The Quick and Dirties: Ranking the The Ocean's Quadrilogy

Minions

The Heat

Directed by Paul Feig.

2013. Rated R, 117 minutes.

Cast:

Sandra Bullock

Melissa McCarthy

Demian Bichir

Michael Rapaport

Jane Curtain

Marlon Wayans

Michael McDonald

Spoken Reasons

Jessica Chaffin

The FBI's Agent Ashburn (Bullock) is super smart, solving cases with a Sherlock Holmes like intelligence. Her work has her up for a big promotion. Unfortunately, a lack of any discernible personality is her holding her back. No one seems to like her in the least way. Her boss is worried this wouldn't translate well to a position of leadership. For a chance to prove herself, she's put to work trying to bring down a major drug trafficking ring. Against her wishes she's forced to work with local cop Detective Mullins (McCarthy) who is driven and passionate about crime fighting, but highly abrasive in case you haven't seen the trailer. What we have here is a typical wunza buddy comedy. You know, wunza straight-laced by the book colorless FBI agent and wunza manic, fly by the seat of her pants f bomb, dropping slob of a cop.

With the formula pretty much set in stone, The Heat dutifully goes down the checklist of buddy flick tropes. The bland Ashburn is the butt of most jokes and the one Mullins is constantly trying to change in order to get her to loosen up and enjoy life. Through all the initial hatred of one another and completely opposite approaches to the same task, there is, of course, a friendship being formed. McCarthy is there to give us the comedy by verbally abusing every person in her vicinity. Occasionally this does manage to hit the funny bone, particularly early on. After a while we know what's coming so it loses its sting and just becomes noise to suffer through. She's clearly a character cut from the cloths of Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley and Mel Gibson's Detective Riggs. Unfortunately she takes only their most basic traits without the charm of either. They are then fused with McCarthy's brand of potty mouth savagery to form a character we may laugh at occasionally, but don't particularly like. Its a shtick better in short doses as in, This is 40, rather than a steady stream of it. One thing that sort of gets us on her side is her family. They are the one deviation from the formula we have. They have completely made her an outcast and she has to suffer through tongue lashings from them. It's a trick to earn some sympathy for her and it works. However, the best thing to come out of these scenes is her brothers' girlfriends injecting themselves into family business. They give as good as they get.

If Mullins is a dumbed down combination of Foley and Riggs then Ashburn is that of Taggart and Murtaugh from the same movies. She exists merely to be appalled by and eventually bond with Mullins. Her comedic task is to attempt things the way her partner wants her to. Again, this is an occasionally amusing tactic that more often just reminds me of fun stuff we've seen in other, better films. Bullock does with the role requires of her. It just doesn't seem to take much effort. There seems to be no challenge in standing off to one side while McCarthy rants and raves. Her character is just an uninteresting woman. In fact, she's so boring I've written these last two sentences just to lengthen a paragraph in which their really is nothing else to say about her. Well, maybe there is one slightly interesting thing about her. She has a cute potential relationship with Agent Levy played by the refreshingly subdued Marlon Wayans. Still, even this is not an earth shattering romance.

Whether or not you like The Heat boils down to one question: do you find it funny when Melissa McCarthy makes lots of noise and cusses like a sailor. If the answer is yes, you're probably thinking I'm some sort of prude, or a movie snob and dismissing this entire review. Fine by me. You may as well stop reading now and go watch it. Put another way, did you like Identity Thief. If the answer is no, you have likely been nodding in agreement as you read. That's more than fine by me. In this case you should probably skip it. It's only going to annoy you, anyway. Proceed accordingly

MY SCORE: 4.5/10

Gravity

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

2013. Rated PG-13, 91 minutes.

Cast:

Sandra Bullock

George Clooney

Ed Harris

Phaldut Sharma

Amy Warren

In space, no one can hear you scream. Oh wait, that's another movie. Regardless, it's true. Ryan Stone (Bullock) finds this out the hard way. She and Matt Kowalski (Clooney) are among the crew on a Space Shuttle mission to perform some routine maintenance on the Hubble Telescope. It's her first time in the great beyond so she's not feeling particularly well while floating alongside the machine she is working on. Other than that, things are going according to plan until our good friends, the Russians, intervene. Sort of. They actually just shoot down one of their own satellites which is no longer functioning. The problem is that the debris is sent hurtling through space, directly at the two most photogenic astronauts of all time. Oh, and their co-workers. Crash, crash, boom, boom, and Stone is separated from the rest of the crew, uncontrollably spinning into the blackness. Kowalski soon recovers her. Even if you haven't seen the movie, you've seen the trailer, or watched the Oscars, or one of the entertainment news shows, or just heard someone bumping their gums about it, so you can guess what happens next. Stone gets separated again and spends the rest of the movie trying to rectify her situation.

