Lovelace

Trouble with the Curve

Directed by Robert Lorenz.

2012. Rated PG-13, 111 minutes.

Cast:

Clint Eastwood

Amy Adams

Justin Tumberlake

John Goodman

Chelcie Ross

George Wyner

Matthew Lillard

Robert Patrick

Joe Massingill

Ed Lauter

Tom Nowicki

Gus Lobel (Eastwood) has been a baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves for forever and a day. He loves the game so much he even named his daughter Mickey (Adams) after Mickey Mantle, his all-time favorite player. As it eventually happens to most of us, Gus’ eyes are going on him. That’s an even bigger deal than normal given his job. It doesn't help that Philip (Lillard), the young hotshot in the front-office wants to phase him out and rely much more heavily on his new fangled computers.

Luckily for Gus, he’s still got one friend who thinks like him and is willing to go to bat for him. That’s Pete (Goodman), who also works in the front-office. He figures out what’s wrong with his buddy and, in hopes of saving Gus’ job, convinces Mickey to tag along with her dad on a scouting trip to watch highly-touted prospect Bo Gentry (Massingill). Bo literally gets a hit on the first pitch of every at-bat until the plot requires otherwise. Since he’s so good, he is also an insufferable jackass. Scouting Bo aside, the real question is whether Gus and Mickey can survive each other. They don’t have much of a relationship mostly because Gus is a crotchety old dude who isn't happy unless he’s ripping someone a new one. Think Clint’s character from Gran Torino sans racism and cool car.

Watching Eastwood and Adams play off one another is somewhat intriguing. They combine to create a genuine portrayal of two people who care for each other but can’t communicate without it getting testy. A little less effective is the telegraphed-from-a-mile-away romance between Adams’ character and Johnny “Flame” Flanagan played by Justin Timberlake. He’s a former pitcher once scouted by Gus who is now a rival scout for the Boston Red Sox. Some of their scenes together are fun, especially if you enjoy baseball trivia. Unfortunately, her overly pushy boyfriend treating their relationship like a business transaction plus the fact that Flanagan is the only other scout that doesn't qualify for AARP makes it feel too preordained for us to get worked up about.

Things go along well enough for a good deal of the run time, but dammit, we've got problems to solve. Best handled of these is Gus and Mickey’s relationship. It feels like a logical resolution. On the other end of the spectrum is Gus’ work issue and Mickey’s love affair. That love thing is handled exactly like you suspect it will be but were praying the filmmakers aren't that lazy. Sorry, they are.

That work issue is even more ridiculous. Being a baseball fan with friends who shun the hordes of new statistics out there, I am acutely aware that this movie plays as the exact counter-argument to the Brad Pitt flick Moneyball. Even so, what this movie comes up with is just way too contrived for its own good. Basically, it’s “look what fell out of the sky!” What we’re left with is a film that plucks along in an occasionally interesting manner, thanks to the performances of its leads, but never quite gets us emotionally involved enough to buy the ending.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Identity Thief

 

Directed by Seth Gordon.
2013. Rated R, 111 minutes.

Cast:

Melissa McCarthy

Jason Bateman

Amanda Peet

Morris Chestnut

John Cho

Jon Favreau

Génesis Rodríguez

T.I.

Robert Patrick

Eric Stonestreet

Things are looking up for Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Bateman). He lives in Denver with his lovely wife Trish (Peet) and their two lovely kids and is about to start a new job paying him two hundred fifty thousand dollars per year. In the midst of all this joy, his credit cards start getting declined and he’s arrested for skipping a court date in Florida. Thing is, he’s never even been to Florida. He finds out what we already know: a woman who lives there has stolen his identity. Faced with not only the trhreat of going to jail, but losing his new job even if he doesn’t, Sandy heads to The Sunshine State to clear his feminine, ahem, unisex name. His plan is to bring the perp back to Denver and get her to confess. In case you were somehow wondering, that woman is Diana, played by Melissa McCarthy.

