Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is a junior FBI employee who wants to be promoted to agent. Agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) offers him a chance - he is assigned to work for Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) but in fact shall observe Hanssen and find evidence for sexually deviant behavior. But this is just a cover story - the FBI is sure Hanssen is a spy who has sold US secrets to Russia since years, and they want to catch him in the act.
But Eric doesn’t find anything suspicious - Hanssen doesn’t drink, he goes to church every day and believes in faith, family and his country. He develops respect for Hanssen, who becomes kind of his mentor, but he feels uneasy when Hanssen invades his private life and his job - the secretiveness and constant lies - starts to interfere with his relationship to his wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas).

Breach is a spy-film but definitly not a spy-thriller, based on true events. While the real Robert Hanssen claimed he did it for money when he was caught, in the film money is at most a secondary motive. Hanssen is a man who feels his talents and work are not appreciated the way they should be, and despite seeing himself as a man of faith and integrity is willing to betray his country mainly for the satisfaction of proving to himself that he’s important after all. It’s thanks to Chris Cooper’s ace portrayal of a highly intelligent, deeply religious man who is so convinced of his own righteousness that he doesn’t recognize he behaves like a sullen child that Breach is worth watching - because despite a bit of hollywoodizing the facts there is not much going on in the movie, just two men watching each other while pretending to work together. And while Chris Cooper is fantastic and fascinating to watch, Ryan Phillippe is merely OK as the rookie who tries to earn his spurs but still has to find out if it’s worth the price.

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a successful American entrepreneur in Harlem, New York. While American soldiers fight in Vietnam, he has set up a profitable family business with his younger brothers and cousins. He has cut out the middle-men, imports his uniquely high quality product directly from the manufacturer and sells his product to the end-user.
The product: Magic Blue - pure heroin.
The transport: Smuggled in the coffins of American soldiers killed in Vietnam.
The Risk: Low - U.S. Army soldiers, police officers, judges, prosecutors are on Lucas’ payroll.
The Profit: Enormous.
Denzel Washington shines as the always perfectly dressed Lucas who enjoys family life with his mother, brothers and cousins, marries Miss Puerto Rico (Lymari Nadal) while running his business with absolutely no qualms. This man is able to shoot a competitor in the head on a crowded street or to set a man on fire in cold blood, and his motto is “See, ya are what ya are in this world. That’s either one of two things: Either you’re somebody, or you ain’t nobody.” And every word Denzel Washington says and everything he does, Denzel is 100% credible and radiates class and danger - it’s without a doubt his best performance since he played a cop in Training Day.

Detective Richie Roberts (Russel Crowe) is one of very few honest cops in Essex County, New Jersey. His sense of duty is so strong he turns in one million dollars of drug money found in a car instead of keeping it for himself, making him the most hated detective of his force. Roberts stands alone in his job, spends evenings in law school, and his wife files a divorce and demands custody for their son.
Then he gets offered a new job - he leads a new task force of honest, hand-picked cops commissioned to stop drug trafficking in New Jersey and New York. His adversaries are gangsters, the mafia, and corrupt cops - and Frank Lucas, though it takes a long time and a lot of investigating before Roberts realizes - and convinces his team - that the black gangster from Harlem is actually more powerful than the Italian mafia families and responsible for flooding New York and New Jersey with cheap and high quality heroin.
Obsessed with duty and doing what’s “right” in his job, but neglecting his private and family life, Richie Roberts is the opposite of Frank Lucas. Frank is aggressive, ruthless, convinced he is destined for greatness, a family man, he lives the life of Riley, and he acts - Richie observes, is lonely and struggles with family problems, and while he also tries to make more out of his life, he strictly follows the rules and won’t take any shortcut that’s not strictly legal (like keeping confiscated drug-money for himself or accepting a generous bribe from the mafia).

