Lawless

 

Directed by John Hillcoat.

2012. Rated R, 116 minutes.

Cast:

Shia LaBeouf

Tom Hardy

Jessica Chastain

Guy Pearce

Gary Oldman

Mia Wasikowska

Jason Clarke

Dane DeHaan

Chris McGarry

Tim Tolan

Noah Taylor

In Prohibition Era Franklin, Virginia legend has it that local moonshiners, The Bondurant brothers are indestructible. This is said to be especially true of Forrest (Hardy), the eldest and leader of the trio. Calling him the strong, silent type is an understatement on both counts. He’s usually flanked by Howard (Clarke), the largest of the bunch, and worried about Jack (LaBeouf), the runt of the litter. Just about everyone else in town is also in the moonshine business and business is good. It’s good enough that they’ve attracted the attention of their counterparts from the big city who send some corrupt lawmakers down to muscle in on the backwoods action. The whole town gives up without a fight, except Forrest and his brethren. Forrest not running ensues.

The main strength of Lawless is its characters. As Forrest, Tom Hardy is ridiculously good, again proving he’s among the very best actors woking today. Without mugging for the camera, his face says everything it needs to. His Forrest is clearly a man that measures his words whenever he can and has supreme confidence in himself. He actually believes that bit about being indestructible. Still, he’s very smart and doesn’t let his ego make him entirely wreckless, usually. On the other hand, baby brother Jack is pretty much the opposite: a big talker who likes to show off with fancy suits and cars. It’s a surprisingly good performance from Shia LaBeouf. Jessica Chastain, as Maggie, is also solid, as usual. So is Gary Oldman who gets way too little time on screen. However, it’s Forrest’s rival, Special Agent Rakes that steals the show. A bizarrely made up Guy Pearce does the honors. You will love to hate him.

Lawless also maintains an excellent pace. The action is often brutal and the stretches between action scenes are filled with tension and, surprisingly, humor. These attributes, combined with the wonderful cast, make this a very entertaining movie. A time, or two, ti does stretch the idea of Forrest’s invincibility incredibly thin. Other times, Howard and Maggie blend in with the furniture, not given quite enough to do. That said, it is still an incredibly watchable film that absorbs us into its fabric.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Directed by Michael Bay.

2011. Rated PG-13, 157 minutes.
Cast:
Shia LaBeouf
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Josh Duhamel
John Turturro
Frances McDormand
Patrick Dempsey
Tyrese Gibson
John Malkovich
Ken Jeong
Kevin Dunn
Julie White

The Decepticons take a third crack at conquering Earth. Of course, Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf), the Autobots and the guy from Sector 7 (Turturro) stand in their way. Megan Fox does not. There is another pretty face in place of hers. More on that later. Moving on, this tale actually begins with man’s first landing on the moon back in 1969. Unbeknownst to us for over forty years, during that initial lunar expedition Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldridge discovered Sentinel, who appears to have crashed landed on the dark side of the moon. He’s an old Autobot who evidently taught Optimus Prime everything he knows. The astronauts bring what they can back to Earth which includes five thingamajigs. Fast forward to the present when Megatron and company have a bunch more of these things. They plan on getting the five that somehow wound up in the Middle East, but are now possessed by the US government. Once they do that they’ll be able to reconstruct their home planet Cybertron in a place that appears to be extremely close ot Earth. Never you mind the science of any of this just know that this is the bad guys’ plan. Oh, once Cybertron is operational they’re going to use mankind as its own slave-labor force.

Essentially, we get a remake of Revenge of the Fallen. That said, there are some revisions. As you can probably tell, the main change is switching out the whatchamacallit for the thingamajigs. Next, instead of destroying the Egyptian pyramids we tear up Chicago pretty darn good. And don’t forget we trade in The Fallen for Sentinel. These changes are neither here nor there. Some others actually do improve upon its predecessor, thankfully. For starters, the two jive-talking bots are nowhere to be found. Ma and Pa Witwicky’s annoying antics are also scaled back. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of lame humor to go around. Much of it comes from the go-for-broke performance of John Turturro.

The most easily recognizable difference is we have a new damsel in distress, Carly Spencer played by model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. She buys collector items for some uber-rich dude. Yes, this turns out to be a very large part of the reason she comes to be in distress. Sadly, she can’t give Ms. Fox a run for her money in the acting department. By the way, it’s not like I think Megan Fox is ever in danger of winning an Oscar. For Ms. Huntington-Whiteley, her looks are all she brings to the table. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she won this part in a raffle where only models were allowed to buy tickets. Any one of them would’ve been just as good.

