Movie/TV Reviews

Shoot ‘Em Up

Susan Granger’s review of “Shoot ‘Em Up” (New Line Cinema)

There’s something to be said for truth in advertising. Never have so many bullets been fired by so many men – for the sheer fun of it.
As enigmatic Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) sits on a bench, waiting for a bus and munching a big, crispy carrot, a pregnant woman, obviously in labor, runs past him, chased by a gunman with a car full of black-clad cohorts. Dashing to her defense, he polishes off her pursuers while delivering the baby, blasting the umbilical cord with a gunshot. Carrying the woman’s corpse – and the newborn – he escapes. While intending to find the infant a proper home, he’s perpetually followed by a really, really nasty bad guy (Paul Giamatti) – and an army of thugs. Along the way, glowering Mr. Smith recruits a lactating prostitute (beautiful Monica Belluci) whose kinky specialty is wet-nursing clients. As for a semi-coherent plot, it seems the powerful gun lobby is involved in a shadowy scheme to harvest bone marrow for an influential U.S. Senator running for President.
Satirically written and directed by Michael Davis (“Eight Days a Week”), it’s outrageously violent and intentionally trashy – at warp speed. With tongue firmly planted in cheek and a deadpan demeanor, Clive Owens (“Children of Men”) embodies “the angriest man in the world.” As the heinous villain/henpecked husband, Paul Giamatti (“The Nanny Diaries”) is reprehensible. “Do you know why a gun is better than a wife?” he asks one of his thugs. “You can put a silencer on a gun.”
For some, this perversity may be entertaining; for others (like me), it’s just inane. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Shoot ‘Em Up” is a silly, smarmy, shell-shocked 6, offering frenetic, absurdist, over-the-top violence – like a live-action cartoon.

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The Kingdom

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan GrangerÕs review of ‘The Kingdom” (Universal Pictures)

If you like compelling, politically provocative, action-packed entertainment, donÕt miss Peter BergÕs ÒThe KingdomÓ Ð with a timely plot plucked from current events.
The title sequence deftly summarizes AmericaÕs involvement with Saudi Arabia, delineating how oil has not only made us dependent on the friendship of the Royal Family but has also incited the wrath of Wahabi militants within the Kingdom.
When thereÕs a massive suicide bomber attack on an American compound, aimed at oil company workers and their families, two Saudi officers are also shot. While the FBI usually investigates when Americans are murdered on foreign soil, the Attorney General (Danny Huston) refuses to authorize any official action, preferring to leave it to the diplomats. But Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) prevails Ð one of his colleagues was killed Ð and assembles a top-notch team (Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman). Given only five days, they must circumvent an abrasive American diplomat (Jeremy Piven), sort through the debris and find the culprit, accompanied by Saudi Colonel Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) and Police Sergeant Haytham (Ali Suliman).
.Loosely based on the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, and directed by Peter Berg, the procedural – yet gung-ho – screenplay attempts to delineate the culture clash. While Foxx is revenge-driven, heÕs also a devoted father; GarnerÕs a lollipop-loving combatant, etc. Ð and this complexity extends to the Arab characters too. But, rather than exuding gritty authenticity, Mauro FioreÕs jerky, handheld camerawork is confusing Ð and annoying.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, ÒThe KingdomÓ is an exciting 8. But thereÕs an inherent problem: the concept that only Americans can solve the worldÕs problems could be what got us into our on-going conflict in the first place.

