Craiger’s Cinema Corner

**  out of  ****

Earlier this year Sofia Coppola’s historical biopic, MARIE ANTOINETTE, was booed at the Cannes Film Festival.   After having finally watched the final product for myself, I find it increasingly hard to find anything misleading with that initial critical reaction. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE is a mess, but at least it’s a highly ambitious mess from Coppola.  I guess my most grave misgiving with the whole enterprise is not with its glossy facade.  It does a masterful job with revealing all of the pomp and circumstance of Antoinette’s life.  The film has a nitpicking level of detail in terms of its art direction and set design, not to mention that it does a bravura job of encapsulating the overall formality of the period.  Yet, there is no historical meat to this film’s bones.  It is all flash with no context.  It’s absolutely luminous eye candy, but offers noting intriguing to really say about Antoinette or her times.  The film is curiously enigmatic.  Scholars will leave the film let down, whereas lay film viewers with only a morsel of knowledge about the real Antoinette will leave the film knowing very little afterwards as well.

MARIE ANTOINETTE glosses over history to the point of frustration.  Being a history major I can attest to the notion that people, dates and places are less important than context.  Coppola does in fact do a terrific job of recreating 18th Century monarchy life to the silver screen.  The film is an astonishingly impressive parade of awesome set design and breathtaking costumes.  There is never one second of MARIE ANTOINETTE that is dull to look at.  The film is an unmistakable technical dazzler.  At times, it’s quite breathtaking.

The unfortunate aspect of the film is that it’s completely negligible about telling an interesting story about Antoinette’s life.  Yes, her tale is one of unwanted containment and how she was thrown into a life that she hardly was prepared for (who, honestly, would want to abandon one’s culture, move to another country, adopt their customs and enter into an arranged marriage while still a teenager?).  Yet, the film offers nothing on the overall political and social perspective of the period.  By the time the film was winding down to a conclusion and the angry mob was storming up the Bastille, I am sure that there were many in the audience that were scratching their heads.  We are given bits of expository dialogue here and there about the events that were transpiring around Antoinette and her monarchy, but the film sort of treats them as afterthoughts.  The world she lived in should have been as much of a focus as she was.  Coppola, unfortunately, only seems vaguely interested in history.  Her film is about the lifestyles of the rich and famous and she seems to care little about the larger events that were taken place on the outside.

For a figure that was stuck right in the middle of an intense period of civil unrest and upheaval, MARIE ANTOINETTE is fairly brainless with its title character.  Sure, she is akin to a 18th Century Paris Hilton who liked to party hard into the wee hours of the morning, shop for the best shoes and apparel that France had to offer, and loved to hang with her Versailles peeps and spout out endless gossip.  Okay, the film goes out of its way to present that over and over and over again.  The woman had frugal tastes, loved delicacies, and slept around. 

Yet, what did she really think about what was happening around her?  What were her views?  How did she feel about her countrymen?  How did she view her husband’s willingness to spend a fortune to help the American’s with “their revolution” against the British when her country was in an economic tailspin?  How did she feel about France having one of the largest national debts in all of Europe?  The woman, in this film at least, seems utterly ditzy and clueless.  Near the end when their castle is about to be stormed by an angry mob, she steadfastly states that she will not abandon her husband?  But why?  She cheated on him, and the country is in ruins.  Why would she stay?  The film never has the time to dive into her motivations.  Instead, Coppola tells us she liked dresses and cake.  Well, laddie-da.

For an immensely talented young director and Oscar winning screenwriting that was able to so confidently dig deep into her complex characters in the ethereal THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and the pitch perfect LOST IN TRANSLATION, it’s kind of shocking how Coppola disregards story and character development in MARIE ANTOINETTE.  The film is kind of – on the whole – dumbstruck.  There had to be – there just had to be – more to Antoinette than looking pretty and appearing simple-minded, which she does throughout most of the film.  The film treats her with curiosity, but not with any thorough exploration or complexity.  On top of that, we get horribly miscast leads, a terribly crafted soundtrack that reeks of forced and anachronistic pop songs, and a lot of modern day colloquial dialogue that was most likely designed to make Antoinette more easily digestible for hip, modern audiences.  I dunno, I am all for revisionist historical films, but not ones that are thematically and historically vacant.

Anyone that has taken History knows that Antoinette is a highly intriguing figure in 18th Century France.  Her post Revolutionary life is arguably the most intriguing, which ultimately concluded with her (SPOILER WARNING) beheading (hmmm…is established history spoiler territory?  Never mind).  Needless to say, the film does not dive into that fascinating period at all and instead narrowly focuses on her life up until the storming of Bastille on July 14, 1789.  Now, I would easily argue that the film would have been vastly more absorbing if it focused less on her rise to power and he wild eccentricities and more on her reaction to the wider problems that her country faced.  Nevertheless, Coppola hones in narrowly on the earlier aspects, which makes MARIE ANTOINETTE feel unfinished.

As the film opens 14-year-old Austrian Marie Antoinette (played by the not even vaguely Austrian Kirsten Dunst) travels to France in 1770.  She is sent there to marry the Dauphin, Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman, faring a bit better with his role).  The reasoning here is simple: A marriage between the two nations would provide stronger, everlasting ties for an equally strong allegiance.  Obviously, Marie is like a fish out of water and the remarkably etiquette-heavy French Royal lifestyle does not sit well with her.  On these levels, the film is on strong ground and does a good job of portraying the incredible social redundancies surrounding the daily customs of monarchy life.  Marie, for example, never undresses alone, nor does she bathe or dine alone.  There is a woman aid at her side every moment, even to wipe her hands when needed.  Perhaps this is the impetus for her later rebellious and hedonistic behaviour.  The protocol of her life jails her, which is why she strives to break free and be her own woman.

Needless to say, she finds some new friends in her new country, such as Ambassador Mercy (the always great Steven Coogan) and eventually becomes close to Comtesse de Noailles (the great Judy Davis) and the Duchesse de Polignac (Rose Byrne).  She also meets some troublesome adversaries, which primarily come in the form of Madame du Barry (Asia Argento), who is married to the much older King Louis XV (played in what has to be the most miscast French Monarch ever, Rip Torn…no…seriously).  To make matters worse for young Marie, her hubby is seriously lacking skills in the sack.  Reasons for this are vague and sketchy.  Obviously, if one had Dunst for a wife, consummating the marriage would appear relatively easy.  Yet, Marie’s husband has little desire to impregnate her.  He is such a social reject and so hopelessly dweeby that he makes Napoleon Dynamite look like Sean Connery.  In any event, Marie pulls off every seductive move in her playbook, but Louis does not bulge.  This creates a lot of fear and concern for the monarch without an heir in the future.

MARIE ANTOINETTE slavishly spends nearly all of its time on the customs and harsh daily rituals of monarch live, not to mention Marie’s several botched attempts to get laid.  The other more fascinating elements - like her future infidelities with and the growing civil unrest with her country - are all but footnotes in the film.  Again, the film is gorgeous to sit through on a visual level and the production values are Oscar caliber.  The daily grind of endless rituals for Marie is rightfully presented as painfully tedious, but the film hammers home this point far too often at the expense of not focusing on anything else more interesting. 

The film’s biggest sin is in its shallowness with Marie herself.  Yes, she was a shallow and vain person, but there must have been more to her Valley Girl-like façade and her penchant for fine jewellery and candy.  Ironically, Marie is so lifeless and dull that she never really takes center stage in the film.  She never becomes someone to invest in or relate to.  All in all, she’s an ignorant rich snob and not much else. 

The performances don’t help either.  Dunst is a serviceably adequate talent, but she is completely outclassed and lost in the film.  Surrounded by the likes of Coogan and Davis, Dunst never seems confident in the role.  She seems…well… too contemporary for the part and never once feels like a legitimate, living and breathing figure from the 18th Century.  Maybe Coppola was – as stated – going for a more familiar lead in the role to make the film feel more relatable from a modern sensibility.  Yet, Dunst is lost in all of the wicked excess and extravagant costumes.  A part of Antoinette’s stature needs an actor of gravitas and stature, and Dunst is sorely lacking in these areas.  She very rarely makes Antoinette compelling or stimulating.  Her performance is like the film: On the whole, fairly ditzy.

Something also needs to be said about some of Coppola’s aesthetic choices.  She, like her father before her, is an interesting cinematic visualist (she gave THE VIRGIN SUICIDES such a haunting and dreamlike quality).  ANTOINETTE reinforces her skills as a strong director of images, but her choices for a modernistic soundtrack really fail.  Firstly, contemporary pop tunes have seen the light of day in historical films before (and to much better effect in A KNIGHT’S TALE), but here it approaches a dyslexic quality.  The tunes, by artists like The Cure, are mismashed in-between the other standard orchestral music.  As a result, the film feels uneven and the pop tunes feel forced and tacked on.  A KNIGHT’S TALE was decidedly a farce, which made the anachronistic soundtrack offbeat and funny.  ANTOINETTE is, for the most part, fairly straight-laced, so why the modern soundtrack?  If anything, it creates an awkward detachment in the viewers.  Coppola thinks her film is more cool and stylish than it actually is - or should be for that matter.

Ultimately, Sofia Coppola’s ultra decadent and lavishly mounted MARIE ANTOINETTE is great eye candy, but terrible historical revisionism.  The film is frequently buoyant, spirited, and marvelous on a visual level, but Coppola lets her predilection for rock and pop music, strangely modernistic dialogue, a genuine lack of accents, and a curious lack of historical commentary about 18th Century French aristocracy get the better of her.  Yes, Coppola aesthetic underpinnings remain sights to behold, but her usual strong command of story and characters seems absent in ANTOINETTE.  Inevitably, she wants to frame this famous historical persona as a humanistic and obsessively fashion conscious figurehead.  Coppola yearns to present her in a revisionist tale of how misunderstood she was to her people and country.  The irony with MARIE ANTOINETTE is that it also really misunderstands who she really is in the first place.  The film is all looks and no substance.  It’s as if Coppola herself is letting her audience eat cake without offering up a more savory, multiple course meal.