The villain is often the better part for an actor, and that’s also true for American Gangster. Just like Richie Roberts is pale compared to the charismatic, dangerous gangster Frank Lucas, Russel Crowe is playing second fiddle to Denzel Washington in his criminally underwritten role as dutiful detective. But Ridley Scott’s movie is called American Gangster and not The Untouchables - it’s a Denzel Washington film with Russel Crowe in it, and that’s just fine.

American Gangster Movie Trailer

*** Spoiler Warning ***

Beowulf (Ray Winstone) is a real medieval hero, loudmouth and womanizer, warrior and slayer of beasts, and he comes to King Hrothgar’s (Anthony Hopkins) halls to kill the monster Grendel that is terrorizing the kingdom. After killing Grendel, he is awarded the King’s golden drinking horn.
But the terror hasn’t ended with Grendel’s death - in the night, almost all of Beowulf’s men are killed, only his best friend Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson) is spared. After the massacre, Hrothgar tells Beowulf that Grendel was his son - and that it was Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) who killed Beowulf’s men. He also tells him where to find her, and Beowulf and Wiglaf ride to her cave to slay Grendel’s mother. Beowulf enters her lair alone, and she confronts him in the gestalt of a beautiful woman (a virtual representation of a nude Angelina Jolie) and offers him invincibility in exchange for a son.
Beowulf is mesmerized by her beauty and accepts, and the deal is sealed with the golden drinking horn.
Returned to the king, Beowulf claims to have killed Grendel’s mother, but King Hrothgar sees through his blatancy and tells Beowulf that the curse that lay upon him is now the Beowulf’s curse. King Hrothgar jumps from the tower of his stronghold into the sea, his body is claimed by Grendel’s mother, and Beowulf is declared the new king. Thanks to the invincibility granted to him, the time of his rulership brings fame, victories and riches to the kingdom - but many years later, the curse catches up on Beowulf. Now it is his son who haunts the kingdom in the shape of a fire-breathing dragon.

Beowulf is based on, but not entirely true to, the ancient English poem Beowulf, and is filmed with the motion capture technology. The characters are CGI but resemble very much the actors they are based on - among them Angelina Jolie, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich and Robin Wright Penn, while the surroundings are digitally created. Sailing ships on the stormswept ocean, dizzying tracking shots of rough northern landscapes, eerie underground lakes, medieval fortresses, steep cliffs and horrific monsters (Grendel, the Dragon) make for a visual feast, and in combination with gory fight and action sequences let you forget the thin plot for much of the 113 minutes running time. And the third monster - a digitally created nude Angelina Jolie - will be responsible for a lot of clicks on the pause button once Beowulf appears on DVD.
But the strength of motion capture and CGI can’t hide it’s weaknesses - despite all the technology and the contingent of top actors who lend their voices, faces and motions to the CGI-cast the “acting” even of the main characters is wooden, while the extras come across like puppets or characters from a computer game.
Another humble step (but not even close to a breakthrough) into the direction of CG-moviemaking, but actors can sleep sound - it will be a long time before CGI-characters will replace their flesh-and-blood counterparts.

Beowulf Movie Trailer

Jasper Irving, a hotshot Republican senator (Tom Cruise) tries to sweettalk seasoned reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) into selling his newest strategy in Afghanistan to the public (even if it’s in fact a strategy that already failed in Vietnam), surprisingly admitting that mistakes have been made - and then reminding the reporter that the media has made their share of mistakes, too, and that they are just as responsible for the “War on Terror” as the government. Janine will have to make a decision - being the mouthpiece of the senator, or losing her job.

At the same time, two young soldiers (Michael Peña and Derek Luke) are stranded on a mountain in Afghanistan after a helicopter crash. Their assignment was part of senator Irving’s strategy - taking the mountaintops with small platoons before the Taliban can. One of them is wounded and can’t walk, and enemy fighters are closing in on them. They will be out of ammunition before the rescue helicopter can be there. The soldiers, Ernest Rodriguez and Arian Finch, have made their decision already - students of Professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford), they have decided to put their money where their mouth is and have enlisted for the US Army to do something meaningful with their lives (and to earn enough money for a decent education).

