Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

Trailer trash-cowboy Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) disovers the remains of a drug deal gone bad in the Texan desert - dead bodies, one wounded man, a truckload of drugs and 2 million dollars in a satchel. He takes the money but returns in the night with water for the dying survivor. But then Mexican gangsters turn up and he barely escapes them, leaving behind his truck.
Moss takes the money, tells his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to go to her mother, and flees from psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who has been hired to retrieve the satchel.
Local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is way out of his depth trying to protect Moss - all he can do is picking up the bodies Chigurh leaves wherever he comes through.

In No Country For Old Men the Coen brothers mix western, thriller, chase movie and horror together, refine the mixture with top-notch performances (outstanding: Javier Bardem) and finally serve a menu surprise: It’s not about the chase or the thrill, not about Moss, not about a crazy serial killer or 2 million dollars, it’s about luck, chance, and fate.
Ageing sheriff Bell “always figured when I got older, God would sorta come inta my life somehow. And he didn’t.” Instead, he finds himself in a world he doesn’t understand anymore, with killers and crimes he doesn’t know what to make of. But Ellis, a retired cop wounded in the line of duty, already knows what Bell just begins to realize: “Whatcha got ain’t nothin new. This country’s hard on people, you can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
It’s not the times that have changed, it’s Bell who realizes that life is not controlled by a god who rewards the good and punishes the bad, but it’s pure chance that decides if you live or die. Chigurh is not only the most chilling killer since Hannibal Lecter, he is an unstoppable force in the tradition of the old slasher films, but there is still more to him. It’s not a coincidence that bounty hunter Wells (Woody Harrelson), asked just how dangerous Chigurh is, responds with “Compared to what? The bubonic plague?”
Unlike those slashers, he doesn’t kill those who “behaved bad”. Instead, he is like a tsunami (or the plague): No matter if his victims are “guilty” or “innocent”, if they fight, give in, beg for mercy or don’t even realize what happens to them - he casually kills those who cross his path. Only sometimes, when he feels like it, he spares a random person, or lets a tossed coin decide if somebody lives or dies.

No matter if you prefer to watch it as a masterfully paced thriller with black humor or as an analogy about life at the mercy of blind fate - enjoy the ride (and live with the anticlimactic no-ending).

No Country for Old Men movie trailer

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) describes himself as an oil man and a family man with family values when he wants to strike a deal. What he doesn’t tell is that his “son” and “partner” H.W. (Dillon Freasier) isn’t really his son, but the orphaned son of an oil worker who died in an accident, and he uses him merely as a prop to convince business partners of his trustworthyness.
Plainview doesn’t believe in family, god or any other values except of oil and money, and he hates all people as he confesses to a man who appears later and claims to be his brother.
His antagonist is Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a self-proclaimed priest of his own Church of the Third Revelation. Plainview buys the oil-rich land of the Sunday’s but pays only half of the agreed price, and he humiliates Eli further by publicly refusing to let him bless the first oil well. When the same oil well catches fire, H.W. loses his hearing in the explosion, and Daniel sends him away to a school for the deaf.
Daniel also alienates his competitors from Standard Oil who want to buy him out and threatens to kill the agent who suggests he should take care of his son with the money from the buy-out.
Years later, Daniel Plainview lives alone in a huge estate (just like Citizen Kane), madness, alcohol and a shotgun his only companions, and throws away the last chance to come to terms with his “son” H.W. before his final encounter with Eli Sunday.

Daniel Plainview is the ultimate capitalist - and at the begin of his career, you may admire him for his strength and determination. Everything he achieves, he achieves himself, through hard work and a strong will. But then, all he ever wants is more money, more success, and he doesn’t care if it’s necessary to deceive or defraud people - or to exploit a child.
And he will stop at nothing when he deems it necessary to accomplish his goals. Somewhere deep inside he might realize how empty his life has become, because he totally overreacts and irrationally threatens the Standard Oil agent with murder when he dares to mention Daniel’s (non-existent) family life. But greed has long since eaten his soul, and the only way to go for Daniel is the descent into madness. Daniel Day-Lewis by all means deserved the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance.

Eli Sunday is similar - and at the same time, totally different. He wants to be successful, just like Plainview, and he wants recognition, but he is weak, and while he admires Plainview for his success, he hates him for how he treats Eli and his family. What he lacks in strength, he owns in deviousness, and he gets his revenge for the humiliation he suffered from Daniel. But ultimately, Eli is merely a parasite to Daniel’s predator - and There Will Be Blood.

