Movie/TV Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “Escape Plan” (Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment)

Having spent much of their careers as box-office rivals, the muscle-bound, Austrian-born former Governor of California and the Italian Stallion team up once again, following “The Expendables.”

Structural engineer/former lawyer Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is the author of the definitive, non-fiction tome, “Compromising Correctional Institutional Security,” which finds the glitches in prisons around the country. Usually, he’s an undercover consultant, incarcerated as a phony criminal, who then breaks free to illustrate the particular penitentiary’s potential flaws and serve as an advisor in correcting them. After escaping from a Colorado Federal Prison, Breslin is ostensibly hired for five million dollars by a CIA operative to infiltrate a new, ultra-secret, privately funded, high-tech, heavily-fortified, off-the-grid facility, known as “The Tomb,” filled with underground glass cells housing “the worst of the worst” with masked, jackbooted guards patrolling on catwalks above them. Problem is: his evacuation code doesn’t work and the warden who knows his real identity has gone missing.  Breslin and his co-workers (Vincent D’Onofrio, Amy Ryan, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) have been deceived and double-crossed. Joined by gregarious, goateed, German-speaking fellow inmate Emil Rottmeyer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and an Islamic terrorist (Faran Tahir), barrel-chested Breslin is determined to outwit and outsmart soft-spoken, sadistic warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel), an amateur lepidopterist – a.k.a. collector of insects like butterflies/moths – and his heinous henchman, Drake (Vinnie Jones).

Generically written for these hulking, monosyllabic, sexagenarian relics by Miles Chapman and Arnell Jesko, it’s burdened with, slow-paced, banal, often unintelligible dialogue, except for Schwarzenegger’s amusing one-liner: “You hit like a vegetarian!”

Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom (“1408”) places heavy-handed, pedestrian emphasis on extreme close-ups and swaggering, yet sloppy, testosterone-laden, tough-guy violence, except when Sam Neill appears briefly as the kindly, none-too-bright prison doctor, experiencing a crisis-of-conscience which forces him to look up the Hippocratic Oath.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Escape Plan” is creaky, chugging 5. Lumbering lunkheads!

Susan Granger’s review of “Machete Kills” (Open Road Films)

Opening and concluding with a fake trailer for “Machete Kills Again…In Space,” independent film-maker Robert Rodriguez continues his long-running nostalgia for cheesy exploitation B-movies, marking his 11^th film collaboration with Danny Trejo that began with their “Grindhouse” homage.

This time, the stoic, hatched-faced hit man Machete (Trejo) is offered not only redemption but also American citizenship from the President of the United States (Charlie Sheen, a.k.a. his birth name of Carlos Estevez) if he can stop crazed Mexican revolutionary Marcos Mendoza (Oscar nominee Demian Bichir) from firing nuclear missiles at Washington, D.C.  In order to accomplish his mission, Machete will be working with a handler, Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard).

“You know Mexico. Hell, you are Mexico,” tequila-swilling, babe-boffing President Rathcock tells him. So without much difficulty, Machete manages to infiltrate Mendoza’s compound in Acapulco, where he discovers that the erstwhile drug lord not only suffers from multiple personality disorder but also has the missile launching device implanted in his heart. The only solution is to take Mendoza back to the bomb’s creator, a diabolical arms dealer/religious crackpot, Luther Voz (Mel Gibson), who has taken refuge in outer space. So much for the campy plot – and the idiotic on-screen notification to put on 3D glasses, even though there’s no 3D.

Based on a chaotic story by Robert Rodriguez and Marcel Rodriguez, it’s monotonously scripted by Kyle Ward. In this family endeavor, Robert Rodriguez directs, photographs and edits the seemingly endless – and senseless – violence, aided in the latter task by Rebecca Rodriguez. Michelle
Rodriguez and Jessica Alba reprise characters they’ve previously established. Former “Spy Kids” adolescent Alexa Vega has grown into a nubile sexpot, working with Sofia Vergara, a man-hating whorehouse madam who feasted on her abusive father’s genitals and has transformed her breast and crotch into lethal weapons. Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Walt Goggins supply more villainy as a shape-shifting assassin known as El Camelon.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Machete Kills” is a trivial and, eventually, tedious 2. Enough already.