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****  out of  ****

In a lesser filmmaker’s hands, HALF NELSON could have easily degenerated into on of those shamelessly saccharine and would-be inspirational teacher/mentor high school melodramas.  They seem to be a definite dime a dozen these days.  You know, the kind of cheap, manipulative claptrap story that has a socially outcast teacher that none of his/her colleagues accept or admire who is able to forge a winning relationship with his rather troublesome students.  Furthermore, the charismatic and rebellious teacher is able to instill a larger sense of purpose in his otherwise apathetic pupils, so much so to the point where they all have epiphanies and go on to much more rewarding and fulfilling lives.  I like to say that these films suffer from DEAD POET’S SYNDROME, named after the film of the same relative name. 

A variation on this genre is the inner city high school drama, which further sees other permutations -  such as the inner city/sports genre - where games like basketball are thrown into the mix for added dramatic padding.  Ripe with annoying clichés, warmed over and unrealistic personas, and woefully manufactured moments of enriching euphoria, these films desperately try to tug at audience heartstrings to the point of nauseating overkill.   The teachers in these films, despite being mutinous on a basic educator and curriculum level, are usually overwhelmingly good people who never attain popularity with colleagues, but they sure do with their students.  The students, meanwhile, are typically a ragtag group of societal misfits that the teacher – no matter what – will fix for the better.  Do these formulas sound familiar?

Perhaps this is why HALF NELSON is such a quiet, understated, and masterfully mounted drama.  It takes the standard elements of these motivational inner city high school flicks and wickedly turns them up on their heads.  It is unlike any contemporary high school film that I have ever seen.  HALF NELSON goes against the grain of witless and moronic formulas that permeate these types of films and instead goes for gritty verisimilitude at every corner.  People don’t necessarily change for the better at the end of this film.  Characters are not narrowly defined as black and white entities.  Life, as a whole, is structured in a much more decided grey areas.  The film’s world view is - for the most part - fairly bleak.

Perhaps even more crucially, HALF NELSON does not involve downtrodden people that are motivated to achieve ultimate victory either on the school front or athletic front.  There is no big game for the underdogs to win against all odds in the final act.  There is no teacher that inspires his kids to be all that they can be.  In short, it is how HALF NELSON is so rigidly atypical that makes it special.  The film is about deeply flawed individuals who all try to make some semblance of their lives and how they fit into the big picture.  The film is undeniably fascinating for looking at the subjugated – warts and all – by not sugarcoating them in the slightest.  These are people that may not be able to be saved, nor do they want any spiritual rescuing.

It is that heightened moral ambiguity that makes the film all the more enticing and intriguing.  Beyond that is the unique handling of the main teacher role in the film.  He is not perfect.  He does not conduct himself flawlessly in and out of the classroom.  He does – to a small degree – genuinely inspire his students, but not in the awe-inspiring ways that other genre films showcase.  More crucially, HALF NELSON’s educator is arguably as emotionally damaged and troubled as his students.  The fact that he is a habitual crack addict only embellishes this point.  The teacher – played is an astonishing performance by Ryan Gosling – is neither Mr. Holland from MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS or John Keating from DEAD POET’S SOCIETY.  No, the teacher in HALF NELSON is more like Travis Bickle with book smarts.

Like Bickle, Dan Dunne is a hopeless loner who does damaging things to himself.  Teaching is one of his few outlets for catharsis.  He does not look to change the world, but if he can get his inner city students to start thinking about issues beyond their classroom, then he feels some level of pride.  Yet, Dan is unlike just about any movie teacher that I am aware of.  He dresses like a slacker with an untucked shirt, bad tie, and has constant five o’clock shadow every minute of the day.  He lives in a drabby and dilapidated Brooklyn apartment that looks close to being condemned.  He looks sick all the time, kind of like he has not slept in weeks.  Maybe he hasn’t.  As the film opens his alarm clock goes off, but it appears that he has not slept.  He is sitting up, in his underwear and little else, in a drug hazed stupor after an apparent all-night cocaine bender.  He’s in a perpetual foggy state.  This guy, obviously, is not every parent’s idea of a good role model. 

Yet, HALF NELSON is also about breaking down metaphorical barriers that distance people with one another.  Is Dan a despicable person or teacher?  Hardly.  He is, in fact, a very good high school teacher.  Sure, he throws out the curriculum guides, but one obviously needs other methods to communicate to his kids about history.  His strategies and skills are remarkably subtle and simplistic.  He is cogent and gets his points across incredibly clear.  The character is astonishingly bipolar.  When at home or – amazingly – in the high school’s bathrooms or lounges, the guy is an absolute drug-addicted basket case that looks for any angle to get high.  However, when he enters the classroom, he comes alive.  Yes, Dan is a terribly self-destructive figure that risks his livelihood, but he is a gifted educator.  Teaching, in an odd ways, is his medicine for his pain.

The students – who seem unaware that their teacher is an addict – like and respect the man, even if he wanders into class looking like the undead everyday.  The same can’t be said of Dan’s fellow teachers, who all seem to suspect that there is more to his extracurricular activities that he is leading on.  Things come to a fever pitch when – during one night – Dan decides to go to a girl’s bathroom after a basketball game (he is the coach) and starts to light up.  Higher than a kite, he meanders in and out of unconsciousness, but he sure seems to wake up when his student, Drey (in an equally thoughtful and brilliant performance by Shareeka Epps) finds him.  Shockingly, neither seems to make a big deal of it.  He matter-of-factly apologies to her, she accepts, he sobers up and drives her home, during which she says good night and they part ways.  It’s an odd sequence, but it only highlights the despair and chaos that highlights these peoples’ lives.  In a dingy, decaying urban jungle, maybe it’s not a surprise to see one’s teacher as a drug addict.

They soon form a bond, but it’s not one of those awful, one-note relationships where both grow to accept each other with open arms.  The exchanges between the two are remarkable frank and honest.  During one scene where he drives her home after yet another unsuccessful basketball game, he tries to explain his actions.  The ref, it seems, was making bad calls all night.  He used variations of the f-bomb that most teachers should never use in front of students, threw the ball in anger at the ref, quickly got kicked out of the game, and later punched a wall and hurt his hand.  Dan tries to cover up his actions.  She responds by saying, “It must have just felt good to let it out.”  Dan tells her, “Yeah, but there are other ways of ‘getting it out.’”  She corners him.  “Like what you do,” she asks him.  Dan knows he’s cornered and knows she’s right.  Later, he wisely points out, “One thing doesn’t make a man.”  He too has a good point.  Yes, he is a man with deep addiction problems and needs help, but he’s a good teacher and more decent than his drug-induced lifestyle would let on.

Their relationship continues to grow to the point where both seem to want to save the other but ultimately realize that it might not be possible.  Dan is a hopeless crack smoker that does not look to end his bad habit.  Drey, on the same token, also desires to engage in a lot of shady activity with her new friend, a neighborhood drug dealer (played with a slimy charisma by Anthony Mackie).  Like Travis Bickle before him, Dan wants to be Drey’s knight in shining armor.  Two things impede his quest.  First, Drey does not appear to want saving.  Second, Dan is actually a client of the drug dealer, which makes his quest somewhat hypocritical. 

HALF NELSON is a film of such uncompromising authority and of unflinching sentiment.  It does many things with a virtuoso level of assuredness.  It presents lower class Brooklyn neighborhoods and schools (often not seen in films) and shows them in all levels of grungy detail.  The film has so much veracity with the way it presents its crumbling environments.  The film gets subtle nuances down perfectly as well.  Things like the fact that Dan never uses bed sheets, that his sink looks like it’s never been cleaned, that the shirts he wears never looked ironed.  Dan’s clothing and home eerily reflect his borderline disillusionment.  His life – emotionally and physically – is in disarray. 

Perhaps the hallmark of the film is in its performances, and the film has two of the best of the year in Gosling and young Epps.  Gosling has been in a lot of lighter fare (he was good in the romantic melodrama THE NOTEBOOK and was also strong in other recent films like THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND and THE BELIEVER).  His performance in HALF NELSON is a breathtaking revelation, like seeing a young Brando or DeNiro beginning to show their strengths as performers of such powerfully understated authority.   Gosling’s performance as Dan is a textbook exercise in careful, underplayed restraint.  He never has to yell or overact to relay emotions to the audience.  He acts with his eyes and is able to effectively communicate the most complex feelings with the most limiting of physical jesters.  He also wisely plays his role not as a stereotypical druggie that is perpetually twitchy and looks like a loose canon.  There is a peculiar serenity and calmness to Dan, who often gets far with his soft-spokenness to his students.  Epps is also subtly strong in her performance as she is able to stand her ground with her troubled teacher.  Both performances are the anchor of HALF NELSON and the rest build on top of their solid foundation.  Realistically, though, this is Gosling’s film and his work reveals him to be one of the industry’s best young actors.  He does not play Dan as much as he inhabits him.  Note to Academy: don’t overlook him next year.

HALF NELSON is an urban high school melodrama that may be too much of a bitter pill for some viewers to stomach.  It approaches a level of realism and psychological complexity that is all but void in other similar high school genre films, not to mention that the mentor/teacher figure in the film is as emotionally ravaged as his students.   Furthermore, nihilism and desperation are awash in the film.  The future seems bleak and the chance of its characters bettering themselves seems unlikely.  This is a film about flawed people that want to reach out and help others but don’t want to accept help when others deliver it.  That’s what makes the film work so well.  It takes familiar themes and issues and radically revamps them.  With tight and confident direction, extraordinarily commanding performances, and a narrative that avoids wretched clichés, HALF NELSON emerges – paradoxically – as one of 2006’s most hopeful and inspirational films.  Despite its bleakness moral outlook, the film still hints at –without directly showing – redemption after damnation.   The film is truthful and potent in a way few films are and it displays Ryan Gosling as the actor to watch out for.  He is so effortlessly mesmerizing in the film that you kind of get lost in it and forget you’re watching an actor.  In that way, HALF NELSON is a real out-of-body experience.  You’re not just viewing the film, you’re experiencing it.

