The Purge: Anarchy

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo.

2014. Rated PG-13, 136 minutes.

Cast:

Chris Evans

Scarlett Johansson

Samuel L. Jackson

Robert Redford

Anthony Mackie

Sebastian Stan

Frank Grillo

Cobie Smulders

Emily VanCamp

Hayley Atwell

Like Thor and Iron Man we find Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Evans), trying to piece his life back together "after New York," or the events of The Avengers. In case you haven't kept up with what's going on, Cap has an additional hurdle. He's not long been woken after having been frozen for nearly seventy years. He has a lot of catching up to do. Of course, that has to wait because there's a world to save. Some bad folks, I won't say who, have taken over SHIELD. They plan on restoring world order, and running things, by eliminating every person in the world they deem to be a threat. This numbers some twenty million people. Yes, Captain America, Black Widow (Johansson), and Nick Fury (Jackson) are included in that group. Superhero stuff ensues.

One thing we notice early on is that the tone of this movie is different from just about every other in Marvel's shared universe, with the first Captain America being the closest one. The rest go out of their way to make us laugh. While there is some humor here, that certainly isn't the case. Things don't quite veer into The Dark Knight territory, but it is a fairly serious minded superhero flick. The movie uses this to tremendous advantage by creating tension sooner and rarely diffusing it. Action scenes are given more oomph. Combine all this with the fact that neither our hero nor the people helping him are actually invincible and that tension is increased a bit more. We feel like there's something on the line.

Captain America himself is a big asset. Chris Evans has found the hero he should be playing. As The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four series, he was too much. He got to be real annoying, real fast. In other things, I've usually found him too bland to make me care about whoever he was playing. The character of Captain America calls for a certain level of blandness. Like Superman, he represents the cheesy ideals of a simpler time. He is also a physical specimen superior to the rest of us. Evans embodies all of this. We believe him when he expresses confliction over the politics at play within SHIELD and elsewhere. Unlike Superman, and what ultimately makes him a better fit for the movies, is that he is not indestructible. As enhanced as he is, he will still succumb to many of the same things we will. Granted, none of us are jumping out a plane with no parachute and landing unharmed, but he can still be taken out by a gunshot or be cut by a knife.

Helping us psychoanalyze our hero are Black Widow and Sam Wilson, aka Falcon (Mackie). Both ask him tons of personal questions. Black Widow does so mostly in an effort to help him kick start his love life. Meanwhile, Falcon tries to help him fill in the blanks created by seventy years of sleep. It's a cool way for us to get to know a little more about Cap, and inject some laughter into the proceedings. Johansson gives her best performance of the character, to date, and Mackie does a very nice job with his role. He is an actor I've admired for a while now, so I'm happy he's getting a chance at becoming part of a huge franchise on a recurring basis (hopefully). Speaking of our supporting cast, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Samuel L. Jackson. He continues to make Nick Fury his own.

All of these performers come together to tell us an intriguing story. It's the saga of a prodigal son returning, but not sure what to, and if he still belongs. It's the self-examination of a man who is struggling with his sense of right and wrong. His feelings are egged on by his lack of trust in the powers that be. These are issues he never had to deal with during his World War II days. Eliminating the enemy was easy because everyone knew who they were. With evil-doers more clandestine than ever and their identities rapidly changing, Cap has a lot tougher job than he once had.

Examining our hero's mental state is fine and dandy, but it all would be for naught in a boring movie. See Ang Lee's Hulk for proof. Luckily, this one not only has tons of action, it has tons of good action. The battles Cap gets into are some doozies. His hand-to-hand combat is shot in a way that owes a lot to The Bourne Identity. The camera is a bit shaky and closer than normal. It works to emphasize the force and speed at which our hero is moving. His best fight is one with a person who has a very interesting identity. However, the best action scene of them all might be one that doesn't include Cap at all. Instead, it features Nick Fury trying to escape with his life. It's Fury's finest scene in any movie, period.