The bottom line is that Dark of the Moon is a Transformers movie. If you enjoyed the last one, you’ll enjoy this one. Robots transform, fight, knock over skyscrapers and blow stuff up. Once again, this goes on for a way too long two and a half hours. I will say that this is a step up, though. The Fallen made me want to gouge out my own eyes with a spoon and puncture both eardrums with an icepick. This one merely made me want to bang my head on a hard surface. Heres to progress!

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Directed by Oliver Stone.
2010. Rated PG-13, 133 minutes.
Cast:
Shia LaBeouf
Michael Douglas
Carey Mulligan
Josh Brolin
Frank Langella
Susan Sarandon
Austin Pendleton
Vanessa Ferlito

There is a lot of stuff happening, here. The iconic Gordon Gekko (Douglas) is finally out of jail and armed with a best-selling book. Still, his daughter Winnie (Mulligan) blames him for everything since the crucifixion of Christ and wants nothing to do with him. Of course, this means she’s in love with a guy just like him. That guy is Jake Moore (LaBeouf), a young Wall Street hotshot with a jones for an alternative energy company in California.

Keep up, we’re just getting started.

The firm Jake works for collapses. Did I mention this is set in 2008? Anyhoo, when the firm goes belly up, Jake’s beloved boss Lou (Langella) can’t take it anymore, or finally had enough of the smell in the subway, and steps in front of a train. As you would expect, Jake gets all pissed and , tries to go Jason Witwicky and get Bumblebee to kick some ass. However, since he can’t do that in this movie, he decides he’s going to try and take down the man who he thinks is responsible for all his recent misfortunes, Gordon Gekko…oh, wait, sorry. That would’ve made it more interesting. Instead, it’s some other cold-hearted arrogant mogul named Bretton James (Brolin). He’s the kind of guy that likes to stab people in the back and then come around front and act tough as they die.

Well, since it is 2008 and all, the Dow Jones does all of Jakes heavy lifting and all the firms soon find themselves in financial ruin and facing extinction. By the way, there’s also Jake’s mom (Sarandon) who’s a real estate junkie, a cajillion karat engagement ring and an angry liberal website.

Phew! Let me catch my breath.

Actually, all that sounds like an interesting movie. Add in the fact that Oliver Stone is indeed directing the sequel to one of his masterpieces, and this has the pedigree to be great. Sadly, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s just a bunch of stuff.

An old baseball saying warns us to “make them beat you with your best pitch.” If you’re a pitcher tasked with getting out the other team’s star hitter in a potentially game-changing moment, throw your best pitch. If that pitch is a 100 mph fastball, go with that. Don’t bother with your curveball that doesn’t curve so much. For non-baseball fans, it simply means go with what you do best in crucial situations. WS: MNS rarely throws its best pitch.

It’s best pitch is the Gordon Gekko of the original movie. That Gekko is simultaneously magnetic and repulsive. He is irreverent, unapologetic, self-absorbed and above all, greedy. He is one of the best villains of the 1980s, possibly of cinematic history. This version is much more pathetic. His smugness and sliminess has lost most of its appeal. Worse than that, because we do get glimpses of the old Gordon, he’s a secondary player on what should’ve been his stage to shine.

That stage is thoroughly hogged by Jake and James. As our good guy, LaBeouf does what LaBeouf always does, take it or leave it. As the bad guy, Brolin turns in another in what’s becoming a long line of impressive performances. The problem is the characters themselves. They’re both less interesting knock-offs of their counterparts from the original, with equally less interesting dialogue and relationship between them. There’s no complexity to it. It’s simply good guy vs. bad guy. The original gave us two guys who obviously admired one another and, for a time, really were on the same side. The sequel ditches that for standard hero/villain fare, not its best pitch.

About two-thirds of the way through, we get a cameo by Charlie Sheen, ever so briefly reprising his role as Bud Fox. This might be the best scene in the movie. That’s the worst thing that it could’ve been. Seeing Sheen and Douglas have a short, but contentious conversation is too much a reminder of what could’ve been. It’s a mere hint of the movie we wanted. After a few fleeting moments, Sheen walks off dragging our hopes and dreams, kicking and screaming behind him, never to be seen again. There went the movie’s best pitch.