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***1/2  out of ****

THE PRESTIGE is an exploration into competition and obsession, which is why I think it is far from being more than just another standard, run-of-the mill foray into the genre of the period drama and thriller.  Of course, obsession is a theme that writer/director Christopher Nolan knows how to handle with impeccable restraint and fortitude. 

His first feature, the absolutely ingenious MEMENTO, focused on one man’s lonely and problematic quest to discover his wife’s killer.  In his follow-up film, the terribly under-appreciated INSOMNIA, Nolan crafted two interlocking stories of a killer’s desperate and vile impulses and the tormented cop that yearns to track him down while battling his own dreaded inner demons.  And, yes, last year’s BATMAN BEGINS also demonstrated Nolan’s auteur skills as he infused some much needed energy and vitality into its title character, a child orphan who vengefully devotes his life to vigilante justice.  Fanaticism permeates his body of work.                  

THE PRESTIGE is yet another terrifically mounted thriller that only Nolan seems to know how to forge these days.  It’s taut, tense, dark, and foreboding, not to mention thematically complex, and emotionally moody.  It also has rich and well-drawn characters that help propel the story forward.  Far too many contemporary thrillers use a bit too much sleight of hand tricks to bait in audiences and inevitably cheat them.  THE PRESTIGE reveals such a supreme confidence and mastery of narrative, performances, and production design that one is willing to forgive its third act, which kind of degenerates more into fantasy than reality.  Yet, make no mistake about it, Nolan’s film is sumptuous, gorgeous to look at, and a real standout for it’s two main stars.  This is a thriller that is more absorbing on a character level than on a thrill level, where well-realized personas take center stage and not the painfully manufactured moments of shock and awe. 

The true epicenter of the film lies in its title alone.  As one character very early on in the film explains, “Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called ‘The Pledge.’  The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course it probably isn’t. The second act is called ‘The Turn’.  The magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary.  Now, if you’re looking for the secret … you won’t find it. That’s why there is a third act, called ‘The Prestige.’  This is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.'’

The film itself works in much of the same manner.  Its first act – the pledge – introduces us to the setting and characters.  In the second act – the turn – the story and participants enter the domain of the extraordinary, and the final act – the prestige – reveals the films shocking secrets.  However, unlike a real magician’s three-act performance, THE PRESTIGE goes at length in its closing minutes to explain all of the answers to the film’s puzzles.  This approach, in some ways, feels a bit counterproductive.  Perhaps a more satisfying - and eventually intoxicating - choice would have been to make the audience try to find out answers for themselves.  THE PRESTIGE could have been hauntingly ambiguous in its conclusion, but instead we have characters spout out in great detail their motivations and methods.  In some ways, it is this aspect of the film that works the least successfully; it comes across as superficial.  Nevertheless, it is what precedes it that makes most of the journey into the film so alluring.

The film also encapsulates its solid three-act form (again, reinforcing the same structure of a magic trick) by telling a story that follows three tangents).  In the first – and earliest – we are introduced to Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, in his best performance) and Alfred Borden (the always dependable Christian Bale) who are assistants to a magician.  At least at first, Angier and Borden start off their conjurer careers as apprentices to Cutter (the always wonderful Michael Caine), who is a magician’s ingeneur, or the one that creates the illusions behind what the audience sees up on the stage for all of the shows.  Robert’s wife, Julia (Piper Perabo, still with her English accent intact from IMAGINE ME AND YOU) is also along for the ride and performs in Alfred and Robert’s mentor’s stage shows. 

However, something terrible happens during one of the performances.  It seems that – as a result of Alfred’s negligence - Julia dies horribly during one of the shows.  Robert, of course, is completely enraged when he discovers that his friend and colleague may have had a hand – albeit accidentally – in his wife’s demise.  It is here where the film takes a radical shift in tone and theme.  The two men begin as colleagues, soon become friends, and unfortunately develop into each other’s most hated enemy.  Both become fanatical about the other and soon go to any lengths possible – and I do mean any ­  to not only discredit each other’s work as magicians, but to hurt and humiliate the other in manners which could aptly be described as both imaginative and maddening.  Some men take revenge seriously, but Alfred and Robert take it to all new calculating and decrepit lengths.

The second arc of the story highlights Robert’s visit to Colorado Springs.  His reason for his trip there is to consult with Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie, in the film’s biggest casting coup), a scientist who is using the latest invention of electricity to create a mysterious new machine that Alfred hopes to appropriate for his newest show.  Why does Robert go to such lengths?  Well, he has witnessed Alfred’s incredible “Transporting Man” trick and was so blown away by it that he has to – come hell or high water – top it with an even greater feat of wizardry of his own.  Beyond this plot tangent the film focuses on to the fateful and tragic night when it looks like Alfred may – or may not – have a hand in the killing of Robert during one of his magic tricks that involves the strange new device created by Tesla.  The evidence is quite overwhelming for Alfred, who is promptly arrested, tried, and sentence to death via a Hangman’s noose.

The character dynamic of THE PRESTIGE is what makes the film a sight to behold.  The crutch of the Alfred/Robert relationship lies squarely on their willingness to discover how to show something shocking and awe inspiring to their audiences that they have never seen before.  This is the primary obsession that drives them both.  Their secondary obsession is with topping each other, followed by degrading each other in the process.  During the film it sure appears that Alfred is – indeed – the better and superior magician of the two.  His crème de le crème of all of his feats – THE TRANSPORTING MAN – sure is a showstopper.  In it Alfred goes through one doorway on stage, vanishes in thin air, and then magically reappears on the opposite side of the stage in seconds through another doorway.  Robert thinks it’s the greatest feat he has ever seen and he soon dedicates himself with stern conviction and determination to find out how he pulled it off. 

At first, Robert is a frustrated artist that suffers from magician’s block.  I mean, how on earth did Alfred perform this extraordinary feat?  Did he have a double that looked just like him?  He sure seems to think so, but his beautiful assistant (Scarlett Johansson) thinks otherwise.  She thinks he could not have had a double.  Why?  Because the man who emerges from the second doorway has the same physical scarring (in Alfred’s case, two amputated fingers) that Alfred has.  She thinks there is only one Alfred and not a double.  This, of course, only infuriates Robert more, so much so that he even goes to the lengths of having her infiltrate Alfred’s crew to discover the real secret behind the Transporting Man.  This, of course, leads him to Colorado Springs and his devising of a magic trick that seems to surpass even Alfred’s disappearing man illusion.  Soon, it is Alfred that craves to find out the secret of Robert’s trick.  It is a seemingly never ending, cyclical cycle of comeuppance for the both of them, which can only appear to end in bloodshed.

THE PRESTIGE works so marvelously in the manner it handles its characters.  Strangely enough, the film neither has any noble protagonists or despicable antagonists.  Both Alfred and Robert are neither good nor bad men.  Robert is a sympathetic figure at first in the way he feels pain for his wife’s death and his desire to exact some revenge on Alfred.  Alfred, at least during the opening scenes of the film, is a solitary loner who only thinks of himself.  Yet, as the plot progressed, my emotional connection soon segued to him, who soon becomes the victim of Robert’s vengeful tactics.  After all, it is Robert that sinks to the level of nearly copying Alfred’s magic trick and tries everything to discover all of its secrets.  Clearly, to a magician who strictly adheres to a code of ethics, this offends Alfred.  All in all, it is Robert’s actions that act as the catalyst for the duo’s never-ending battle of wits.  It is their willingness to find ways to humiliate the other that slowly begins to get the better of both of them.

On a character level, THE PRESTIGE is fairly flawless and limitlessly engaging.   The same can be said for its period detail, cinematography, and art direction, all which are wonderfully somber, dark, and rich in detail.  However, less kudos can be given to segments of the narrative flow.  At times, THE PRESTIGE is wickedly convoluted and dense.  Like in MEMENTO, Nolan plays around with planes of time and weaves and interweaves with different stories.  Oftentimes this is done pretty seamlessly, whereas other times it’s a bit too murky and confusing.  Also, the final “prestige” reveal during the film’s third and final act sort of lapses out of any plane of reality that the film has set up in the first place.  It’s not so much implausible as it feels like a cheat in a way, kind of like a real magician raising the curtain to reveal his secret that makes people roll their eyes with incredulity more than it inspires absolute wonder.

Yet, it’s the themes and interplay between all of the characters that I most admire about the film.  Is their a better young actor than Christian Bale?  His range is remarkable.  He has played everything from disheveled drug addicts, to axe wielding serial killers, to the DC Comics’ Caped Crusader himself.  As always, he has a field day at the acting office playing the icy cold and malevolent Alfred.  Hugh Jackman, an actor who most people remember playing Wolverine in the X-MEN films, gives his most layered and textured performance of his career playing the somewhat demented and power hungry Robert.  The chemistry between the leads is equally solid.  Michael Caine is also superb as Cutter, a decent man who is caught between two madmen.  David Bowie is shockingly effective as the enigmatic scientist.  The only really weak link on the performance side of the film is Scarlett Johansson, who once again is forced to ostensibly sleepwalk through yet another embittered role of the woman caught between two jaded and misguided men.  She played this role – intensely – in LOST IN TRANSLATION and then played the same type of role in MATCH POINT and then again in THE BLACK DAHLIA.  She is adequate in the part, but Johansson is not given much more to do here than she has not already done better before.

Despite a few modest missteps, THE PRESTIGE is another powerfully assembled and tremendously mounted thriller from Christopher Nolan, who is rightfully gaining a solid reputation for mastering the genre.  The film is luxurious and extravagant to look at, its story methodically laid out and enthralling, and it has performances by its two leads that only help to embellish the film’s theme of twisted animosity and self-righteous obsession.  THE PRESTIGE is intricate, absorbing, complex, and an eerily atmospheric and opulent period mystery that does an exemplary job of leaving you guessing almost until the last moment.  Sure, the final minutes may have you shake your head, but it’s the build up to that where THE PRESTIGE reveals itself to be a class act all by itself.  All in all, the film has considerable magic behind it, not to mention a lot of flashy showmanship.