Two old men, Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), both suffering from terminal cancer, meet each other in the hospital. Edward is an egocentric billionaire who has made his fortune but despite four marriages has nobody except his assistant, and Carter is a car mechanic with a wife he was faithful to his whole life and a big family which cares for him.
Edward is not very happy to have Carter as his roommate, but when he sees Carter’s “bucket list” - the list of things to do before you kick the bucket - he adds his own things and persuades Carter to come with him and do all those things, money is no problem.

The Bucket List is - absurdly - a feel-good dying-of-cancer movie, and it spares the audience any real fear of death, real despair and real agony, revelling in a hollywoodesque carpe diem mood instead. Edward and Carter have fun racing cars, skydiving, eating in posh French restaurants and seeing the wonders of the world, including the Pyramids, the Tadj Mahal and the Himalaya, discussing the meaning of life and death and flying around the world in Edward’s executive jet.
All that would be annoying if it wouldn’t be so much fun to watch Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman doing what they usually do (Nicholson showcasing his well-known selfish persona you can’t hate, and Morgan Freeman embodying the sage half-saint). But it’s not all fun, and even Nicholson’s atheist Edward is impressed by the Egyptian legend Carter tells him on top of the pyramid: When the ancient Egyptians died, their gods would ask them two questions at the gates of paradise: Have you found joy in your life? And: Has your life brought joy to others?
And if only a couple of the people who see The Bucket List will contemplate about this questions, and decide to do something about it, then this otherwise lightweight buddy movie/cancer comedy/road movie has achieved something.

The Bucket List movie trailer

US Army virologist Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last living man in New York, and maybe the world, after a genetically altered virus - intended as a cure for cancer - has mutated and killed 90% of the world’s population, and has turned another 9% into a kind of rabid vampire-zombies (remote cousins of the zombies out of 28 Days Later, obviously) who have killed most of the remaining 1% of immune people.
By day, Neville exercises to keep fit, hunts for food and DVD’s, and works in his laboratory on a cure for the virus. He broadcasts a recorded message and asks other survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport where he waits every day - since three years - in vain. By night, he hides from the infected who have developed an intolerance for UV-light just like the mythologic vampires and hide in dark places during daylight and roam the city by night.
Neville is on the brink of breakdown, his dog Sam, a collection of mannequins in the DVD store and his work in the laboratory the only things between his sanity and madness.

I Am Legend is the chance for an actor to shine - playing The Last Man On Earth means the lead actor is in almost any single scene and has both the opportunity and responsibility to carry the whole film alone. And Will smith (rather surprisingly) accomplishes a good job - no grimaces, no falling back on his The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-persona, he really convinces as the last survivor. And supporting him is the deserted city of New York, beautifully photographed and a character in it’s own right with it’s empty streets, sprouting vegetation and wildlife recapturing the city. That’s New York and Will Smith by day.
But then there are the nights, and when the sun sets and darkness creeps over the city, the infected rise - and the movie’s appeal drops. The “zombies” are CGI-creatures running through the night and shrieking like a herd of badly animated Gallimimus out of Jurassic Park, the other survivors who turn up later (Alice Braga and Charlie Tahan) don’t help either, and the syrupy ending is just the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
A wasted opportunity, then, and a waste of Will Smith’s acting bravura of the first half of the film.

I Am Legend movie trailer

King Philip ll of Spain (Jordi Mollà) wants the throne of England for his daughter Isabella and conspires with a group of Jesuits to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England (Cate Blanchett). Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) is also involved in the “English Enterprise”.
Queen Elizabeth meanwhile is busy with rejecting potential husbands and flirting with Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who fascinates the Virgin Queen with his tales from the New World and the oceans - and with his honesty and straightforwardness.
The assassination plot fails, and Elizabeth has no other choice than to agree to Mary Stuart’s beheading because of high treason, and that’s Philip’s raison de la guerre. Sacrificing the woods of Spain, Philip has ordered to build a fleet of war ships for an invasion of England - the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is less a historic epic (actually it’s historically quite inaccurate) than a medieval soap-opera, concentrating more on the (fictitious) relationship between Queen Elizabeth and the pirate Sir Walter Raleigh, with Elizabeth Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish) completing a love triangle, than on the conflict between Catholics and Protestants and Spain and England. Costume and production designs are as well worth seeing as the always great Cate Blanchett, and Clive Owen is a convincingly charming and dashing pirate, but unfortunately, their Elizabeth and Raleigh are virtually the only normal people in this movie, while most other characters (especially the evil ones) are hardly more than caricatures.
Lush production values and flashes of brilliant performances are regrettably not enough to outweigh a poor script, so Elizabeth: The Golden Age is watchable and even enjoyable due to Cate Blanchett and the elaborate custome and set design, but that alone doesn’t make a great film.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age movie trailer