We get more curveballs that don’t curve. We get lots of drawn out scenes of meetings where old men try desperately to save their own backsides. We get lots of one-on-one meetings between others, either trying to save themselves or talk tough to one another. We get lots of clips of CNN. All of this is steeped in joyless financial jargon. The movie only moves away from feeling like economics class when it involves Gekko’s daughter, Winnie. However, with her constant whining she’s much more an annoyance that the reprieve we need.

This movie has needs, too. Apparently, it needs us to like the Gekko family, along with Jake who keeps threatening to be their new addition. To that end, everything is wrapped up in one gutwrenchingly cheesy and hastily tied little bow. All of the good guys will have their cake, and eat it too. It’s too easy, too cliché and not Oliver Stone’s best pitch.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2009. Rated PG-13, 150 minutes.
Director: Michael Bay.
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Ramon Rodriguez.

Plot: An ancient Decepticon known as “The Fallen” returns to Earth to destroy blah blah blah to gain ultimate blah blah blah moowahahahaha (evil laugh). Robot fighting, screaming and anatomy jokes ensue.

The Good: Director Michael Bay knows that the majority of people attending a Transformers movie want to see giant robots beating the crap out of each other so he gives us more of it than the original. Since he also knows that most of these people are boys, no matter what age, he throws in pretty girls, off-color jokes and slow motion, lots of slow motion. Most of it features either a robot being ripped apart or Megan Fox running “Baywatch” style. And living up to its name, nearly everything transforms. Like its predecessor, it’s a visual spectacle.

The Bad: Like numerous other sequels, this suffers from “more is less” syndrome. The action and silly jokes increase exponentially from what was in the original, yet the things that might make it engaging are far flimsier and much less coherent. Its simply two and a half hours of flashing lights and noise. Therefore, we never really care if what’s-his-face activates the thingamajig with the whatchamacallit. Even worse, if your main focus is robot fighting then the robots should be easier to tell apart. This isn’t that big a problem for the Autobots who are pretty much color coded. However, almost all the Decepticons of any significance are plain chrome and blend together in combat. Shallow as it seems, I’d like to know which bad guys are actually fighting. And don’t even get me started on the two jive-talkin’ bots.

The Ugly: Two words: robot scrotum.Recommendation: You probably already know if you want to see this or not. If you’re not sure, see the first one first with a surround sound system cranked up pretty good, if possible. After that, imagine it bigger, louder and dumber.

The Opposite View: Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle

What the Internet Says: 6.8/10 on imdb.com (6/28/09), 20% on rottentomatoes.com, 36/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 4/10

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye
2008. Rated PG-13, 118 minutes.
Director: D.J. Caruso. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson, Jerry Ferrara.

Plot: Two strangers suddenly find themselves working together while on the run from the FBI and being guided by a mysterious woman who's not only one step ahead of the action but somehow able to track their every move.

The Good: Like any chase movie worth it's car crashes, it has some spectacular sequences. There's all sorts of property damage with debris flying everywhere. It's loud and intense. To keep that tension up there's the mysterious voice on all those ominous phone calls. She intrigues us and keeps us guessing as to who she is and what she wants our heroes to do. As usual, LaBeouf ably portrays a guy who's a bit of a jerk but finds himself in an unbelievable situation. The rest of the cast, though more talented is solid but not overwhelming. Still, it's amusing to watch Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson try to out-stern one another.

The Bad: Once we find out what's going on, the whole thing falls apart. Essentially, it repeats the mistakes of Stealth, I, Robot and other similarly themed movies. An hour plus of mindless, but still fun action gives way to another 45 minutes of paranoid silliness we've seen before without injecting anything new or interesting. It clunks to it's conclusion hoping the noise and vision of the special fx will be enough to win you over. They don't because the script invites you to dig a little deeper but when you do you don't find anything. Contrast this with LaBeouf's prior big-budget special fx monster Transformers. That movie is also loud and silly. However, it works because it never pretends to be anything more whereas EE does and gets caught in its own hoax.

The Ugly: Crystal explosives. Nice.Recommendation: If you just want to see an almost endless string of chase scenes with lots of crashes and explosions then have at it. Just don't go looking for anything more because even though it tempts us with the possibility of depth, it remains a shallow pool.

The Opposite View: William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

What the Internet Says: 6.7/10 on imdb.com (4/30/09), 27% on rottentomatoes.com, 43/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 5/10