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**1/2  out of  ****

Considering the incredible high pedigree of talent behind the scenes of the new World War II drama FLAGS OF OUT FATHERS (director Clint Eastwood; co-writers Paul Haggis and William Broyles Jr.; and producer Steven Spielberg), the film seemed destined to have American Classic written all over it.  However, perhaps the most memorable and regretful aspect of this revisionist historical film is just how awkwardly assembled and constructed it is. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with the film’s underlining themes and messages (most notably those of undying heroism in the harshest times of battle and of how propaganda can turn ordinary men into heroic icons).  No, my main misgiving with Eastwood’s film is that the sum of a few of its great parts simply do not make for a magnificent whole.  For the most part, the movie kind of does a lot of creaky and redundant pontificating on issues that other better films on the subject have tackled more successfully.  As a director that has demonstrated himself as one of incredible tact and restraint, it seems odd – in hindsight – to see Eastwood overreach a bit too much in FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS.

The 76-year-old filmmaker does not need to apologize.  He has emerged in the last decade to join the status of the directorial elite that has so often – and unfairly – eluded him for much of his career.  His UNFORGIVEN – one of the greatest of all revisionist westerns - was one of the best films of the 90’s.  His latest offerings - like the emotionally powerful MYSTIC RIVER and the riveting and involving MILLION DOLLAR BABY - showcased Eastwood at the top of his form.  Unfortunately, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is decidedly weak in comparison and – when compared to other films that have tackled the era of the Pacific theatre of WWII - the film is also underwhelming and unsatisfying to a large degree.  FLAG OF OUR FATHERS has a considerable amount to say about the nature of heroism and how powerful myths and icons are created at the expense of those that die during conflict.  Yet, it’s Eastwood’s handling of the material that proves to be too self-conscious and mishandled.

On a decent level, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS covers territory that many other war films – including Spielberg’s own watershed work, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN – have overlooked.  In a way, Eastwood’s film is a much-needed examination of how normal men, when thrown into the hell of battle, are often turned into reluctant patriots that maybe – just maybe – do not deserve the accolades that their country (and governments) have gone out of their way to emphasize they deserve.  Curiously enough, the film is on some respectable ground in the way it shows how the American government essentially turned some of the warriors of WWII into glorified public spokesman.  During a time when the US was sinking into social and economic depression and funding for the military was threatening an American departure from the war itself, the country needed icons to help its people reinvest – spiritually and financially – back into the wear effort.  The film is spot on for how it details how somewhat marginalized men are made into heroic deities that eventually become little more than salesmen for politicians.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is also noble minded and ambitious for being a WWII film that tries to debunk its own strongly rooted mythology.  The cornerstone of this lies with what is considered by many to be the most famous war photograph ever created – the raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima as taken by Joe Rosenthal.  By early 1945 the US forces were poised for victory in WWII, but were faced with a somewhat insurmountable task of taking the prized and strategically important Pacific island of Iwo Jima.  The Japanese, contrary to popular historical opinion, would not easily surrender at this point.  There were tens of thousands of Japanese troops entrenched at Iwo Jima ready to either die by the hands of the enemy or die at their own hands.  Surrender for them was simply not a viable option. 

Clearly, the US forces knew that they had to strike when the proverbial iron was hot and concocted a daring siege of Iwo Jima.  It is here where the actual history of the battle gets more than just a bit hazy.  Most lay people that are only vaguely knowledgeable about the events that transpired now think that when the forces erected a flag on top of Iwo Jima that is was a moment where the battle looked like it was totally within the hands of the American forces.  In reality, the flag itself was actually planted merely in the early days of the campaign that would subsequently rage on for weeks on end.  In this way, the flag raising can be seen – in pure hindsight – as a way of pumping up the troops for the hellish battles to come and not so much a image of a quick and easy US victory.

In all, five marines and one navy corpsman planted the flag.  James Bradley (who co-wrote the book that the film is based on) had a father, John (played by Ryan Phillippe), who was one of the six men.  Unfortunately, only two of the other men would be given recognition for the flag raising.  The second was Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and a Native American marine named Ira Hayes (Adam Beech).  The film chronicles not only the flag raising, but also the battle that was framed both in front of and after it.  The U.S. military, seizing on a glorious opportunity to use the photograph to help boost American support, decided to launch a propaganda campaign that would use the three men and pin them up as the ultimate poster boys for heroism.  It was odd move, to say the least, seeing as it is next to impossible to make out any of the actual men in the photo.  Even Rosenthal himself, during a sly little scene in the film, criticizes his own photo moments after he takes it.  “I dunno, it would have been a better shot if we could see their faces.”

The three good men are soon sent back to the states where governmental stooges – who seem to have no care for what the men went through or actually did do in the war and flag raising efforts - decides to put them on every magazine and newspaper cover and throw them right into a large scale promotional tour.  Considering the harsh economic downspin the country was facing, not to mention the fact that Americans were growing tired of several thousands of their countrymen coming home in body bags, the Iwo Jima photo could now be construed as motivational medicine.  It stirred a country out of apathy, even if the real story behind the flag raising was more than a little misleading.

The film does a good job of displaying each of the three soldier’s responses to their overnight celebrity status.  Rene Gagnon seemed like the more charismatic (and eager) of the trio to bathe himself in the public’s adoration, perhaps because of his incredibly limited battle experience had not made him too shell shocked.  John “Doc” Bradley is a different character altogether, who had the Herculean job of performing medical feats on soldiers in the line of fire, who often had their guns in one hand and most of their intestines in the other.  Of the three it is Ira Hayes that takes the greatest disliking to carrying the moniker of “hero”.  Firstly, he is loved as a hero by a country that – for the most part – has ignorant, bigoted views about his race.  Native Americans, who wilted away on the reservation systems of the time, were not given much more tolerance in the military than they were on the home front.  On top of that, Ira feels so guilty about being a so-called hero that he begins to drink heavily, which only helps to further accentuate Indian stereotypes to the public and his superiors.

The most interesting aspect about FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is the way that Eastwood almost treats the trio’s homecoming as a psychological war.  The emotional and physical hardships most of the men endured on the sands of Iwo Jima were obviously barbaric, but coming home to the endless barrage of dinners, champagne–laced meet and greets with powerful politicians, and huge publicity tours have a different mental effects on them.  There’s a droll little scene where the men meet President Truman, who sheepishly tries to make the men out on the famous photo, and yet another moment where the men are worshiped as war messiahs at Yankee stadium before a baseball game.  The most haunting scene occurs where the trio are shamelessly forced to recreate their flag raising on an Iwo Jima mount made of paper mache.  The point here is simple: The government does not want to hear the real story.  They don’t care that there was actually two flag raisings, nor do they care that there were other more important men that died that day who are the real heroes.  They needed tangible, breathable poster boys to sell war bonds. 

On thematic levels, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is a proud achievement.  It dares to dive into the heart of a famous battle and deconstructs it from the inside out.  Eastwood is no stranger to demystifying genre films, as he masterfully challenged many preconceived archetypes in the western genre in films like THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES and UNFORGIVEN.  Whereas too many war films go out of their way to prop up their warriors as heroes, Eastwood tries to tell us the heroes of WWII were reluctant ones at that, who often were more willing to label their dead comrades as the real, unsung patriots.  FLAGS OF OUT FATHERS is frequently provocative because of this..

Yet, the film really suffers from a lack of character development and from a equal lack of a smooth, cohesive narrative flow.  Eastwood makes a huge misstep by telling too many stories – often from both the past and present – and intercuts them sloppily.  FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS never gels slickly together because it begins at one narrative timeline and then awkwardly jumps out of that tangent and into another one.  The result is largely detrimental to the flow of the film.  Consequently, this also affects character development.  With so many uncomfortable shifts in tone and time, it becomes difficult for us to invest in any one person.  The film begins with an elderly man being awoken by a hellish dream of Iwo Jima combat, then flashes back to the battle itself, which further flashes forward to the propaganda tour, and then back to the future with the old man, and then back to the battle, and then back to the propaganda tour…and so on and so on.  FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS could have greatly benefited from a more linear story structure.

Some of the characters are well drawn, whereas others become as enigmatic as their heroic personas.  Rene Gagnon is underdeveloped, as is a sniper played very unceremoniously by Paul Walker.  Ditto for a superior officer played by Barry Pepper.  There are points in the film where it flashes back to the death scenes of many soldiers where we have a hard time remembering who there are and how they fit into the film.  We are also unnecessarily given a tertiary character in the form of Bradley’s son (in the future) who interviews the aging soldiers in the present, which only bogs down the narrative more.  In essence, Adam Beech’s Ira Hayes emerges as the film only developed character for us to respond to.  The more I watched his hardships the more I realized that there is almost a larger, more interesting story to tell of Native American involvement in the war front and the prejudices they experienced first hand.  Unfortunately, Eastwood only scarcely dives into that material.

The production values for this $90 million film are, as expected, uniformly excellent.  Eastwood, with the help of visual effects company Digital Domain, creates awesome sights, both in terms of recreating the naval invasion of Iwo Jima and the heroes’ big return to rallies Yankee Stadium and Time Square.  No expense was obviously spared and FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS to be a sprawling, epic vision.  The battle scenes are fast, blood soaked, and chaotic, but they owe their resemblance a lot to Spielberg’s masterfully handled opening battle scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, one of the cinema’s all-time great sustained action set-pieces.  For the most part, the war scenes are raw and brutal in FLAGS, but they kind of lack the urgency and frantic energy of PRIVATE RYAN.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is a film of strange contradictions.  It is neither pro-war nor anti-war.  It wisely pays salutations to the brave men that died in 1945 in Iwo Jima.  However, the movie also is critical of the way that governments create false heroes in hopes of stirring the public.  In our modern media frenzied world, the notion of hastily created celebrities that are given their 15 minutes and then easily digested and forgotten is easily prevalent.  This makes FLAGS OF OUR FATHER feel very topical and relevant.  The film is patriotic for challenging the nature of patriotism and heroism.  Yet, the film bogs the overwhelmingly important messages by covering a tremendous amount of material in the most confusing and convoluted manner possible.  The narrative is a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces that are forced to fit together, often at the expense of plot cadence and flow.  Clint Eastwood is a masterful film conductor and deserves his rightful place with the best of the business, but his FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS tells a great and important story in an uneven and unsatisfying manner.  The film is too random and disjointed to be labeled as anything more than a deeply flawed battlefront masterpiece.  Eastwood’s heart is most assuredly in FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, but his characteristic discipline is not.

