Movie Review: Life Or Something Like It (2002)

Genre: Romantic Dramedy  

Director: Stephen Herek  

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns, Tony Shalhoub, Stockard Channing  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: Seattle television personality Lanie (Angelina Jolie) has the perfect life: engaged to major league baseball player Cal (Christian Kane), living in a beautiful apartment, and up for a promotion to a national network role in New York. She has a spiky relationship with colleague and cameraman Pete (Edward Burns). But when self-proclaimed street prophet Jack (Tony Shalhoub) predicts she will die the following Thursday, and his other predictions (a football score, a hailstorm, and an earthquake) start coming true, Lanie has to re-assess her priorities.

What Works Well: The production is glitzy and the pacing brisk, allowing Angelina Jolie to throw herself into the role of a woman manicuring every detail of her existence: the hairstyle, the makeup, the clothes, the attitude, the lover, and the camera-ready expressions are all geared for greater success. The hollowness inside starts to emerge after Jack's prophecy, and Lanie's conversation with boyfriend Cal is a stunning revelation of superficiality. The cracks in the veneer creep longer and deeper as the fateful day approaches. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is trapped between standard rom-com fare as Lanie and Pete transition from adversaries to lovers, and more profound meaning-of-life intentions. By not committing to either, the emotional energy remains suspended on a yellow light. Through Pete's repeated and tiresome criticisms of Lanie's choices, the script firmly places its weight behind traditional abandon-the-dream conservatism.

Key Quote:

Cal: Is this you breaking up with me? Well will you think about it for a minute?

Lanie: A minute just seems like a really long time to waste.

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Movie Review: Pain & Gain (2013)

Genre: Crime Comedy Drama

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson

Running Time: 129 minutes

Synopsis: The setting is Miami in 1993. Body builder and fitness club personal trainer Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is inspired by charlatan self-help gurus and obsessed with achieving wealth. He recruits fellow body builders Paul (Dwayne Johnson) and Noel (Anthony Mackie) to kidnap gym club client and shady businessman Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) and have him sign over all his assets. Kershaw turns out to be a tough nut to crack, leading to the involvement of private detective Ed Du Bois (Ed Harris).

What Works Well: Based on real events, Michael Bay creates an enjoyably over-blown and vivid story of dim-witted criminals overreaching in pursuit of the crass yachts-and-sportscars lifestyle sold on television. The action is drenched in sweat and complemented by thumping music, allowing the animated cast to play it straight and revel in the stupidity of men mistaking muscles for brains. The kidnappers are provided distinct personalities: Lugo is the scrappy leader, Noel is the easily impressed follower, and Paul is caught in a fragile attempt at reformation. The acidic humour adds crackles of energy, and Tony Shalhoub has the most fun as the indestructible Kershaw spitting venemous fury at his assailants.

What Does Not Work As Well: Criminal acts and victims are treated with marginally off-putting disdain, and the running time is as artificially bloated as the bulging biceps.

Conclusion: The dark side of the American dream in bright, brash colours.



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Movie Review: The Siege (1998)

A New York City under martial law terrorism thriller, The Siege is a weird combination of the prescient and the ridiculous.

The CIA in cooperation with U.S. Army General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) caries out the extra-judicial abduction and extradition of Sheik Akhmed bin Talal, the accused mastermind behind a spate of terrorist attacks against US interests. The Sheik's supporters, working out of various Brooklyn-based cells, initiate a terrorism campaign in New York City to secure his release, including blowing up a bus full of civilians. FBI Agent Anthony "Hub" Hubbard (Denzel Washington) and his Lebanese-born partner Agent Frank Haddad (Tony Shalhoub) try to make sense of the attacks but are kept in the dark by CIA officer Elise Kraft (Annette Bening), who hovers around the investigation both helping and hindering Hub's work.

Elise eventually reveals to Hub that she controls an agent with contacts among the terrorists, a man named Samir Nazhde (Sami Bouajila). Before Hub can do enough to disrupt the cells, more attacks are unleashed and civilians casualties mount, causing an uproar across the country. The calls for the army to be deployed in New York intensify, leading to a confrontation between Devereaux and Hubbard.

Directed by Edward Zwick, The Siege was released three years before the events of September 11, 2001. As such, the film deserves credit for predicting a lot of what happens when a country and a city are placed in the cross hairs of terrorists. The backlash against the Muslim community, the demands to throw immigrants out of the country, the illegal torture of suspects, and the hysteria that leads to the erosion of civil liberties all actually did happen in various forms after 9/11, and here Zwick and his team of three screenwriters capture close variations of the same.

Much less successful are the characterizations and some of the depictions of conflict between various arms of a government under crisis. The Siege is quick to have the FBI, the CIA and the Army at each others' throats, issuing threats with guns and rifles drawn, and arresting and incarcerating each other. While there are always jurisdictional turf wars, tensions and finger pointing, The Siege carries this element to ludicrous extremes and starts to lose credibility as soon as Hubble and Elise fail to communicate at the most basic level.

And in general, the characters are quite one-dimensional despite an impressive cast. Annette Bening gets the most to work with as Elise gradually reveals a backstory inspired by the 1990-91 Gulf War, but otherwise there is little depth to Hubbard, Haddad and Devereaux. Also lacking is any thoughtful context to the acts of terrorism as spoken by the perpetrators. They remain silent and faceless killers, their agenda and motivations filled in by others.

The Siege does enjoy well-polished moments of tension and urban horror as cruel atrocities are committed against an urban population. The depictions of the US Army as a blunt instrument that only knows to crudely trample on whatever terrain it is deployed to also ring true. In tackling the thorny issue of how to react to bloodthirsty terrorists without resorting to their tactics, the film manages to be prophetic and preposterous in equal measures..

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