One of the negatives in all this awesomeness is something this movie imposes on itself and wouldn't change. That problem is that it's "just" a Captain America flick. Marvel's shared universe concept comes back to bite them. By that, I mean we already know that this is a world where Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk exist. The conflict of this movie certainly seems like a big enough issue to get their attention. Alas, none of them are even doing a fly-by to see if Cap is okay. This is by no means a deal breaker. However, it just feels a bit odd that so big a problem get such a limited response. On the technical side, there were a couple of hard to ignore continuity issues. These mainly involve just when and where Falcon is able to access his wings. He seemed to just get them out of nowhere on occasion. Again, not a deal breaker, but an annoyance.

The bigger negative is Captain America's abilities. I mentioned them as a positive, earlier. I also exclaimed how great it is that he isn't immortal. Still, just how enhanced he is is a bit vague and inconsistent. Remember that chuteless sky-dive? It looks really cool, but leaves us a bit puzzled when something of much lesser impact than landing that jump hurts him. It's a problem the character has been dealing with since long before he made the leap from the comic book pages to the big screen. Therefore, I won't knock the movie too much. It's really hard to. To be honest, this is arguably the best Marvel movie of this whole shared universe thing.

Zero Dark Thirty

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

2012. Rated R, 157 minutes.

Cast:

Jessica Chastain

Jason Clarke

Kyle Chandler

Joel Edgerton

Jennifer Ehle

Mark Strong

James Gandolfini

Edgar Ramirez

Frank Grillo

Harold Perrineau

It’s quite simple, really. This is all about the almost decade long hunt for Osama bin Laden after the events of 9/11. Maya (Chastain) joins the CIA’s effort early on and eventually comes to spearhead it. We see her and her colleagues feverishly gathering intelligence and note the differences in how this is done before and after the general public found out about waterboarding. We see Maya persevere in the face of waning support from her superiors. Finally, we see…well, you know how this ends.

Movies based on true stories generally have to contend with the audience already knowing the outcome. Here, the problem is multiplied because a) it is more well-known than most and b) it’s still pretty fresh in our collective memory. The devil has to be in the details, and so it is. To that end, we get a procedural chronicling Maya’s difficult path to victory. It’s an atypical war movie in that it’s all about a chess match on the grandest scale, not an all out depiction of battle. However, there are bursts of violence sprinkled throughout and the culmination of all of our heroine’s work is the operation performed by Seal Team Six. By the way, this is done with great accuracy, according to everything I've heard or read about it.

Before we get to that finale, it’s all about war waged on multiple fronts. Most obviously, there is the overall war on terrorism. Within that broader scope, there is the war between the CIA and the White House over what procedures are acceptable and which are not. Then there is the war between Maya and her own bosses over whether or not to keep her pursuit alive. Speaking of alive, there is also the war to keep her that way once her identity becomes known to her enemies. As Maya, Jessica Chastain is nothing, if not fierce. Her ferocity is drawn from unwavering conviction. She is the type of person we viewers might not like if we had to work with/for her, but we’d appreciate her and be glad she’s on our side. It’s not that she’s mean or even inaccessible. It’s that to call her dedicated to the mission is like saying that Oprah has a little money tucked away.

Through Chastain’s performance, an excellent script and supporting cast, and the gravity of the situation, director Kathryn Bigelow crafts an engrossing film. It grabs hold of us as it explains the hows of the whats we already know. We’re intrigued by the process. When we get to the last scene, we do as Maya does. We exhale.

MY SCORE: 9/10

End of Watch

Directed by David Ayer.