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**  out of  *****

MAN OF THE YEAR is very much like its writer/director Barry Levinson: woefully inconsistent.  I defy anyone to name another once proven, Oscar winning talent that has been so remarkably biopolar with his career as much as him.  When his films work, there are pleasures to sit through.  When they don’t, they are utterly pain-inducing. 

Levinson has made some great films, like DINER, RAIN MAN, GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, SLEEPERS, and WAG THE DOG, the latter being of the best of the recent political satires.  Yet, for each one of those successes he has had several abysmal failures, like TOYS, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD, SPHERE, BANDITS, and his creme de la creme of embarrassing mediocrity, 2004’s ENVY, a film where he achieved the Herculean task of pairing Ben Stiller and Jack Black together and producing one of the most dreadfully unfunny comedies of the last few years.  After the cringe worthy wasteland that was that comedy, I feared that all hope was lost for the filmmaker.

Maybe that is why I went into MAN OF THE YEAR with decidedly low expectations.  The premise alone seems quite enticing and spirited, though.  Robin Williams plays a John Stewart- inspired talk show host that runs for and wins the US presidency after he is fed up with party politics. 

Hmmm…did I just spoil the film for you? 

Hardly, because Universal Pictures, in their infinite wisdom, decided to reveal that plot point in one of the single worst spoiler filled trailers of recent memory.  So, okay, the cat was out of the bag just by watching the preview.  We all know that Williams wins.  So, is there anything else to get buts in the theatre to watch the film?  In short, not really. 

MAN OF THE YEAR is not to type of cataclysmic abomination that was Levinson’s ENVY.  Thank-God.  The film has moments of wit and, at least on a few occasions, has something legitimate to say about America’s current political system.  The film also benefits from some genuinely likeable supporting characters that are well written and performed.  Yet, the film’s ultimate misgiving is that (a) it does not go far enough with saying enough about US politics and (b) the film is so immensely lopsided and inconsistent in terms of tone that you kind of leave the theatre with a puzzled look on your face.

Is MAN OF THE YEAR supposed to be a brainy and acerbic political satire, ala WAG THE DOG?  Does it want to be a conspiratorial political thriller that seems to have come from the mind of a John Grisham or Tom Clancy?  Does it want to be a lightweight farce and Robin Williams vanity project?  Does it want to be a cute and warm-hearted romantic comedy with political leanings, ala THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT?  After sitting through MAN OF THE YEAR one thing dawned on me – this film really has no idea what it really wants to be about.  A film that suffers from what I call cinematic multiple personality disorder is one of the most annoying of aliments.

This is a shame, because the initial concept and setup of MAN OF THE YEAR could have been the launching point for a really stimulating and sarcastic satire.  The problem is one of implementation and execution.  Levinson simply tries to do far too much here.  Whereas other solid satires throw one dart at the board and hit bullzeyes, Levinson throws way, way too many darts, with many of them missing the board altogether. 

Clearly, the film does manage to touch on some genuine nuggets of truth about the manner with which contemporary politicians have seemingly become more generic, bland, and essentially irrelevant to the lives of many voters.  In odd ways, the sharp and edgy zingers that TV political satirists like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert spew out cut to the heart of pressing matters with a nail-biting authority and plainspokenness that most politicians only dream them could achieve.  It would almost be gratifying to have one of them as the most powerful man in the world.  MAN OF THE YEAR provides that intriguing presence, but unfortunately gets sidetracked by too many disparaging twists in tone, not to mention subplots that ring falsely and don’t gel well.  There is a pointed and hearted political satire to be made with this material, but MAN OF THE YEAR does so in such a wishy-washy fashion.

Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams, proving why he is so much better doing drama than he is mugging the camera as he does here) is a political comedian with a very popular DAILY SHOW-esque talk show.  At one particular point during the talk show’s Q and A with the audience one member stands up and offers up an idea to the politically ambivalent Dobbs.  “Why don’t you run for President,” she asks.  The audience seems in love with the idea.  Dobbs takes it as a joke, but within no time, he starts to give it serious thought.

Soon, the Internet is abuzz with activity and - after a successful petition that shows that he has overwhelming support - Dobbs announces his candidacy for president.  He declares himself an independent, which – in political terms – should mean an easy defeat, even despite his name showing up on the ballots of 13 states.  Yet, support for him mounts.  He takes a refreshingly unique approach to running his campaign on a shoestring budget that lacks greedy corporate interests that normally like to make campaign contributions first and asks for huge favors later.  Instead of getting contributions and using them to launch an offensive, Dobbs decides to not buy one TV advertisement to lynch the other candidates.  What he does is let his wit, intelligence, and easy-going and affable charisma speak for him.

In a TV debate with the other two candidates, he easily shows them up for the stiffs they are and he wins over the audience in a big, big way.  This scene showcases Williams’ skills at going on endless comedic rants that highlights his funny bone, but – honestly – would he really be given the chance to leave his podium, constantly interrupt his candidates, and effectively take over the debate while the moderator pleads with him to shut up, be courteous, and allow his competition a few words in edgewise?  Of course, in a film like this we are forced to like this guy no matter what, but during the debate he comes across as a bit too selfish and inconsiderate.  I mean, he just went on…and on…and on…without any inkling on his part to give his fellow candidates a fair say.  Sure, the other two men are corporate puppets and stooges, but what can’t they get up and pontificate endlessly like he does?  In any event, at least the film is bipartisan.  It treats the Democrats and Republicans equally with disdain.

After the debate the country goes to the polling stations and a miracle happens – Dobbs wins the election and becomes the US President.  Hmmmm…did he really, though?  This brings us to the other radical shift in tone (and story) that the film takes.  A brilliant computer whiz named Eleanor (played very well by Laura Linney, who seems to have fallen into MAN OF THE YEAR from another film altogether) has recently helped develop software for a new touch screen computer voting system that was used in the recent election.  Delacroy Systems, the company she works for, is poised to make billions if they can implement their system to other democracies of the world to use. 

Unfortunately, Eleanor discovers a glitch that proves that Dobbs did not – in fact – win the election.  Eleanor, shocked with this news, gathers up all of her ethical power to confront her CEO (Rick Roberts) with the news.  He mistakenly assures her that everything is a-okay.  She does not buy that.  Instead, she plans to go public and speak to Dobbs herself.  Realizing that her reveal of the glitch could cost the company big profits, the CEO’s security henchmen of sorts (played in a brief, but spirited and acid-tongued performance by Jeff Goldblum) goes on the counter offensive.

What do they do?  They break into her home one night anddrug her to the point where a later  toxicology test on her at a hospital shows her to be a raging drug addict.  This, consequently, makes her look like a real loose cannon and her reputation is destroyed so much that her company fires her, all but diluting any faith that the public would have in her story of voter corruption.  However, Eleanor will not go down without a fight and manages to speak to Dobbs and reveal the truth to him just as he is taking office.  Soon, Dobbs faces a real moral conundrum:  Does he still take office and run the country with a guilty conscience or does he relinquish the presidency?  All I can say is that the final act of the film has Williams giving one of those nauseatingly saccharine speeches to the nation that has echoes of PATCH ADAMS.

Okay, so what dies Dobbs do?  (SPOILER WARNING) He does relinquish the Presidency.  Yet, a more daring, somber, and unique approach would have been for him to decide to stick with the Presidency regardless of the truth, which would have hammered home the film’s underlining message a bit more forcefully (in this way, Dobbs would have become an eerie reflection of what he hates the most in politicians).  Unfortunately, Levinson and company take the safe route, which you really never should in cynical political satires.  And, on top of that, I never once believed that he believed Eleanor’s story?  She never really provides one kernel of truth to him, but he just “has a gut instinct” that she is telling the truth.  Yup.  Sure.  Uh-huh.  All evidence points to her being a real whack job, so why does he so intuitively buy her story?

If the subplot with Eleanor and her CEO were not flowing well enough with the rest of the film, her forced semi-romantic subplot with Dobbs himself feels equally forced.  The film’s attempts at romance are weak at best.  Scenes involving her and Dobbs ring false, the tense moments with her and members of Delecroy stalking and drugging her feel out of place, and the film’s handling of the overwhelming ethical dilemma is poorly handled.  Honestly, would the country be better off with a falsely elected man of the people who may – just may – be the best man for the job or would they be better off with an idiot who could care less about the people?  MAN OF THE YEAR is too conventional with the material when it should be skewering its targets.

If anything, I did like some of the performances, especially by Linney, even though her character seems like out of left field for a political comedy.  I truly enjoyed the work by DAILY SHOW alumni Lewis Black as an aid to Dobbs, as well as Christopher Walken’s inspired work as Dobbs’ manager, who fires off zingers and monologues in that quintessential Walkenian manner that I have grown to relish.  Ironically, the only real black mark on the film’s performance side is Williams himself.  Yes, he is funny here, but he never really carves out a memorable or interesting character.  Dobbs feels more like the result of some improvisational moments from Williams’s comedic repertoire than he does a fully developed persona.  It’s hard not to laugh at his posturing in the film, but too often his overwhelming comedic persona gets in the way to the point of distraction.  He much more effectively married drama and comedy in GOOD MORNING VIETNAM.

MAN OF THE YEAR is indicative of the type of failed opportunity that Barry Levinson is beginning to gain a reputation for.  The film has a somewhat ingenious premise (comedian runs for and successfully wins the US presidency), but MAN OF THE YEAR is sort of a honorable failure at developing the satiric possibilities of it.  Levinson and company have decent points to make about the political process and the power of special interests groups, but the film lacks a truly sardonic edge and appeal.  Furthermore, there are just too many faces to this film; it wants to be part comedy, part satire, part romance, part political thriller…it’s just too much.  MAN OF THE YEAR is funny in moderate dosages, and it uses Robin Williams skills to proper effect, but the real irony of the film is that it takes a backseat to delivering thoughtful political commentary and instead feels more comfortable with being dull and spineless.  The film is simply a hybrid of too many disingenuous elements and its most glaring problem is that it’s too lukewarm with the scandalous material when it should be piping hot.  In short, MAN OF THE YEAR comes across as more phony than topical or relevant.