Susan Granger’s review of “12 Years a Slave” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

In 1841, an educated, well-to-do, freeborn black man with a wife and children in upstate New York, Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was lured from his Saratoga Springs home, ostensibly to work as a musician in Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and shipped in shackles and chains to New Orleans. Forcibly renamed Platt Hamilton by a slave trader (Paul Giamatti), he was sold to genteel mill owner/Baptist minister William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who was impressed with Platt’s skilled fiddle-playing. But Platt’s obvious intelligence infuriated Ford’s brutal, spiteful overseer Tibeats (Paul Dano), who hung him from a tree, forcing him to struggle to keep his footing for hours on end.  To save Platt from another lynching, Ford sold him to despicably sadistic plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). That’s where Platt met an itinerant Canadian carpenter, Samuel Bass (Brad Pitt), an abolitionist who promised to contact Northrup’s family, leading to his eventual release from bondage.

A British actor of Nigerian descent, Chiwetel Ejiofor (“American Gangster”) embodies imprisoned Northrup’s mental suffering and physical torment, displaying the dignified resiliency which enabled him to endure and survive. Mexican-born, Kenyan-raised, Yale School of Drama graduate, Lupita Nyong’o delivers a heart-wrenching portrayal of Patsey, the long-suffering, cotton-picking slave who becomes psychopathic Epps’ mistress, arousing the ire of his refined, yet intolerant wife (Sarah Paulson).

Based on Northrup’s historically complex memoir, published in 1853, a year after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” it’s episodically adapted by British-born director Steve McQueen (“Shame,” “Hunger”) and novelist John Ridley (“Red Tails,” “Three Kings”), realistically photographed by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt at four Louisiana plantations and sensitively scored by Hans Zimmer.  Reminiscent of
the TV mini-series “Roots,” it’s a heavy, serious, horrifyingly authentic and emotionally devastating slave drama which, along with 2013’s “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” and “Fruitvale Station,” unflinchingly chronicles the African-American experience.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “12 Years a Slave” is a savage, uncompromising 8. Gruesomely cringe-inducing, this true tale will shock you and anger you, but it may also touch you very deeply.

Susan Granger’s review of “All Is Lost” (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

In counterpoint to “Gravity,” about an astronaut’s struggle to survive in space, J.C. Chandor’s drama revolves around a lone sailor’s struggle to survive at sea.

The challenge begins as a 39-foot yacht, is struck by a metal shipping container, filled with Chinese-made children’s shoes.  The Virginia Jean’s grizzled owner (Robert Redford) awakens, inundated by seawater pouring into the cabin.  In the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean with his navigation equipment deactivated and his radio in need of repair, he is barely able to patch up the damaged hull before he’s battered by the wind and rain from a violent storm, which capsizes the boat in open water, 1700 miles from the Sumatra Straits. Perilously adrift in a life raft, using only a sextant and nautical maps to chart his progress, the resourceful mariner must improvise. His strategy is to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane – in hope of hailing a passing vessel. But soon sharks are circling, his water supply is exhausted and he’s fighting for his life.

Although there is almost no dialogue, charismatic Robert Redford’s compelling, subtly edgy, complex performance is intelligent and intensely focused, combining insight with uncertainty and fear, evoking memories of his earlier, often underestimated, work in the equally rugged “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972).  Now in his mid-70s, Redford reportedly performed the majority of his own stunts, and an inevitable Best Actor Oscar nomination is well deserved.

Writer/director J.C. Chandor, who garnered a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination for his first film, “Margin Call,” boldly relies on minimalist, Hemingwayesque realism and naturalistic sounds to sustain seafaring suspense in what might be interpreted as an environmental, perhaps metaphysical, allegory.  There are no tricks or gimmicks, no flashbacks with secondary characters to explain the nameless man’s family situation. It’s all about ingenuity and dogged perseverance – superbly chronicled by cinematographers Frank G. DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini and scored by Alex Ebert.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “All Is Lost” is an awesome 8, an extraordinary adventure on an unforgiving sea.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Fifth Estate” (DreamWorks/Disney)

Based on real events, this edgy, dramatic thriller exposes the deceptions, deceits and cyber-power wielded by Julian Assange, founder/creator of WikiLeaks.