2012. Rated R, 109 minutes.

Cast:

Jake Gyllenhaal

Michael Peña

Anna Kendrick

Natalie Martinez

America Ferrera

David Harbour

Frank Grillo

Cody Horn

Jaime FitzSimons

Brian (Gyllenhaal) and Mike (Peña) are partners in the LAPD. Together, they patrol some of the meanest streets in Los Angeles. Having spent countless hours in a squad car discussing anything and everything, they've grown to form a brotherly bond. Brian is a bachelor who studies law and shoots video of everything. We view most of the film through his lens. Mike is married with a baby on the way. We follow the dynamic duo as they serve and protect. Eventually, some overzealous tactics find them interfering with the business of a Mexican Cartel operating in the City of Angels. Hazards of the job ensue.

The main strength of End of Watch is that we come to know these officers as well as they know one another. We’re privy to some intimate conversations that inform us how each guy thinks. We appreciate them for who they are and can understand the choices they make, even if we don’t always agree. Both Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña help the process along with completely natural performances. We really feel as if we’re riding along with two cops on their day-to-day grind, passing downtime with both profundity and profanity. When off-duty, we even get to know their significant others: Mike’s wife Gabby (Martinez) and Brian’s girlfriend Janet (Kendrick). Even the other cops fit nicely into the story. Among these supporting players, look for America Ferrera who is very effective playing a role way off-type for her. It all helps create a well-rounded portrait of the two men at the eye of this particular storm.

Of course, watching a couple cops drive around in their squad car is only half the story. The more viscerally thrilling part is what happens when they’re actively fighting crime. These guys manage to stumble upon some really wild and gruesome scenarios. Some of them are more dangerous than others, a few of them heartbreaking, all of them heart-pounding. Though it all works itself into a coherent narrative, the plot doesn't dominate every waking moment as it would in most movies. It’s something that develops on the very edges of the peripheral awareness of our heroes. What they do know they don’t even take that seriously. This gives the story a more organic feel.

Unfortunately, some well-worn Hollywood tropes figure into our finale. While it is effective at making us sad, it’s still predictable. While I don’t find it to be quite racist, I might not argue with anyone who thinks otherwise. Point being, cinematic history certainly has its favorites which this movie doesn't deviate from. That said, the film creates a dilemma for itself. A slightly darker ending would likely be too cynical, a lighter one too easy. An inversion of what happens might be the braver conclusion, but less commercially viable. None of this is to say End of Watch is ruined by its climax. We’re still emotionally taxed by the last few frames. We've still had an enjoyable, if torturous, experience.

Mother's Day

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman.

2010. Rated R, 112 minutes. 
Cast: 
Rebecca De Mornay 
Jaime King 
Frank Grillo 
Patrick John Flueger 
Shawn Ashmore
 Lyriq Bent 
Briana Evigan 
Deborah Ann Woll 
Warren Kole 
Kandyse McClure 
Tony Nappo 
Lisa Marcos

Group A is a friendly crowd. They’re having a boozy fun time at the house of Daniel (Grillo) and Beth (King) to celebrate his birthday. There are nine, in all. Aside from our hosts, there is the young couple, the black couple, the middle aged guy/early 20s chick couple and random single female friend. Everyone is hanging out in the basement. It’s a nice setup: pool table, bar, music on blast – you know the deal.

Group B is not so friendly. Even though they’re very big on family, actually they are family, they’re not the kind you want to hang around. In fact, they’ve just finished robbing a bank. Well, it was a job gone horribly wrong. Johnny (O’ Leary), the youngest of the three brothers is dying in the back seat of the getaway car from a gunshot wound. Ike (Flueger) is the eldest. He controls the other two, somewhat, but the current situation has him a bit frazzled. The middle brother Addley (Kole) is always frazzled. It quickly becomes evident that their mother is the one who really pulls the strings. So it only makes sense that the boys head home to Mother’s (De Mornay) house. They come screeching into the driveway, burst in through the door and shout loudly for their mom. Lo and behold, the boys haven’t been in contact with her in a few months and are unaware that she lost the house due to foreclosure. That’s right, this is where Daniel and Beth live and Group A is hanging out downstairs. Not surprisingly, a hostage situation breaks out and luckily for the boys, there is a doctor is in the house. When they finally get a hold of mom on the phone, she fills the boys in on the house situation and hurries over to get things under control. Of course, Group A realizes that once she walks into the door, things have gotten considerably worse for their chances of survival.