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1/2*  out of  ****

There are days where I just wish I could do away with any modest level of formality and professionalism that I try to exhibit with my film reviews.  Sometimes I just wish that I could relate my feelings about a particular film in another manner…or identity…. to make my job a bit easier and more enjoyable.  Perhaps I sometimes feel the need to live vicariously through other people, but…by God…I wish that I could just cut through all of the B.S. and talk some serious straight talk to you readers.  I dunno…kind of like take-no-prisoners, non-nonsense, tough as nails…

…drill sergeant. 

I have a radical idea.  Let’s play a game.  You - the readers - and I will engage in a bit of role playing.  I will be the drill sergeant and you can all be my privates.

Commence using your imaginations….now!

*********

“Atten-hut!  Listen up, privates!  This is your film review drill sergeant CrAiGeR speaking! 

Do I have your intimate attention, ladies?  Well, good, ‘cause I am going to relay to you all a miserable experience I had at a recent screening of an action film that should have had “tenacity, duty, honor, and courage” written all over it.  Instead, it lack a serious amount there of.  This movie was called THE MARINE.  Let me be the first to tell all of you fruit loops that this film was intellectually AWOL.  It was seriously FUBAR’ed.

All right, my little cheesedicks, before you go running home squirting to your mommies with that pacifier in your mouth you call a thumb, hear me out.  Telling you all about this movie could save your little cherry asses. 

This miserable excuse for celluloid opened without a critic screening.  What in God’s green earth does that mean, my bag of dicks?  Well, it means that it is – like you – most likely the sorriest piece of vermin that takes up vital space and oxygen.    Now, I expect good things from all of you ladies out there in the trenches.  However, let me be the first to tell some of you grade A screw-ups out there that – if you go into this film alone – some of you will not make it out alive.  If you enter into it, you will definitely need to break out your cammies and prepare to shoot to kill.  Hoah!

You may be familiar with its star, John “I look like I just opened up a large can of whoop ass” Cena.  This man is a gigantic, hulking, physical specimen that looks like he has chunks of mortal men like you in his stool.  This guy could take on all of you pansies at once and make you wish you were never born!  He is is a walking machine of pain and his biceps and neck seem to be the result of pumping far too much steroids into his body.  Basically, Cena is a mountain of sweat and gnarly conviction, which you may have noticed while watching any of his matches as a WWE performer.  Jesus H. Christ, but having a WWE actor headlining a major action film is not the type of frickin’ endorsement I wanna see in a film.  Yes, my ragtag group of useless bum chums, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has also been in both the movies and in the squared circle, but he is bloody Sir Lawrence frickin’ Oliver compared to Mr. Cena.  I have farts with more raw energy and charisma than this guy.

So, maggots, what is this movie about?  Well, this would-be hard core action flick has Cena as a marine – John Triton - that is discharged from the Marine core for – get a load of this crap – rescuing American troops while in captivity from Al Qaeda.  What in the h-e-double hockey sticks is wrong with that, you ask?  You sure as hell got me!?  Last time I checked, when some of my fellow grunts are getting abused and tortured by the enemy, we should have the right to go in, take names, kick collective ass, and get our friendlies out of there.  Yet, in the warped, logicless stew that this film swims in, when a one-man killing machine successfully saves the lives of our men, it is a punishable offence worthy of discharge.  My Lord, why not just bitch slap poor old Uncle Sam while you’re at it, for Cripe’s Sake.

So, Triton goes back home with his tail limping between his legs and meets back up with his wife, who is – without a doubt – one buxom lass.  His squeeze – played by Kelly Carlson – gives a performance where her wonder bra does most of the acting.  Her and Triton hook back up, do the horizontal mumbo, and he then proceeds to go to job as a security officer back in civilian life.  Well, laddie-frickin-da, but he lasts but one day there, privates.  He gets kicked out for throwing a worthless piece of worm-ridden yuppie trash through a window.  I dunno, this kick ass marine gets no respect.  First, the core boots him out for his courageous actions, and then his civilian job boots him for taking a little potty mouth weasel to the cleaners.

At this point, privates, the film started to seriously offend my intellectual faculties in a highly diminutive manner.  We are quickly introduced to a slimy and vile jewel thief played by Robert Patrick.  He leads a group of thieves that just may go down as the dumbest bunch of criminals in the history of criminals.  Dumbasses to their very foundations, like you bunch of queens.  Let there robbery early in the film be a lessen to all of you:  If you’re going to rob a jewellery store, be abso-bloody-sure that you provide excellent camouflage to conceal your identities.  They walk in, without masks, shoot up all of the friendlies in the store, and rob the place.  They also manage to blow up a police car in broad daylight.  If these guys were not the most useless crooks in the world, then the police officers that hunt them down are equally stupid.  How the crooks escape easy capture and how the cops are not able to take them down is beyond my comprehension.  One cop tells the other, “These goons were sloppy!”  Gee, thanks so much, Sherlock freakin’ Holmes.

As you may or may not have predicted, privates, this nasty jewel thief and his crew cross paths with Cena and his wife.  The happy couple, it seems, has decided to take a nice little get-away into the country.  When they stop for gas it is – unfortunately – at the same station as Patrick and his goons.  Again, how Patrick and his cronies escape detection is beyond me.  Nevertheless, Patrick and company end up blowing up the place and kidnapping Cena’s main squeeze.  That is the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.  This marine is one vengeful sonofabitch, and his is – come hell or high water – gonna kick some major tail in manners only the marine core would allow him.  Hoah!

Okay, now you may be asking me, what the hell is wrong with this movie?  Quite simply put, it is a 30-minute B-grade chase film stretched out to 89 minutes.  The movie perspires mediocrity.  The acting is as sloppy as a greasy sandwich; the dialogue is a cringe inducing as a one week old latrine, and the film’s action and violence lacks gratuitous energy and pathos.  For crying out loud, this is a PG-13 movie that wants to please little teenage idiots more than be a hard-edged, bloody, and balls-to-the-wall action film that we have not seen since the mid-1980’s.  Instead, we are teased with loving setups of glorious kill shots, but the film cuts away from all of its wonderful carnage to ensure the crybaby PG-13 rating that wears crap diapers, like all of you little Streisands.  This film has about as much balls as Richard Simmons, running with scissors, on a binge eating, bad hair day. 

So, privates, the action is as flat as your collective feet, the main star lacks any serviceable range, and the dialogue stinks to high heaven.  There are also witless rejects in the supporting character arena, including one whimpering black man that won’t shut his bloody pie hole for two damn minutes.  Everything that comes out of that crater he calls a mouth made my ears bleed.  At one point he relays a story of why he hates rock candy and also why he has tortured memories of being a boy scout.  Now, what in tarnation is funny about child rape?  You sure as hell got me?  When Cena took this creep out, I nearly fell out of my chair with applause.

One thing is for sure – this film blows up garbage really good.  The explosions are sights to see.  Brought back eerie memories of myself being in the jungle hunting for Charlie.  On the whole, THE MARINE is lame, loud, crude, and one note; and unrepentant film that does not even deserve the moniker of being B-grade.  Like you degenerates, it’s a glorious celebration of breathtaking stupidity.  I thought you maggots were about as rock bottom as you could get, but watching THE MARINE has reinstalled my faith in you all.  The only thing that could have made the film more bearable would have been some gratuitous nudity, decent kills, and a genuine disregard for civility.  THE MARINE possesses none of those qualities.  Man, I remember watching the movie COMMANDO that starred our recent Californian Governor and that film never turned an eye away from reckless mayhem and wanton violence.  That film was a raging tiger of fiery, blood-spattering excess.  THE MARINE is a whimpering little pussycat that has been neutered.

In closing, privates, THE MARINE blows.  And Cena definitely needs to reconsider going back to his day job as a professional wrestler.  His got the brawn, but not the brains.  He needs to back up his remarkably chiseled visage with something more worthwhile and substantial.  All in all, he’s like a Mark Wahlberg on lethal dosages of gamma rays that can’t act out of a paper bag.  If any of you grunts can make it through the film, combat will be a pussyfoot walk in the park.  If you lamebrains have the guts to stomach this film in all of its witless, infantile, patronizing, and inane glory, then you never have to prove your courage to me in any other manner.

Company…dismissed!”

********* 

Gee, it’s fun to play make-believe, isn’t it? 

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****  OUT OF  ****

HARD CANDY is one of the most disturbing films that I have ever seen.  The fact that its story revolves around a slimy, manipulative pedophile and a highly resourceful 14-year-old girl that tortures and attempts to castrate him all the more terrifying. 

Very rarely in my filmgoing life have I felt compelled to watch a film through my fingers, barely being able to witness what was about to transpire on screen next.  HARD CANDY elicited that reaction on more than one occasion.  I found myself looking away and recoiling during many of the film’s scenes.  The film is undeniably chilling and distressing.  Yet, it is to its ultimate credit that it can instill in its audiences a palpable and unwholesomely realistic sense of dread. 

HARD CANDY is incredibly straining on our collective willingness to engage emotionally in its subject matter.  It’s a real endurance test, to say the least.  Honestly, it concerns two relative elements that do not normally make for feel good entertainment – child molesters and torture.  Yet, it would be painfully easy to label the film as exploitative, nor is it a paint-by-numbers DEATH WISH-inspired revenge flick.  HARD CANDY is deplorable, yet it is never gratuitously violent and gory, nor does it have any actual sex or nudity in it  (it is rated R for “pervasive disturbing sexual content and language). 

The film is a pure exercise in polarizing the viewer; a tense, traumatic, and mind-numbingly scary psychological horror film that does something that a majority of other gross, dead teenager horror films utterly fail to do – it creates incredible tension and an overall sense of terror.  HARD CANDY is many things; it’s deplorable, brutal, and uncompromising to watch, but it is also incredibly gripping, ingeniously written, and it contains two of the finest – and most thankless - performances of 2006.