The story begins when arrogant Australian anarchist Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who’s determined to use his database to uncover corporate fraud and government corruption, is joined in this endeavor by an idealistic partner/assistant, Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Bruhl). Railing against injustice, they bring down Swiss bank Julius Baer, display Kenyan death squads, disclose the identities of neo-Nazi British National Party members, and post a video illustrating how the murder of two Reuters journalists was covered up by U.S. troops in Iraq. But all that was minor compared with WikiLeaks’ publication of Bradley Manning’s theft of classified military documents and diplomatic cables from Iraq and Afghanistan – in conjunction with The New York Times, London’s The Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel – a depiction of institutionalized violence that’s been compared with the Pentagon Papers. Problem was: the WikiLeaks posting of unredacted names threatened the lives of loyal informers.

The title encompasses any digital-age communication group, including the blogosphere, in opposition to mainstream media: The First Estate refers to the clergy, The Second Estate to the nobility, The Third Estate to the commoners and The Fourth Estate to the press.

Based on “Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website” by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy” by David Leigh and Luke Harding, it’s unevenly adapted by Josh Singer and erratically directed by Bill Condon (“Kinsey,” “Gods and Monsters”) with too little un-biased backstory and too much feverish frenzy. “The Social Network” was far more compelling.

Wearing a white/blond wig, British actor Benedict Cumberbatch (TV’s “Sherlock Holmes”) embodies megalomaniacal Assange’s ruthless manipulation, while Daniel Bruhl (Niki Lauda in “Rush”) serves as his rational counterpoint – with Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci and David Thewlis lending support.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Fifth Estate” is a chaotic, speculative 6, haphazardly revealing the state of 21^st century internet journalism which, seemingly, lacks any semblance of accountability.

Susan Granger’s review of “Captain Phillips” (Sony/Columbia Pictures)

In April, 2009, four impoverished Somali fishermen hijacked the Danish container ship Maersk Alabama, loaded with 2400 tons of commercial cargo and 200 tons of food aid, in the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa. Its 53 year-old American Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) was taken hostage by the ransom-demanding pirate leader, Muse (Barkhad Abdi), igniting a dramatic five-day siege involving a U.S. destroyer, Navy SEAL snipers and F.B.I. negotiators.

Phillips’ wife prescient wife (Catherine Keener) was concerned about his safety as he left their Vermont home for Salahah, Oman, to take command of the enormous vessel bound for Mombasa, Kenya.  Worried about a possible attack, Phillips held a security drill as they approached the Somali basin, so that when raiders first approached in small wooden skiffs, they were able to use evasive maneuvers. But the next day, when the unarmed transport was boarded, Phillips ordered his well-trained crew to hide in the engine room. “Relax,” says machine-gun toting Muse, upon reaching the bridge. “No Al Qaeda here. Just business.”

Despite being abducted, bound and trapped in a metal lifeboat, resourceful, resilient Phillips, a veteran merchant mariner, is stealthily determined to out-maneuver Muse and his squabbling, bedraggled cohorts, feigning mechanical failure and offering cash from an onboard safe.

Inspired by Phillips’ own memoir and tautly adapted by Billy Ray (“Breach,” “Shattered Glass”), it’s directed by Paul Greengrass, who dealt with critical urgency before in “United 93” about the 9/11 hijacking, “Bloody Sunday” about a British massacre in Northern Ireland, and ”Green Zone” about the Iraq War, with Barry Ackroyd’s hand-held cinematography adding claustrophobic veracity. Above all, the suspense is anchored by Tom Hanks’ authentic, subtly nuanced Everyman performance, one that should earn the two-time Oscar winner another nomination.