From the moment Rebecca De Mornay appears on the screen we’re pretty much mesmerized. As our main protagonist, she gives a brilliantly odd performance that makes us believe we’re finding out what it would be like if June Cleaver (google her, young’uns) were a homicidal sociopath. She plays the role with unwavering assertion and drops the clichés our own mothers said to us in between giving her boys orders to do some heinous things. It’s a deliciously over the top and wicked performance that transcends many of the film’s weaker qualities.

Yes, there are some weaker qualities. For characters other than Mother, the dialogue is pretty much recycled from just about every other home invasion flick. Once you know the tropes the various characters represent, what’s going to come out of their mouths is fairly predictable. This bleeds into the rest of the movie, rendering it a bit easy to figure. Most figurable of all is the trite horror movie ending/set up for a sequel.

Thankfully, the movie creates plenty of tension and draws us to the edge of our seats with one outrageous scenario after another. As the movie goes on, the craziness gradually increases until we’re very near the breaking point. The stakes continuously grow as does the violence. Yes, it’s plenty violent and graphically so. Nothing less is to be expected from the same people heavily involved in the Saw franchise. So yeah, this isn’t for everyone.

Mother’s Day also manages to be fun. That’s because there is a thread of very dark comedy running all the way through the movie. It displays the kind of twisted sense of humor that only people with a twisted sense of humor will appreciate. This includes it functioning as a nasty little slice of recession era angst. It’s a remake of an old Troma movie from 1980 of the same name. I haven’t seen that one, but this may make me seek it out.

The Grey

Directed by Joe Carnahan.

2011. Rated R, 117 minutes.

Cast:

Liam Neeson

Dermot Mulroney

Frank Grillo

Dallas Roberts

Joe Anderson

James Badge Dale

Bren Bray

Anne Openshaw

Liam Neeson, I mean, Ottway and a bunch of other tough guys who work at an Alaskan outpost all board a plane heading south to Anchorage. Since it looks like it’s more fit for dusting crops in Alabama than carrying commuters through severe arctic weather, the plane shakes, rattles, rolls, and eventually crashes in the middle of an extremely cold nowhere. The survivors, Neeson included (screw it), in case you were somehow wondering, try to stay alive long enough to be rescued. Realizing the prospects of that are dim, our ragtag bunch starts walking in hopes of reaching some form of civilization. In addition to the cold, shortage of food and water, there is one other wee little problem: a pack of unbelievably large and hungry wolves is hunting them down and picking them off…dun dun dun…one by one.

I’ve told you everything you need to know. This is both the best and worst part of The Grey. It’s the best because you will get what you came for if you saw that the trailer and thought “cool!” On the other hand, despite all the dime store philosophizing done by the characters, this is a highly repetitive experience. The guys bicker about what course of action to take before settling on whatever Liam Neeson says. When they get to a stopping point they exchange stories that ineffectively try to get us to care about the various cardboard cutouts with which we are spending time. This is interspersed with Neeson’s atmospheric flashbacks and him telling us how smart the wolves are. Indeed, they seem to have studied “The Art of War”. Shortly thereafter, someone gets eaten. Rinse, repeat.

Predictability aside, The Grey can be fun to watch in a morbid way. The excitement lies purely in guessing who’s next to die and seeing how they perish. Even this wears thin after a while. Tone may be to blame, here. It strikes a pretty joyless one, having no sense of humor whatsoever. It behaves as if it’s not only made us care about a roster full of bland archetypes but made some great revelation about the spirit of man when it has done neither. Instead of being the dissertation on man’s resourcefulness in the face of extreme adversity it wants to be, it’s an overly serious slasher flick with gigantic Twilight-esque wolves collectively playing the Jason role and Neeson that of the final girl.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Warrior

Directed by Gavin O’Connor.