Thus far in her acting career, McCarthy has proven to be a force of nature. As the identity thief, she is again a ball of boundless comic energy. Bateman is a wonderful straight-man, seemingly a perfect foil for McCarthy’s off the wall antics. On paper, it’s a match made in heaven. On screen, things even start off well. The first half hour or so is entertaining despite being a violent, mean-spirited brand of humor. Bateman chases her down, she chops him in the throat, or does some other heinous thing to him, and scampers off. He chases her down again and the cycle continues. This is precisely the problem. After a funny sex scene, and the inclusion of some gangsters that never fully makes sense, we arrive at the point where we've heard all the jokes and seen all the gags this movie has to offer. That joke I cracked about Sandy’s name being feminine? We only hear it about half a million times during the movie. Identity Thief just keeps repeating itself until it mercifully decides to end.

To their credit, McCarthy and Bateman give it their all. There is a very nice ebb and flow to their scenes together which comprise most of the film. Unfortunately, even the best comedy routines lose their luster after we've seen them umpteen times. However, we can sense the spark they have. I think they could make a thoroughly hilarious movie if given better material. What they’re working with here is lazy writing content to let our stars do all the work on their own.

MY SCORE: 4/10

Safe House

Directed by Daniel Espinosa.

2012. Rated R, 115 minutes.

Cast:

Denzel Washington

Ryan Reynolds

Vera Farmiga

Brendan Gleeson

Fares Fares

Liam Cunningham

Nora Arnezeder

Rubén Blades

Sam Shepard

Robert Patrick

Joel Kinnaman

Tracie Thoms

Since he is an FBI agent you wouldn’t think Matt Weston (Reynolds) has a boring job, but he does. He spends all day, every day as a housekeeper. No, he’s not the kind you rich folks employ. He is the sole agent posted at a “safe house,” a temporary holding facility for bad guys collared by the agency. This one is in Cape Town, South Africa. There is rarely anyone to watch. Suddenly, there is when former agent and suspected traitor Tobin Frost (Washington) turns himself in after a rather tense set of events has him staring death in the face. He’s brought to the safe house by a whole team of agents. Of course, things don’t go so smoothly. Some very bad people are after Mr. Frost and shoot their way in. After a narrow escape, Matt must not only stay alive but somehow get Frost safely to the higher-ups. His task is made even more difficult by the fact that Frost doesn’t really want to be in custody. The two men playing cat and mouse with both the bad guys and each other ensues.

Speedy pacing is this movie’s best friend. Though it doesn’t really break any new ground in the action/espionage genre, it does keep its foot fastened to the gas pedal. The next action sequence is never far off. For the most part, they don’t disappoint. They’re tense and just enough over the top to remain exciting. They’re helped by a narrative that functions enough to keep us somewhat interested in the fates of these two guys. Many of the twists and turns we can see coming pretty far off. However, in this instance they’re still pulled off nicely. So while it is predictable, it still works.

 

Lots of credit for clichés working well is due to our leads. Denzel does the thing where he’s constantly trying to pull jedi mind tricks on the other guy. Pure Denzel. Like Pacino, Nicholson and De Niro, he’s in that rarified air where he’s always enjoyable even though he’s basically playing the same character he always does, just with different occupations.

By contrast, Denzel’s co-star Ryan Reynolds mostly forgoes his usual wiseass routine, giving us more of a straight-laced action hero. Even without his normal one-liners, the banter between he and Denzel is fun and he becomes easy to root for. For me, it’s his best performance in a non-comedy except possibly the underrated remake of The Amityville Horror. Yeah, I’m the one person that likes that movie.

If you’re just looking for an action flick to pass time, you could certainly do worse than Safe House. Despite the fact it offer little or nothing in the way of originality, it’s still an enjoyable ride. It gives us what we came for the way we like. Is it a masterpiece? No. However, for a popcorn flick it works fine. It goes down smoothly. Perhaps it’s a tad too smooth as there are no real surprises, but smooth nonetheless.

 

MY SCORE: 6.5/10