FYI: according to a 2012 Oceans Beyond Piracy report, over the past 20 years, there have been nearly 100 similar hijackings, resulting in a loss of $18 billion annually from the global economy.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Captain Phillips” is a tense 10, a relentless, edge-of-your-seat action thriller.

Susan Granger’s review of “Parkland” (Millennium Entertainment)

Commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is fast approaching, so what Peter Landesman’s episodic recounting of the aftermath of that tragedy has in its favor is timeliness.

Adapted from Vincent Bugliosi’s “Four Days in November” (2008), it’s named for the Dallas hospital where the President and, later, Lee Harvey Oswald were rushed on November 22, 1963. Fatally wounded Kennedy was still breathing when he arrived in Parkland Memorial’s Emergency Room, where he was thrust into the hands of a trauma team headed by a young resident, Dr. Charles ‘Jim’ Carrico (Zac Efron), who ordered that they leave the President’s boxer shorts on while trying to
resuscitate him. Trying to staunch the bleeding and assess the damage, Carrico was assisted by Head Nurse Doris Nelson (Marcia Gay Harden) and another resident, Dr. Malcolm Perry (Colin Hanks)

While flashbacks show JFK (Brett Stimely) and his beautiful wife Jacqueline (Kat Steffens) before
bullets were fired, journalist-turned-writer/director Landesman focuses far more on secondary figures whose lives they impacted. The ensemble includes Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), who had unwittingly photographed the pivotal 26-seconds on a Super 8 camera. Lee Harvey Oswald’s stunned brother Robert (James Badge Dale) and mother Marguerite (Jacki Weaver) heard about what had happened on the radio. And, apparently, FBI Agent James Hosty (Ron Livingston) had Lee Harvey Oswald in his office just days before and was compiling a file on him, which he was later ordered to destroy to save the Bureau from embarrassment.

James Newton Howard’s melancholy score seems appropriate, and Landesman concludes with a statement from veteran newsman Walter Cronkite: “If in the search of our conscience, we find a new dedication to the American concepts that brook no political, sectional, religious or racial divisions, then it may be possible to say that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not die in vain.”

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Parkland” is a pretentious, unproductive 5, a stylized postscript revealing no new insights or relevant information, nothing that historians and conspiracy theorists have not already rehashed.

Susan Granger’s review of “Runner Runner” (20^th Century-Fox)

Set in the world of online gambling, this story revolves around Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake), a mathematically adept Princeton grad student who used to work on Wall Street but, unlike his bosses, lost everything in the 2008 meltdown. Now he works as an “initiator,” collecting a commission for directing fellow Ivy Leaguers to a poker wagering website.

After a ‘cease-and-desist’ threat of expulsion from Dean Monroe (Bob Gunton), Richie bets his tuition bankroll on a round of digital Texas Hold ‘Em – which, against all odds, he loses. Believing that he’s been swindled, Richie travels to Costa Rica to confront the online poker company’s CEO Ivan Black (Ben Affleck), who lives offshore, outside federal jurisdiction. It’s a remarkable coincidence that he arrives in San Jose just as a rousing gambling convention convenes and meets Block, who promptly offers him a lucrative job, ostensibly grooming him as a protégé. Then there’s
flirtatious Rebecca (Gemma Arterton), who may or may not be Ivan’s exclusive arm candy. Not surprisingly, Richie soon grows suspicious of his devious, obviously corrupt boss, who enjoys feeding chicken carcasses to his pet crocodiles and cites Meyer Lansky as an ethical idol. When an FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) pressures Richie to turn informant to take down Ivan on criminal charges, he faces a high-stakes moral dilemma.

Director Brad Furman (“The Lincoln Lawyer,” “The Take”) encounters insurmountable obstacles working with Brian Koppelman and David Levien’s (“Rounders,” “Oceans 13”) sketchy, stilted, contrived and certainly-not-credible script, but his casting sense remains sharp. Ben Affleck (“Argo”) embodies his contemptible character, while Justin Timberlake (“The Social Network”) oozes earnestness, proving, once again, that this pop singer can be convincing as an actor.

