path. King is keen to be discharged having fulfilled his Army obligations, but is shocked to receive a "stop-loss" order from Lieutenant Colonel Boot Miller (Timothy Olyphant) forcing him to serve another tour in Iraq. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL with Michelle's help. Shriver is caught between duty to his country and his friend's erratic actions.

Directed and co-written by Kimberly Peirce, Stop-Loss fulfils its earnest intention of revealing the trauma of war amplified by the dubious forced reenlistment practice, essentially conscription under another name. Arriving five years into the protracted and unpopular war, the film takes on an easy target and quickly sketches in young men believing they are doing the right thing coming back shell-shocked and jaded, only to be betrayed by the one institution they believed in.

After building a sturdy foundation with the opening battle and subsequent small-town hero's welcome, Stop-Loss stalls. Once King refuses his reenlistment orders and hits the road, the script loops around in lazy circles. As part of his search for a way out of his predicament King visits the badly wounded Rodriguez in a military hospital and Preacher's parents, useful war-is-hell narrative devices but perhaps not exactly what an AWOL Sergeant would do.

Momentum is further lost when Shriver re-emerges to try and reel in his friend, and the triangle of Michelle as Shriver's girl helping King in his escape remains rickety throughout, not helped by unconvincing emotional outbursts. Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish are adequate in the stoic mid-range, but struggle in more expressive moments. A physical scuffle in a graveyard becomes a clumsy low point instead of a cathartic climax.

Stop-Loss revisits the well-worn physical and emotional losses of war, then stops.

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Movie Review: Cruel Intentions (1999)

A loose adaptation and modernization of  Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Cruel Intentions enjoys a quite dazzling first half, but subsequently fades away into an overwrought mess.

In New York, Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Geller) and her step brother Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) are very rich teenagers, unsupervised by their parents, and carrying a mean streak of cruelty to others. Sebastian enjoys collecting sexual conquests, and after humiliating his psychologist (Swoosie Kurtz) by seducing her daughter (Tara Reid), he sets his sights on Annette (Reese Witherspoon), the virginal daughter of his new schoolmaster. Kathryn, who pretends to be an exemplary young woman and a mentor to others, contrives a revenge on a former boyfriend that involves humiliating his new girlfriend Cecile (Selma Blair).

Kathryn does not believe that Sebastian can seduce Annette, and the step-siblings make a bet: she will sleep with him if he succeeds, and he will give her his prized car if he fails. Sebastian does get close to Annette, but his plan is knocked off-course when he starts to develop genuine affection for her. Meanwhile, Katherine finds it easier to control the naive Cecile, who embarks on a wild journey of sexual discovery much to the horror of her mother Bunny (Christine Baranski).

Directed and written by Roger Kumble, the opening 45 minutes of Cruel Intentions is a guilty pleasure masterpiece. The screen positively crackles with an edgy depraved cruelty, driven by the psychotic Katheryn and sexually insatiable Sebastian. As they gleefully plot to destroy the lives of others with barely a hint of remorse, Kumble demonstrates what it means for the devil to make work for idle hands. Katherine and Sebastian live to satisfy their uncontrolled urges at the expense of unsuspecting victims, and absolutely love doing so.

The second half of the film is not nearly as good. Once Sebastian gets in touch with his emotions and discovers that he can actually care about the feelings of another human being, the superficial talent at the core of the movie is exposed, the edge is rubbed off and momentum is lost. Ryan Phillippe cannot carry the role of conflicted lover, and the competitive dynamic between Kathryn and Sebastian is thrown out of balance. She is still on the path of cruelty while he wants out, and the disparity punches a hole in the narrative structure.

Geller and Blair emerge with the two best performances. Geller thrives as the dark protagonist, revelling in the euphoria of manipulation. Blair allows Cecile to bounce along the path laid for her by others, her mix of determined stupidity creating the perfect target for Kathryn's contemptuous darts. Witherspoon is steady, but the role of Annette does not offer much latitude for inventiveness. The supporting cast also includes Louise Fletcher and Sean Patrick Thomas.