2011. Rated PG-13, 140 minutes.
Cast:
Nick Nolte
Tom Hardy
Joel Edgerton
Frank Grillo
Maximiliano Hernández
Kevin Dunn
Jennifer Morrison
Denzel Whitaker
Kurt Angle
Erik Apple

What happens when your demons catch up to you? Our three main characters in Warrior have to find out the answer to that very question. There’s Paddy AKA Pop (Nolte), and his two sons, Brendan (Edgerton) and Tommy (Hardy). The three have been estranged for quite some time. Pop is a drunk who abused the boys’ mother. He’s been sober for close to 1000 days. When he comes home one night he discovers Tommy waiting on his doorstep. We quickly learn that a few years ago Tommy took mom and fled in hopes of getting her as far away from Pop as possible. He seethes hatred for his old man, yet here he is. Brendan lives not too far from his father but refuses to see him, mostly for the same reason as his brother. However, there is even more to that dynamic. The two brothers aren’t speaking, either. Both are trained fighters, but not working as professionals. Still, they both decide now is the time to get back in the game and start seriously training for a very high profile mixed martial arts tournament where the winner takes home $5 million. They do so separately and without knowledge of what the other is doing, of course. Interestingly enough, Tommy asks Pop to work with him.

The three men share something I hesitate to call a bond. That would imply that what they have is a positive thing. Rest assured, it is not. It’s much more akin to shackles that keep them connected no matter how much they desire to be otherwise. Indeed, they are each other’s demons. It seems they’ve been haunting one another all of their lives. Despite all the anger between them, we empathize with each of them. We understand the actions of the two sons. Things are a little trickier with regards to Pop. However, we feel sorry for him. He desperately wants to make amends but knows his mistakes are unforgivable.

Besides watching the guys rage against each other, the reason the two brothers want and need the prize money is also explored. This adds to the drama and helps to flesh out the characters. The writing and the actors themselves aid in this also. Nolte and Hardy are particularly good. It’s one of Nolte’s best in years. He really conveys a man constantly grieving his own errors, desperate to reconcile with his offspring and feeling completely dejected. It’s heart wrenching stuff. Whenever Hardy’s on screen, Tommy’s anger consumes both him and us. We feel the chill of his coldness. However, knowing what’s gone on in his life, we totally understand. By the way, as Brendan, Joel Edgerton holds up well also. Unfortunately for him, his performance is bookended by two outstanding portrayals.

Don’t go getting the wrong idea. There is lots of MMA action. It’s oddly handled, though. It’s brutal, but only up to a point. Fists, elbows, feet and knees hit as bone-crunching noises threaten to blow out your speakers. Bodyslams certainly live up to their name. However, it’s all strangely sanitized to fit into the movie’s PG-13 packaging. In short, it’s a bloodless affair. Anyone who’s seen the sport in real life knows this isn’t the case. Often, someone is being pummeled but where they’re being hit is barely out of sight. When you see this realize it’s the camera doing what camera’s aren’t supposed to do: flincing.

The fighting in Warrior is not here to satisfy my bloodlust, though. It’s here to provide a triumphant achievement for one of the brothers. For this reason, it’s been called just another Rocky clone. I disagree. There is that element to Warrior, but it’s much more. It’s about the painful relationships the three men share. This comes through even in its most Rocky-esque moments. Though one son assumes the Balboa role, the other is no Apollo Creed. He’s much more reluctant hero than villain. However, we do get an Ivan Drago in the form of unbeatable Russian champion Koba (Angle). In reality, he’s merely an interesting sidebar. Finding a way to defeat him is not the point of the nearly two hours we spend with this dysfunctional family. The point is to see how much the thrill of victory can be tainted by the agony of defeat.

MY SCORE: 8.5/10