Despite its content, the movie  also works by tantalizing us on some larger moral issues.  Clearly, the film - in no way shape or form - begs us to sympathize with a man that rapes children.  However, on the other token, I am not altogether sure whether or not it endorses sadomasochistic torture of these pedophiles either.  Surely, it places the pedophilic character in the correct context.  In this film’s case, he is a sly and smooth at manipulating young minds, but when the tables are turned on him, he becomes an utterly pathetic human piece of garbage. 

However, does his deplorable actions predicate any harsh vigilante justice being perpetrated on him?  Is this justified or acceptable?   We are not talking about beating him up a little and turning him over to the cops.  No, we are talking about drugging him, gagging him, tying him up, spaying household cleansers in his mouth, and finally attempting to remove his manhood without the assistance of a local anesthetic.  Oh, and this is all done by a girl barely in her teens.  To say that HARD CANDY could turn people off in a big, big way is the broadest of understatements.

Perhaps this is why the film emerges as one of 2006’s most transfixing and challenging films.  It never asks us to sympathize with either the rapist or his captor.  Yes, we hate the pedophile for what he is, but how much more humane is his teenage torturer?   At first - as she slowly but surely starts to turn the tables on him - we gleefully cheer her on in her successful battle of comeuppance.  Obviously, this character facilitates the fantasies of many people.  Who would not want to tie up a vicious sex offender and lay a hurting on him?

However, the young girl’s actions become increasingly dark and – let’s face it – borderline sociopathic.  Her general attitude about tormenting her victim starts off as being justified and acceptable, but the more the film lurches forward and the more her actions grow more sadistic, I found myself rooting less for her.  Mind you, I think that the man should pay, but should he pay in the manner that this little girl envisions?

To its credit, HARD CANDY never promises to provide for squeaky-clean payoffs, nor does it give us characters that are easily digestible.  Neither of the two are particularly likeable.  The man is, for lack of a better word, a degenerate slimball that should be thrown in jail for life.  The girl is – in an odd way – equally disturbed.  The thought of the actions of the pedophile are disgusting, but it’s almost unbearable to watch the girl embark on her merciless and heartless scheme of torturing him in ways that any man watching the film would easily cringe at.  The film gets under your skin like few I’ve seen. 

HARD CANDY also has time to comment of an alarming trend – chat room dating (more specifically, on-line predators).  Anyone that has watched DATELINE lately knows the danger of these Internet pedophiles.  Maybe young Hayley (Ellen Page) saw this investigative news show and came up with her plan.  As the film opens we see her engage in one of those sexually laced online chat room conversations.  She chats up a storm with her “buddy” and they play a seemingly innocent game of Internet cat and mouse.  Soon, both agree that it is time to meet and so they do at a local dinner.  Sounds like a good plan, right?.  The guy, in her mind, won’t do anything to her in public, right?

She meets up with Jeff (Patrick Wilson) and it is fraught with awkwardness.  Perhaps this is because she is a 14-year-old student and he is a 32-year-old photographer.  Hayley comes across as shy and naïve, whereas Jeff emerges as kind of confident, calculating, and…well…creepy.  They talk a lot - about artists, photography, books, etc. – but it soon grows apparent that this shadowy  man will be trying to convince her to come home with him so she can be the next model in his next very personal shoot.

What happens next is kind of startling.  It is Hayley that actually suggests to Jeff that he take her back to his place.  Oddly enough, he begrudgingly agrees.  When they get there they settle in and engage in more meaningless conversations.  Soon, Jeff starts to move in on his prey a bit more and offers her a drink.  Clearly, Hayley is a very smart cookie. “I know better than to take a drink mixed by a strange man,” she tells him.  Jeff subsequently backs off and lets her make the drinks for them.  Big mistake.  In no time, Jeff begins to grow groggy and intoxicated and quickly passes out.  When he awakens he finds himself tied up from head to foot in a chair.

Hayley, it appears, now has the upper hand.  She has been able to infer from their online chats that he is a pedophile, but at this point in the film there is – interestingly – very little actual evidence to support that.  The film is able to command our early interest in the character by allowing us to question the nature of Jeff.  Is he really a pedophile or is he just a really, really stupid and naïve man that is now the victim of bad circumstance?  The film plays around with the true motives of his character, but when the very resourceful Hayley discovers his secret stash of child porn, there seems like little doubt that Jeff is a very, very bad person.  Within no time, Hayley begins to embark on her vengeful mission to ensure that he will never harm another girl – or human being – ever again.

He, of course, sheepishly begs for her to listen to him.  “I’m innocent,” he frequently bellows out.  The evidence, unfortunately, is not on his side, and he knows it.  What we don’t know, however, is whether or not he is guilty of the death of a recent young girl in town.  There is no doubt that he has victimized children, but even while he is tied up and pleading to be let go, we are not altogether sure If he is a murderer.  Hayley sure seems to think so. 

She certainly has plotted her revenge scheme well.  He is restrained, which puts her in charge.  If he screams for help, she sprays his mouth with Lysol and cleaning detergents.  She also has a police tazer to zap him if he gets too unruly.  Then she reveals a shocking admission.  She announces that she is going to “fix” Jeff once and for all.  She prepares him by placing an ice pack on his genitals.  “This will numb you for the procedure,” she matter-of-factly tells him.  He begins to sob uncontrollably and scream for mercy.  She is deaf to his pleas.  She lets him cry.  He continues to swear up and down that he is not whom she thinks he is.  She grows more cold and ruthless.  In her mind, what she is going to do is “for the best.”  When she puts on the surgeon’s gown and some rubber gloves, opens up a medical textbook, and grabs a scrapple, I found it hard to keep me eyes on the screen.

HARD CANDY is utterly enthralling based in the interplay between the two characters.  The whole movie essentially involves the two of them in Jeff’s house.  The film – as stated – is not violent, per se.  It is scary for the implied sensation of menace and violence.  The tension the film creates would have made Hitchcock proud.  Obviously, there is tension in knowing if and when Hayley will go ahead with “fixing” Jeff for good.  The film is unmistakably brutal in build-up and execution. 

On the other hand, there is real tension in the possibility of Jeff escaping being bound up.  If he does, he is easily the bigger of the two and - if he is a killer like Hayley thinks - would surely kill her.  The whole film peels away the fabrics of the characters to the point we get more and more information about them.  Yet, we never really know whether Jeff killed the young girl, or why Hayley really has the motivation at all to go ahead with her diabolical scheme.  The film does an exemplary job of keeping you guessing and truly frightening you with what may come next.

The film’s sense of morality with its characters is far from black and white.  Hell, it’s not even grey.  HARD CANDY is anti-pedophile; Jeff, when faced with the prospect of being mutilated, is reduced down to a blubbering simpleton.  He essentially is despicable because of the things he has done, but when he begs for his manhood and life, we don’t feel sorry for him, we pity him.  Nonetheless, it is very hard to bond with Hayley either.  Obviously, Jeff must have had a great amount of sick and disgusting pleasure in tormenting his victims, but in the same manner, Hayley gets the same kind of nauseating euphoria from tormenting Jeff.  It is hard to argue that Jeff really had it coming to him.  He surely has to pay for his crimes.  I am just not sure that the type of graphic and brutal justice that Hayley has in mind for him is what is right.  In many ways, Hayley – a would-be victim of Jeff – becomes the most frightening and domineering figure in the entire film.  It’s a really stunning role reversal.

The performances in HARD CANDY are astounding.  Patrick Wilson makes a career turn playing one of the trickiest roles of the year in Jeff.  The emotional spectrum he has to follow is amazingly board.  He has to play cunning, cool, and manipulative and latter play pathetic and vulnerable.  Wilson is an actor I have admired in films (like the underrated ALAMO from 2004, where he played William Travis).  Here is performance is remarkably solid for playing both the predator and a victim.  Ellen Page (whom you may recall seeing as Kitty Pryde in the last X-MEN film) is a complete revelation as Hayley.  Her work here reminds me of Natalie Portman’s similar performance in 1994’s THE PROFESSIONAL where she too demonstrated a range and emotional maturity far beyond her actual years.  Seeing that Hayley is one of the more difficult and polarizing characters in any film of recent memory, it makes Page’s assured, confident, and gutsy performance all the more incredible.  There is not one moment where she is on screen where her dominant presence is not felt.  This is the break out performance of 2006.  She has the inconceivable task of balancing justified victim with grotesque tormentor. 

HARD CANDY is not for the faint of heart.  It’s sickening, appalling, and represents humanity on the lowest ends of the totem pole.  It takes a subject matter and two characters in particular that don’t normally invite our curiosity and excitement.  The film is cruel and heartless with its characters and kind of leaves you feeling empty inside with its soulless story.  Yet – having said all of that – HARD CANDY is a virtuoso work of tension and does a brilliant job of slowly developing its characters and story to the point where the events truly grow terrifying.  The film is exceedingly hard to handle and pushes buttons that many of us never want pushed (this is not a film meant for repeat viewings).  As much as one can shun the film’s subject matter, there is no denying the sheer, consummate skill that was utilized in presenting it.  HARD CANDY has remarkable performances, a wonderfully constructed narrative, and it unambiguously challenges its viewers with its subversiveness.  For being a work that is exemplary in execution and appalling in nature, HARD CANDY is a revolting, squirm-inducing Indie masterpiece.

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****  OUT OF  ****

Is Martin Scorsese the greatest living American director?  I think so.  If you disagree, then maybe you’ll need to give your head a shake and see MEAN STREETS, TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, GOODFELLAS, CASINO and…yes…THE DEPARTED. 

It has been said that his latest film is the veteran’s glorious return to form.  However, that sentiment is largely a misnomer.  Recent Scorsese efforts, like GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR, were among some of the best films of their respective years.  He has never made a “bad” film.  Surely, some of his past efforts have been mixed affairs (like NEW YORK, NEW YORK, THE KING OF COMEDY, and KUNDUN, to name a few).  If anything, THE DEPARTED represents Scorsese more or less returning to his roots rather than returning to form.  The film demonstrates his mastery and command over a genre that he does best: the American crime story.  What’s even more remarkable about the film is that he takes themes and personas that he has focused on before and makes them fresh and alluring.  THE DEPARTED works as a crime epic, a daring and masterful remake, and – most importantly – a morality tale and grand tragedy. 