Early on, we hear a few different voices communicating with the astronauts, and see Clooney scooting around on his motorized chair. However, it really is a one woman show. It's a spectacular one, at that. Sandra Bullock turns in what I think is easily her best performance. Her Oscar-winning turn in The Blindside is great, if a bit over the top. I've liked her in a number of other movies and been indifferent to her in a bunch more. Here, she's captivating in a way not many movie performers have ever been, completely alone for long stretches of film. Tom Hanks' work in Cast Away immediately leaps to mind. For most of that movie his only companion is Wilson, a soccer ball on which he drew a face. Here, Clooney's smiling mug gives Bullock slightly more companionship. The rest of the way is all her. Even more impressively, she's not even acting in an organic setting most of the time. She's often in model space vessels and an anti-gravity environment. Mostly, she is suspended on a wire against a green screen. The only people around her are the crew, all off-camera, so she has no one to play off. If you don't think that's tough to do, I've got an exercise for you. Try standing up in a public place and acting out a personally and visibly emotional scene all by yourself for a full minute without breaking character or acknowledging anyone who is around. Don't forget you have to be totally convincing. Go 'head, I'll wait. No? Okay, let's move on.

We have to get back to that green screen I mentioned. You've probably seen one and know how it functions, but just in case not, it's just that - a green screen on which the techno wizards will later add visual effects. The magicians that worked on Gravity were rewarded with Oscar gold in just about every technical category there is, and deservedly so. It truly is a special fx marvel. From the smallest details to the eye-popping action sequences, the fx do their job. They work in service of the telling of a great story without becoming story. There is never a moment we don't believe our heroine is floating helplessly in space. This is a huge part of the movie's creation of tension. That tension drives the film. Even before we get to all the angst filled stuff, the visuals work magic on us. In the earlier, more serene moments, we're allowed to gaze upon Stone's infinite workplace. The views are as spectacular as we imagine. Rarely has a setting been more well established.

Like I said, though, the job of all those fx is to help tell a story. Making sure that what dazzles the eye does the same to the mind is director Alfonso Cuaron. Given the massive amounts of technology on display this may sound odd, but he really does take a minimalist approach. Sure, the entire set was constructed on a PC, but that's merely a fact of where our tale takes place. Aside from this, the camera is trained on Bullock and her exploits nearly for the entirety of the runtime. There are only a few exceptions made for Clooney, mostly right at the beginning. Most similarly themed movies would have tacked on another twenty-plus minutes by cutting away often to people working feverishly to save the protagonist. That doesn't happen here and the movie is better for it. It's tight and concise, keeping the viewer on the edge of his/her seat without ever letting us off the hook. There is nothing to focus on besides this woman and her plight. Directing that singular person may have been as difficult as the portrayal of said person by Bullock. Here's another exercise to demonstrate my point. Try having a willing person act out a scenario in a room all alone with you. Have them follow your directions but not actually interact with you. Instead, they must react to things that aren't actually there, and make sure they're looking directly at wherever it is decided these things will be located and/or coming from. Bottom line is Gravity is a masterful job done by Cuaron worthy of his Best Director win at the Oscars. It's even more worthy of our massive exhalation when the closing credits roll.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Directed by Stephen Daldry.

2011. Rated PG-13, 129 minutes.

Cast:

Thomas Horn

Tom Hanks

Sandra Bullock

Max von Sydow

Viola Davis

John Goodman

Jeffrey Wright

Zoe Caldwell

Oskar (Horn) is a happy little boy who does everything with his father Thomas (Hanks). Much of their time together is spent on fanciful excursions like looking for New York’s “lost sixth borough.” Dad uses these to bolster the boy’s confidence and develop his social skills since it seems the boy suffers from some form of autism (the movie half-heartedly kinda sorta rules out Asperger’s Syndrome). The two get along swimmingly. However, bliss is not eternal and Thomas dies during the tragic events of 9/11. A year later, he finds a key his father had hidden in a vase. Oskar then embarks on his own expedition all over the Big Apple to find out what it unlocks.