Cruel Intentions is half of a very good movie, a case of mistimed moral awakening ruining a wicked romp.

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Movie Review: The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Based on a Michael Connelly novel, The Lincoln Lawyer tries to sizzle but quickly fizzles into an unsatisfying and improbable courtroom drama.

Los Angeles lawyer Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) operates out of the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car. Specializing in defending low-life criminals that even he believes to be guilty, Mickey is surprised when spoiled rich kid Louis Roulet (Ryan Philippe) selects him to defend a charge of assaulting a high-priced prostitute. Roulet and his powerful mother Mary Windsor (Frances Fisher) are among society's elite, and far from the riff raff that make up Mickey's typical client list.

As Mickey starts probing the Roulet assault charges with the help of investigator Frank Levin (William H. Macy, wasted in a throwaway role), he uncover links to one of his previous murder cases in which Mickey was too hasty to convince the accused (Michael Pena) to plead guilty. Mickey realizes that Roulet is a manipulative criminal enjoying a cunning game in which Mickey himself is being played for a fool. He sets out to rectify matters in the courtroom and on the street.

As hard as it tries to be something more, The Lincoln Lawyer never offers much beyond a poor television episode of Law And Order, injected with some star power. The plot quickly gets too convoluted and is immediately punctured by the most tiresome of coincidences, from Mickey having to deal with a prosecutor who is also his ex-wife (Marisa Tomei), to his incredible abilities to manipulate a hardened jailbird at long distance. And there must have been a good reason why Mickey didn't immediately quit the Roulet case once he understood the web that he had walked into; that reason is never explained.

The ending is hastily wrapped up with little logic, the John Romano script celebrating as Mickey resorts to gang violence, and the final act of justice - and a death penalty punishment, no less -  improbably succeeding on the flimsiest parking ticket evidence that any good defence lawyer could have discredited in minutes.

A hunky Hollywood star cruising in the back seat of an impressive black Lincoln is far from enough to save a movie that trades away intellectual content for some paltry style.

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Movie Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

A couple of eye-catching performances cannot elevate I Know What You Did Last Summer above routine slasher fare. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar prove themselves to be better than the material, Ryan Phillipe and Freddie Prinze Jr. do not, and the script falls foul of overcomplicating the premise and self-destructing on the rock of introducing the perpetrator too late into the body count.

In a small fishing town, four friends are celebrating their graduation from high school. Julie (Hewitt), her boyfriend Ray (Prinze Jr.), beauty queen Helen (Gellar) and rich kid Barry (Phillippe) are driving on a winding beachfront road when they accidentally strike and kill a stranger who suddenly wanders in front of their car. The four friends throw the body in the water and pledge to never discuss the matter. One year later, Julie is visiting home from college when she receives a handwritten note claiming "I Know What You Did Last Summer!". Soon, a mysterious executioner dressed in a raincoat starts to commit gruesome murders using a fishing hook.

Hewitt achieved deserved fame after I Know What You Did Last Summer became a box office success, and deservedly so. As Julie, Hewitt packs her tiny 5' 2" frame with a dark intensity mixed with defiance that doesn't quite overcome all the vulnerability, and while she can dominate a horror flick, she immediately establishes herself as capable of much more.

Also good but more comfortable within the confines of the genre is Gellar, who plays Helen as a flighty blond but with a mischievous smile dancing behind her lips, almost giving away the fun that she is having. Gellar would find her niche perfecting this semi-serious feisty damsel role on TV's Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Hewitt and Gellar make sure that I Know What You Did Last Summer is fetching enough, but behind them lies the void, and director Jim Gillespie has little to work with beyond his two leading ladies. Prinze Jr. is lightweight enough to disappear to among the extras, and Philippe overcooks his intensity to a charred crisp. The script by Kevin Williamson ties itself in knots to avoid the obvious conclusion, rushing in the final 10 minutes to introduce a surprise murder sub-plot and a nondescript evil guy.

I Know What You Did Last Summer may have a couple of good answers, but not enough to pass the test of all seasons.

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