Scorsese has made great films in the last 15-plus years, but THE DEPARTED represents his finest work since 1990’s GOODFELLAS.  This is his purest, strongest, most confident, assured and unabashedly rough n’ tough films that he has made since his last foray into the mob.  The film shares many similarities with his 1990 opus.  Both films center on the mob, albeit in a different form and environment (THE DEPARTED hones in squarely on Bostonian crime lords) and both examine the nature of loyalty and how men are divided by both power and their need to be loyal.

Scorsese has been focusing on characters that try to deal with personal demons since he started making movies.  It’s kind of his signature touch.  Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER struggled with his feelings of being a somebody while trying to make his way in a world that he despised.  Henry Hill in GOODFELLAS became torn between his loyalty to his mafia family and his guilt for possibly “ratting” them all out so he can leave that violent world once and for all.  THE DEPARTED is a continuation of this Scorsesian theme in the sense that it deals with two men – one on the side of the law and the other not – as they are thrust into corrupt and duplicitous lives that also challenge their notions of family and betrayal.  On these levels, Scorsese is a master painter and THE DEPARTED very rarely shows a misplaced stroke on its canvas. 

Scorsese can tell stories of cops and robbers better than anyone, but the most remarkable aspect about THE DEPARTED is how expertly crafted of an adaptation it is.  Based on the largely B-grade, Hong Kong crime caper, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan demonstrate how to take a modest film and open it up and explore it even more fully.  The essential story of THE DEPARTED is the same as is presented in INFERNAL AFFAIRS, but it is the small, subtle touches that make this a Scorsese film through and through.  Themes, as mentioned, are improved and expanded, characters are more developed and multi-faceted, and – more crucially – the film is laced with wall-to-wall, creatively conceived and colourfully vulgar dialogue exchanges and an utterly suspenseful narrative.  THE DEPARTED may be overlooked for two elements: It’s wickedly and darkly funny and is as taut and tense as anything the New York filmmaker has made. 

THE DEPARTED is 150 minutes long, but it felt like half of that running time.  This is one of the most exemplary paced films I’ve seen in many a moon, especially considering the sheer complexity and range of the underlining material.  It tells two parallel stories, yet it still is able to weave and interweave them successfully together to create one unifying whole.  There are many characters in the film (THE DEPARTED has a relative who’s who of strong talent), and the plot is – on the whole – a labyrinth – but the final product has such a pristine and calculating clarity.  It’s remarkable how Scrosese and Monahan are able to command interest in the film’s multitude of fascinating characters and individual stories.  This, no doubt, is assisted by Scorsese’s mastery of the overall material and by Monahan’s vividly evocative and creatively constructed story.  The film seduces so fully with its subject matter.  Few films this year have commanded audiences as forcefully as this one has.

The overall plot to the film is simple enough.  It involves two double agents infiltrating each other’s place of work.  More simply, a member of a mob family joins the police force to work as an informant to his mob boss and a police officer goes deep undercover in the same mob to act as an informant to the police.  The fascinating aspect of the film is that both sides slowly begin to suspect a mole in their respective organizations, so much to the point where each respective mole is trying to uncover each other to their “side” while trying to independently keep their covers from being blown.  Made even more complicated is the fact that both men become involved with the same woman and the woman may or may not be the turning point that will blow their cover for good.

As the film opens we are introduced to one main character (“some years ago” - presumably the 1980’s) in Boston.  Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) presides over his Irish neighborhood as a mob boss that seduces a young boy into his gang.  He does so rather simply: He buys the kid WOLVERINE comics and his family groceries.  During these opening moments we don’t see Costello in anything more than ominous silhouettes and muted shadows.  Scorsese’s stylistic reasons here are twofold: He is visually suggesting the murky world of organized crime and is also showing the larger than life visage that the mob leader casts on the youth. 

Much like Henry Hill, the young tyke, Collin Sullivan, seems attracted by the world of the mob.  The perks seem limitless and the boss’ rationale and worldview seems kind of bulletproof.  At one key point Costello tells the boy, “When I was your age, they would say you could become cops or criminals.  What I’m saying is this:  When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”  This logic seems to gel with the boy.  He grows up (played by Matt Damon) and is inwardly still tied to the mob, but instead joins the police academy.  Why?  So he can work as a mole on the inside.

Sullivan has no problem making his way to the top of command.  He is clean cut, likable, and the police poster boy for dependability.  The film soon tells the parallel story of young Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) who also tries to make his way up the ladder as a police officer.  He is, unfortunately, less well off than Sullivan and has a significantly harder time making his way to the top.  He wants a simple life as a state trooper, but Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) have another juicier and more dangerous assignment for the rookie.  It seems that they have handpicked him Costigan to infiltrate Costello’s inner circle of thieves and murderers in order to send them information to nab the mob don once and for all.  What Costigan slowly begins to realize is that (a) getting into to the mob is not easy and that (b) Costello is another breed of vicious sociopath altogether.

The film soon becomes an incredibly cleaver and cunning capper piece that cheerfully plays cat and mouse with the two informants.  Costigan risks his life to leak every vital bit of information to the cops about the details of Costello’s organization while Sullivan, being Costella’s inside man, counter-leaks info to Costello.  The film has great pacing, as mentioned, but the Scorsese does not rush the pathos and tension.  He lets it develop slowing to the point where it boils over with some real nail biting suspense.  The film is also intrinsically fascinating for its arc: Both men know that there are moles; both try to smoke each other out, but both have no idea about their real identities.  When they both become embroiled in a love affair with a police shrink (played by Vera Farmiga), their lives get even more complicated.

All of the undercover scenes – both within the police and the mob – grow more unsettling and tense as the film progresses.  The incredible amount of intrigue that the film generates is absolutely infectious.  The film effectively segues between each of the two young Irish men’s quest for glory as undercover agents, but when the film takes darker turns near its final third, it is here where THE DEPARTED becomes an accelerating exercise in masterfully crafted tension.  You never really know who will have their cover blown first, and Scorsese is like a grand conductor playing at the heartstrings of his viewers. 

A few on the film’s more subtle and quieter moments build up a sense of foreboding dread and anxiety better than any I’ve seen.  One seen in particular kind of leaves you breathless, as is the case where both Sullivan and Costigan inadvertently get each other on their respective cell phones.  They say nothing, and the silence feels like an eternity.  They are so tightly wound by this point that they are almost beyond words.  Of course, the film builds even more tension later, culminating in a single second of shocking violence that will leave the audience momentarily horrified.  At this point, the film teeters away from being a mob movie and into the realm of Greek tragedy.

Scorsese direction never misses a beat.  There is not one false note in THE DEPARTED’s two and a half hours.  His camera work (now legendary) is easily recognizable here, albeit in a bit more subdued form, and Michael Ballhaus’ cinematography is lush, ominous, and shadowy.  Perhaps Scorsese’s most significant creative achievement is in his delivery of a completely authentic Bostonian mean streets.  He did so by not ever shooting a frame of film there.  Amazingly, THE DEPARTED was shot in New York (a usual stomping ground for many of Scorsese’s past films), but make no mistake about it, this film looks and feels like Boston.  It’s uncanny.  Also, like many of his previous films, Scorsese takes great pride in the little details and in short moments of genuine black comedy.  Some scenes in the film use inventively constructed bits of profanity as punch lines, and some of the dialogue really sings with a verbose wit and charm. 

The assemble cast is excellent, some giving the performances of their careers.  Damon, a relative newcomer to working with Scorsese, gives a commanding and solid performance as Costello’s secret informant.  The other supporting players (who range from veterans like Martin Sheen to Alec Baldwin), are also given their chances to shine in wonderfully written supporting roles.  Mark Wahlberg gives a cocky and domineering performance as Costigan’s handler (as he showed in 1997’s BOOGIE NIGHTS, when he is given the proper directorial guidance, Wahlberg can elevate himself to A-status).  Vera Farmiga, who was spunky and charismatic in this year’s underrated RUNNING SCARED, gives the film a performance of grounded humanity amidst all of its testosterone driven male angst.

Leo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson utterly own THE DEPARTED.  This is DiCaprio’s third turn working with Scorsese (he starred in GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR) and he has only gotten better and more mature with each film.  DiCaprio is a talent that has not received the respect and Oscar attention that he deserves, and he completely buries himself in the edgy and fragile persona of Costigan.  His portrayal as the police informant is a layered study in solitude and despair. 

Oddly enough, Jack Nicholson gives the most surprisingly strong performance in the film as the brutal mob boss.  I say “surprising” in the sense that he could have easily phoned in yet another one of those idiosyncratic Jack Nicholson performances where his own shifty personality comes across more than his actual character’s.  Yet, Nicholson is being monitored by the control freak in Scorsese, and under him he is able to fine-tune a performance as a villain that is not caricature, but a truly vindictive and soft-spoken monster.  Jack wisely never overacts, mugs the camera, or chews scenery.  Instead, he immerses himself in the role of a psychologically deranged lunatic that seems congenial and jolly at one point, and then becomes the perpetrator of wanton, sadistic violence the next.  As a detailed portrait of an aging, morally twisted crime boss, Nicholson’s performance just may be one of his best.  His work here is a treasure.

As a glorious and inspired symphony of violence, wonderfully crafted characters, taut and tense screenwriting, and of the best elements of the crime genre that only Martin Scorsese can deliver, THE DEPARTED represents yet another crowning achievement for the revered 63-year-old director.  After tackling such divergent subject matter, like 19th Century New York gangs and 20th Century aviation mavericks and innovators, THE DEPARTED represents Scorsese returning to the streets by making a film that harkens back to some of his best work.  The film has familiar Scorsese touches and thematic elements – big, sprawling locales, tortured and troubled characters, and moral issues like betrayal and loyalty. 

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of THE DEPARTED – beyond being another in a proud list of American crime classics from the director – i