Though we hardly see her, Oskar does have a mother. She’s played by an appropriately worn looking Sandra Bullock. Nearly every word she says is laced with a defeatist attitude. Neither she nor her son are taking her husband’s death well. Basically, she lies in bed while he traverses the city trying to dig up remnants of his dad. Eventually he gets some company on his daily treks from the old guy known only as The Renter (von Sydow). The Renter doesn’t talk but rents a room from Oskar’s grandmother who lives across the street.

There are some interesting things going on in Extremely Loud. Oskar encounters some interesting people on his travels. The relationship between he and the old man is endearing. All thanks for this is due to the wonderful Max von Sydow. He expresses so much without ever uttering a sound. His is a remarkable piece of work. A couple other performances also shine in the brief time they’re allotted. I’ll not divulge any further details as this may give too large a hint about the outcome.

As we inch nearer that outcome things fall apart. The movie becomes too transparent in its attempts to manipulate. It tries to play on our inherent sympathy for children and soon has Oskar bursting into tears every so often in hopes that we’ll do the same. Some of us will. For the rest of us, however, Oskar’s proven to be kind of a jerk. We’ve humored him out of sympathy for his quest, but we’re not ready to sob with him. To combat this, we’re next hit with a seriously contrived and overly gooey conclusion that somehow excuses mom’s highly questionable parenting tactics. It’s clearly meant to have us bawling at the notion of sweetness and enveloped by the warmth of closure. Instead, I merely felt violated as it kept trying to touch my sensitive areas without permission.

MY SCORE: 5/10

The Blind Side

Directed by John Lee Hancock.
2009. Rated PG-13, 128 minutes.
Cast:
Sandra Bullock
Quinton Aaron
Tim McGraw
Jae Head
Lily Collins
Kathy Bates
Ray McKinnon
Tom Nowicki
Melody Weintraub
Sharon Morris

Plot: The Tuohy family, at the urging of fiery matriarch Leigh Ann (Bullock), take in Michael Oher (Aaron), a homeless and academically challenged boy who attends the same school as their children. Michael turns out to be a highly sought after football prospect. Based on a true story.

The Good: It bends the sports underdog genre on its ear by making the person who helps the underdog the protagonist. In this case, that person is Leigh Ann Tuohy, played brazenly by Sandra Bullock. It’s perhaps the best performance of her career. Accordingly, it earned her an Oscar for Best Actress. As a whole, the movie knows when to utilize its sense of humor and when to press our emotional buttons. That timely alternating keeps us locked in, fully vested in the Tuohy family mission.

The Bad: Alas, genre clichés still abound. We think we know every obstacle before it approaches. Moments later, our suspicions are confirmed. This combines with the fact that the story it’s based on is of extremely recent vintage to sap the film of any real sense of mystery. The questions of race and budding sexuality are too neatly wrapped up within one scene. As far as race is concerned, it's content to be another film in which near-perfect white people save a damaged black kid from the ghetto. Both race and sexuality are quickly swept under the rug by a short speech in which Leigh Ann shouts down her naysayers. Perhaps more importantly, because we knew the racial dynamics going in, the question of just how Michael’s grades rose so quickly is never really addressed. This could be because of a scene in which Leigh Ann confronts one of Michael’s teachers and says “All the other teachers are on board. What’s your problem?” Hmmm, is there something else we need to know? The movie as a whole just seems too afraid to veer from the path to “happily ever after” to tackle the tough issues.

The Ugly: Now, that’s how you finish a block.

Recommendation: This is probably the best “feel-good” movie of 2009. Like a good football team, is has a game plan and executes it well. It never surprises us one bit, but that’s okay because it entertains us and engages us. If you’re prone to crying over movies, keep some tissue nearby.

The Opposite View: Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

What the Internet Says: 7.7/10 on imdb.com (5/26/10), 67% on rottentomatoes.com, 53/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 7/10