The East

Directed by Zal Batmanglij.

2013. Rated PG-13, 116 minutes.

Cast:

Brit Marling

Alexander Skarsgard

Ellen Page

Toby Kebbell

Shiloh Fernandez

Patricia Clarkson

Aldis Hodge

Danielle Macdonald

Jason Ritter

Julia Ormond

Sarah (Marling) is a corporate spy, of sorts. The organization she works for gets hired by corporations to infiltrate and provide information on groups who perform terrorist acts against them. The East is the most notorious of these groups as their stunts make national headlines and are growing increasingly dangerous. After telling her boyfriend she's on her way to Dubai for an assignment, she dyes her hair, dons some grungy clothing, and heads off to where the local vagrants hang out in hopes of getting into The East.

The premise is an intriguing one, though I have no idea why she couldn't just be an actual federal agent rather than working in a completely made up industry (I think). It's irrelevant to the plot and everything she does, every step of the way winds up in the hands of the FBI. Still, the idea of going deep undercover in a counter-culture group like The East is ripe with possibilities. While the movie does explore many of them, it does so in a manner that feels rushed. Our heroine finds the people she's looking for, gets accepted by them after some hesitance on their part, falls in love with one of them, etc. However, it all happens so fast, it's not to be believed. On top of that, she's a lousy operative. At the first sign of trouble, she purposely blows her own cover. This presents the movie with a chance to movie in a more dramatic direction. Instead, the character that knows too much simply disappears from the movie, leaving behind only a cryptic message that everyone sort of shrugs their shoulders at when they see it. All together, we just be-bop along until we get to the inevitable Earth Day inspired finale. It's a commendable film, to be sure, but a heavy-handed and not particularly good one.

What keeps The East from being a complete waste is that there are some excellent individual scenes, and a pair of really good performances. The scenes where the group is executing their acts of terrorism, or jams as they call them, pique our interest. The second of these, involving the forcing of two corporate big wigs into waters their company polluted is emotionally charged. For my money, it's by far the best few minutes in the movie. This brings me to Ellen Page's phenomenal work. She sells the scene, and her entire role, for all she's worth. Whatever it was she thought she was going to get out of this part, she goes for it. I'll caution you to take my words with a grain of salt because I've become an apologist for the actress. No matter how good or bad the film she's in, I find her to be great. I like to think this is an unbiased opinion because I honestly don't find her physically attractive. The other good performance belongs to Brit Marling, who co-wrote this film, in the lead. It's nothing she should've gotten a statuette for, but it's wonderfully understated for most of the run-time. A lot of emotion comes through the looks on her face without her appearing to mug for the camera.

Unfortunately, most of Marling's and Page's work is negated by the underwhelming turn by Alexander Skarsgard as Benji, the group's leader. It appears the character is underwritten for what he's trying to do with it, and he doesn't have the charisma to pull it off, anyway. He, and maybe director Zal Batmanglij, clearly want Benji to be an equal to John Hawkes' unsettling, yet magnetic cult-leader in Martha Marcy May Marlene. However, he's a dollar store knock-off, serviceable, but nothing that's going to get us up in arms. It doesn't help that the next most important character, after everyone already mentioned here, is Doc (Kebbell). The movie's heavy-handedness shines most through him. His very existence is so manipulative, he's like a walking, talking public service announcement. He should just repeat the same line over and over. Whenever anyone says anything to him, he should stare directly into the camera and say "Stop corporate pollution, now!" And I'm not even joking.

Like The Purge, a movie that came out in close proximity to this one, the promise of its premise far exceeds what ends up on the screen. Instead of building a good movie about an undercover agent that works toward and finishes with a message, The East beats us over the head with that message and tries to fit the undercover stuff into whatever spaces are left. Since subtlety is lost, it brazenly attempts to manipulate our emotions. No matter how unsuccessful it might be at doing this, it continuously tries. Give it an "A" for persistence, I guess. What no one involved seems to realize, though, is that a more tactful and entertaining approach is needed, no matter how dire the situation is we're addressing. I mean, I assume we're all against Catholic priests molesting choir boys and I'll assume there are people who dislike Catholics, for whatever reason. Nevertheless, Sinead O'Connor on national TV holding up a picture of the pope and declaring "This is the real evil," was a turn off (youtube Sinead O'Connor SNL, young'uns). This movie definitely takes the Sinead approach.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Friends with Benefits

Directed by Will Gluck.