Professor Malley, having served in Vietnam himself, was unhappy with their decision, but has respected it. And while his two students are fighting for their lives on that snow-covered mountaintop, Malley deals with another student. Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) is brilliant and comes from a wealthy family, but Malley has noted that Todd seems to have lost interest in his studies. Todd tries to explain his his recent lack of dedication with other priorities - his girlfriend and his fraternity, but Malley isn’t fooled that easily. After some prodding Malley confronts Todd with the truth - Todd has lost his idealism because he thinks one man can make no difference.
Malley tries to convince him otherwise - the problems of the country are not caused by the government, they are caused by the people - the people who have stopped to care, to think for themselves, to participate and to take responsibility. It’s time for Todd to decide what he will do with his life - and even no decision is a decision.

Lions for Lambs was dismissed by many critics as just another left-wing rant against the Republicans and the “War on Terror”, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Strip away the politics and it’s a film about decisions and personal responsibility - talky, yes, and slow, and a clunky “action” segment, and the last reel of the movie seems to be missing, but Robert Redford still has got plenty of star wattage as an actor, and decent skills as a director.
It would be interesting to see what the critics would have said hadn’t Lions for Lambs been made by “Hollywood’s notorious lefties” but by some unknown independent filmmakers …
So do you take for granted what the majority of the critics say and stay out of this movie? Or do you watch it and make up your own mind? It’s your decision!

Lions for Lambs Movie Trailer

Based on Ron Hansen’s book The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Andrew Dominik’s film of the same name covers the last days in the life of legendary outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt). Just before the last train robbery by the James Gang, Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) joins Jesse James, Frank James (Sam Shepard) und his brother Charley Ford (Sam Rockwell), already a member of the gang. Bob Ford is idolizing Jesse James since his childhood, has read every publication about Jesse and has always dreamt about riding with the James Gang.
Bob is different from the other men in the James Gang - he is a dreamer and a romantic and rather shy compared with the simple but harder fellow outlaws, but convinced he is special and destined for greatness. Jesse accepts him in his gang nonetheless, and Bob and his brother Charley become members of the inner circle of the James Gang.
But Bob is more than just a fan of the original American Celebrity - he is obsessed with Jesse James, and he doesn’t want to just become like Jesse - it seems he wants to become Jesse James.
Then the law is closing in on Jesse, and he gets rid of former gangmembers who might hand him over to the Pinkerton detectives. The tension is rising when Jesse becomes increasingly wary and suspicious, and Bob and Charley become more and more afraid of becoming his next victims, especially because Bob has already made a deal with the Governor to turn Jesse in.

Jesse James is dead, but the often declared dead western is not. The Assassination of Jesse James is an epic western - the title is not the only thing that’s long, it’s running for 160 minutes - revelling in the wide landscapes and skies of the west (actually it was lensed in western Canada) and the larger-than-life story of Jesse James, who was a legend already at his lifetime.
Beautifully photographed and superbly acted, it’s a study of friendship, obsession, fear and betrayal with career-best performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck - and of the wide, wild landscapes of the west.
Slow, with sparingly used action and a hardly surprising story (it’s all in the title), the battle of the personalities is all it takes. Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Jesse as a charismatic, confident, strong-willed man, superior in intellect and courage, but also with a tendency to violent outbreaks, makes it easy to understand why Jesse James was a legend already at his lifetime. He was one of the first celebrities and one of the last men with the spirit of the free, wild west. But ultimately he was as doomed as this west, sorted out by a new type of man - less violent and less courageous, adoring the strength, freedom and fierceness of the men of the old west, but at the same time beholding them with fear and jealousy.
All this and more is visible in the eyes, the faces, and every gesture of Pitt and Affleck - which makes it worth devoting 160 minutes of your life to a movie.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Movie Trailer