Exotic Puerto Rico doubles for Costa Rica here, and product placement spotters should note Richie
orders Bud Light, which is not surprising since that beverage is a Justin Timberlake concert sponsor.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Runner Runner” stacks the deck with a dicey 4, meaning
that buying a ticket is a gamble that doesn’t pay off. Rent “Rounders” (1998) instead.

Susan Granger’s review of “All is Bright” (Anchor Bay)

After an auspicious directing debut with “Junebug” (2005), Phil Morrison was teetering on the brink of success but this strangely dark comedy is a disappointment, despite the best efforts of a first-rate cast.

It’s late November in wintry Quebec when Dennis Girard (Paul Giamatti) is released after spending
four years in prison for robbery. Trudging home, he discovers that his ex-wife Therese (Amy Landecker) will not allow him stay in the house because she has told their daughter Michi that he died of cancer and that she’s taken up with his amiable, French Canadian ex-partner/buddy Rene (Paul Rudd), who is planning to divorce his wife to marry her. After an angry confrontation with Rene, frantic, penniless Dennis demands to team up with him to cross the border to sell Christmas trees on a street corner in Brooklyn, despite a warning from his parole officer not to leave the country. Guilt-riddled Rene agrees – after presenting young Michi with an Advent calendar to mark off the days that they’re gone. Former thieves – for whom lying, cheating and stealing is a way of life – they’re both determined to go straight. Taking time out from their persistent arguments about which of them really deserves Therese, morose, misanthropic Dennis is befriended by a quirky Russian customer, Olga (Sally Hawkins), a dentist’s assistant who’s house-sitting her employer’s brownstone. After he delivers her tree, she astutely observes, “You have a heart like Putin.” Though plagued with arthritis, Olga happens to be an accomplished pianist, which is convenient since Dennis is determined to come back with a piano for Michi.

Scripted as a character study by Melissa James Gibson (FX’s “The Americans”), it’s syrupy, predictable and contrived, although Phil Morrison’s direction clearly evokes the desperation of hard economic times which is particularly poignant during the holiday season. In counterpoint to the story’s depressing solemnity, Graham Reynolds’ jazzy musical score consists of upbeat Christmas music.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “All is Bright” is a forgettable 4. It’s a wistful, joyless cinematic interlude.

Susan Granger’s review of “Gravity” (Warner Bros.)

Not since Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” has there been a sci-fi fantasy as thrilling and intensely gripping as Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity.”

In the dark depths of outer space, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a payload specialist on her first mission, is determined to repair a glitch in the Hubble telescope, trying to ignore the genial bantering of veteran NASA astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), who’s testing a new jet pack. “Houston, I have a bad feeling about this mission,” he says, while orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. Sure
enough, within moments, their shuttle Explorer is suddenly destroyed by discarded debris from an obsolete satellite and its crew incinerated. As the sole survivors, Stone and Kowalsky are stranded and spinning out of control, unable to communicate with Mission Control. Tethered to one another, their only hope is reaching abandoned Russian space station that might have a workable re-entry vehicle – and, beyond that, there’s more peril.

While George Clooney contributes wryly ingratiating humor, this is Sandra Bullock’stour-de-force. In a rare moment of respite, as she’s floating, curled into a fetal position, her fear and dread of being alone in the universe is palpable. Yet she’s brave, resourceful and fiercely determined to overcome immeasurable obstacles in order to survive. Like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” Ryan Stone, at first, yearns to escape from Earth; eventually, all she desires is the force that will enable her to go home.

Collaborating with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and special effects wizard Tim Webber, who seamlessly interweaves the latest technological innovations with post-production 3D
Mexican director/editor/producer Alfonso Cuaron (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” “Children of Men”), co-writing the screenplay with his son Jonas, has created an immersive, cosmic 3D experience.  Utilizing long, intricate tracking shots,coupled with astounding visual effects and sound complexity, Cuaron creates a luminescent virtual reality that enhances the story’s profound emotional core, despite its sometimes far-fetched authenticity.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gravity” is a wondrously innovative 9, an awesome spectacle not to be missed.