2011. Rated R, 109 minutes.

Cast:

Mila Kunis

Justin Timberlake

Patricia Clarkson

Woody Harrelson

Jenna Elfman

Bryan Greenberg

Richard Jenkins

Shaun White

Andy Samberg

Boy meets girl. Again. This time, both have just been dumped by other people. Boy is hotshot art director Dylan Harper (Timberlake). He’s just been hired to fulfill that role for GQ magazine. He got the job because he was recruited away from his own highly successful blog by Girl, Jamie Rellis (Kunis). Boy moves from LA to NY for his new gig and becomes platonic besties with Girl. The two confide in each other that they miss sex, but not relationships. Of course, they do the only rational thing and hop into bed together after laying a few ground rules. Pardon the pun. As you might expect, feelings neither wanted ensues.

Surprisingly to me, the first half of Friends with Benefits is a joy to watch. This is due, in large part, to the fact it looks like our two leads are having so much fun they can barely contain themselves. After all, they’re two attractive people who get to do a lot of rolling around naked together. It also helps that this portion of the picture is dedicated to ridiculing all we know romantic comedies to be. Our two lovebirds in denial say all the things we say about such movies. This gives it a wonderfully self-aware vibe.

The second half undermines the first by becoming precisely what the earlier parts rail against. It tries to maintain its edge by blatantly acknowledging that it has devolved into the same grandiose moments of romantic gesture as just about every other flick in the genre. Despite its embracing of its own descent into mediocrity, it still feels like a letdown since up to about the midway point it seems like a well done spoof that’s going to introduce a twist on the norm. Instead, the overall effect is that the movie says “Other movies do ‘this’ so we will, too.”

As rom-coms go, this is a little above average. The expected story arcs are fully intact. Before any of it actually happens, we know where jealousy, misunderstanding, break up and make up are all going to come in. For good measure, there’s Richard Jenkins in the ‘wise crazy person who let his true love get away’ role to impart sage advice at the pivotal moment. He has some interesting moments and is typically excellent but pales in comparison to the hysterical performance by Woody Harrelson as Tommy, Dylan’s too openly gay buddy. You’ll just have to see it to understand what I mean by “too openly”. Even though the only real reason for his character’s existence is that he owns a boat, many of the movie’s funniest moments are his. He, and the thing we come to realize as the film progresses elevates it above its contemporaries: at least this one knows it’s lame.

Easy A

Directed by Will Gluck.
2010. Rated PG-13, 92 minutes.
Cast:
Emma Stone
Amanda Bynes
Alyson Michalka
Thomas Haden Church
Lisa Kudrow
Stanley Tucci
Patricia Clarkson
Penn Badgley
Dan Byrd
Malcolm McDowell
Cam Gigandet

Keeping up a lie usually involves telling more lies. One mistruth simply begats the next. For most of us, this continues until the entire house of cards comes tumbling down on our own heads. Olive (Stone) is going through just such a thing.

It all starts innocently enough. She tells her best friend Rhiannon (Michalka) that she’s got a date this weekend when she really doesn’t in order to avoid going camping wither Rhi’s eccentric family. By the time Monday rolls around Rhi wants to know the juicy details of said date. Even though she’s done absolutely nothing at all since leaving school Friday afternoon, she tells Rhi that she lost her virginity to a college guy. Though said in confidence, this happens to be overheard by the wrong set of ears which, of course, share a head with the wrong set of lips. Olive suddenly finds herself to be the most scandalous girl in school. A select few know the tale to be false. However, most of these are boys who help perpetuate the myth, plus create more falsehoods. These guys are in search of changing their own rep and soon they’re lining up to pay Olive for the privilege of saying they slep with her, even though they hadn’t. As you can imagine, Olive soon comes to be viewed as the school whore.

Of course, this all coincides with Olive’s English class reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel “The Scarlet Letter.” She is inspired by the plight of Hester Prynne and embraces her new found notoriety since before she was never talked about at all. She also yearns to piss off Marianne (Bynes), the school’s “Jesus freak.” Olive not only dons progressively sluttier outfits, she adorns them with a giant red “A” just like Prynne was made to wear. Things are going great, until she realizes they really aren’t.

Brazenly, but wisely, Easy A juxtaposes itself with the Hawthorne classic. It even takes the time to note the similarities and differences for us. It goes so far as to defend not only the novel, but the original film version while throwing barbs at the much more recent cinematic attempt starring Demi Moore. The movie gets much mileage from this, even filling in the uninformed on what happens in the book nearly as much as telling its own story. This makes the correlation between the two easily accessible and not just an in-joke to those of us who actually did the reading assignment in school.

The film doesn’t hide from its other major influence, John Hughes movies of the 1980s. Olive blatantly tells us she wishes her life were helmed by the famed director. We also get plenty of references and even short glimpses of those movies. As with “The Scarlett Letter,” this aids our audience, presumably mostly made up of teens and twentysomethings, get the jokes. However, this also highlights the one major flaw I find in Easy A. Our BFFs are too good looking. Part of the charm of movies like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club is that stars like Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy looked and felt like awkward teens relegated to high school’s lower social class, unsure whether they would ever blossom into the beautiful butterflies they so longed to be. It helped they were actually teenagers. Stone did a fine job with the role. She just can’t possibly give off that type of vibe. Her age, she’s 22 may have something to do with it. The natural confidence of someone already past the painful stages is difficult to contain. In addition, Michalka (also 22) as Rhiannon looks anything but the sexually frustrated, unable to get a boy co-ed we’re told she is. Let’s be honest, if she went to almost any high school in America looking the way she does here, she’d be constantly surrounded by an ever-widening swarm of athletes, rich kids, pretty boys and local college underclassmen. Beating them back with a stick might be a literal action for her instead of just a figure of speech.

The looks of the cast aside, I find Easy A funny in enough spots and very smart. It doesn’t often cause out loud laughter, but extracts the grins and soft chuckles that come from being able to relate to what we’re seeing. It may resonate more with females because their reputations are generally touchier topics. Still, I enjoyed it and had no problem becoming vested in the fate of our hero.

MY SCORE: 8/10

Shutter Island

Directed by Martin Scorsese.
2009. Rated R, 138 minutes.
Cast:
Leonardo DiCaprio
Mark Ruffalo
Ben Kingsley
Max von Sydow
Jackie Earle Haley
Michelle Williams
Emily Mortimer
Patricia Clarkson
Ted Levine
John Carroll Lynch

It’s 1954 and federal agent Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) is sent to Shutter Island to investigate the escape of a patient from the mental institution. Actually, that’s redundant. The entire island basically serves as the mental institution. We learn that it’s where they keep the criminally insane. Though the faculty seems to want the issue resolved, they put up various walls of resistance. Our hero is having a hard time getting results.

Agent Daniels also has ulterior motives. It seems he’s had prior dealings with a mysteriously inconspicuous patient and is quite suspicious of what might really be going on in this remote location. He vows to his partner Chuck (Ruffalo) to get to the bottom of things.

As we follow the proceedings, we’re sucked in and wondering how our hero is going to save the day. We get hints along the way that saving the day may be impossible. We can eventually guess where this is all going. That’s normally a death knell. Here, it’s fine because it does something lesser movies don’t. It defiantly straddles the fence, not choosing either of the two possible outcomes it gives us. Neither is very pleasant. Yet, we still feel the need to decipher what we’ve seen, trying to extract the film’s truth. To be, or not to be really is the question. Supporters of both will have plenty of evidence to support their interpretation.

Once again teaming up with director Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio turns in another great performance. For Scorcese, it’s a departure from the norm. This is no gritty urban crime drama, but his storytelling is as effective as ever.

The drawback is that it runs too long. There is a scene in which the movie climaxes by giving us the two options to decide between. The next two or three minutes flesh out one of them. If the Coen Brothers had directed this, it would’ve ended right there, probably without those few minutes but abruptly stopping right when…I’ll let you see it. Scorcese drags it on too long after that, almost explaining too much.

“SI” is a top notch psychological thriller. It diminishes its own predictability with a heavy dose of ambiguity. It also plays with our heads by using lots of smoke and mirrors, but in a good way. This isn’t your uncle pulling a penny out of your ear, it’s a really slick sleight of hand David Blaine would be proud of.

The Opposite View: A.O. Scott, New York Times

What the Internet Says: 8.0/10 on imdb.com (7/16/10), 67% on rottentomatoes.com, 63/100 on metacritic.com

8.5/10