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Mr. Woodcock

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Mr. Woodcock” (New Line Cinema)

The title of the picture is about as funny as this gets. There’s not much class here.
Billy Bob Thornton has played nasty roles before in “Bad News Bears,” “School for Scoundrels” and “Bad Santa,” so it’s not much of a stretch for him to tackle Mr. Woodcock, an abusive physical-education teacher who falls in love with a woman whose son he gleefully tormented all through middle-school.
It all begins as John Farley (Seann William Scott of “American Pie”) returns to his Nebraska hometown on a promotional tour for his best-selling self-help book, “Letting Go: Getting Past Your Past.” To his horror, he discovers that his widowed mother Beverly (Susan Sarandon) is sexually involved with the tyrannical jock who humiliated him as a kid. Memories of the suffering he endured during his chubby, geeky adolescence overwhelm reason as Farley sets out to sabotage their wedding plans.
Written by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert and originally scheduled for release last year, “Mr. Woodcock” was temporarily shelved and several of director Craig Gillespie’s original scenes were re-shot by producer David Dobkin, who directed “Wedding Crashers.”
To his credit, Billy Bob Thornton resists the temptation to ham-it-up, delivering vulgar contemptuousness with a stone-face, leaving the hysteria to Seann William Scott. Susan Sarandon is given little to do but react. In supporting roles, Amy Poehler nails Farley’s nasty publicist, Ethan Supplee scores as Farley’s old friend and (uncredited) Bill Macy demonstrates the genetic derivation of Woodcock’s obnoxiousness.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mr. Woodcock” is a flabby, unfocused 5. The only redeeming aspect of this ridiculous comedy is that it skewers those sweat-suited phys-ed sadists we all remember from gym class, but is that satisfaction really worth the price of admission?

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The Hunting Party

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Hunting Party” (The Weinstein Company)

In this a political thriller about reckless TV journalists-turned-bounty hunters, the first words on the screen are: “Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true.”
When disgraced veteran journalist Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) discovers that his trusty camera operator, Duck (Terrence Howard), is back in Sarajevo – a decade after the war – holding a cushy job working with the network anchorman (James Brolin), he tracks Duck down and presents a bizarre proposal: an ‘exclusive’ with the elusive (and fictional) Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes), a Balkan war criminal who killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims and tops the world’s ‘most wanted’ list.
Never mind that the CIA, NATO, the UN and The Hague are hunting for him – and there’s a $5 million bounty on his head. To complicate matters, a network exec’s eager son, Benjamin (Jesse Eisenberg), a Harvard grad, insists on accompanying them. Thus begins a horrific road trip.
Based on a true story by Scott Anderson that was published in Esquire magazine back in 2005, this dark comedy, cleverly adapted and directed by Richard Shepherd (“The Matador”), exudes irony and irreverence – if not plausibility.
It’s obvious that Richard Gere (“The Hoax”) relishes the role of the hard-drinking Simon – whose on-air meltdown cost him his career – and his perilous, high-stakes gamble has a revenge motive, since Simon’s pregnant Bosnian girl-friend was killed by the Serbs under the Fox’s orders. As his reluctant accomplice, Terrence Howard is as convincing then he was opposite Jodie Foster in “The Brave One,” while Jesse Eisenberg (“The Squid and the Whale”) does the best he can with what is, essentially, an underwritten role.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Hunting Party” is a cynical 7, highlighting the absurdity of war.

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The Brave One

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Brave One” (Warner Bros.)

Victim to vigilante: that’s the emotional journey Jodie Foster takes in this action drama that switches gender with Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish.”
Erica Bain (Foster) is the Manhattan-enthusing host of an FM-radio show, “Street Walk,” sharing her sentiments and recorded sounds from around the Big Apple. One night, as she and her fiancŽ David (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews) walk their dog along a deserted path in Central Park, they’re brutally mugged. David dies – and Erica is left so emotionally devastated that she buys a 9mm handgun, ostensibly for protection in the city that she loves yet now fears.
But when she witnesses a subway attack, her pent-up rage erupts and she impulsively shoots the punks responsible. Empowered, she then wipes out a shooter in a convenience-store, a high-profile crook and a junkie who abducted a prostitute. In the meantime, she’s befriended by an NYPD detective (Terrence Howard) grappling with his own moral conflict as they hunt down David’s killers.
Written by Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor and Cynthia Mort and smartly directed by Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game,” “Breakfast on Pluto”), despite some inherent implausibility, it’s a multi-layered psychological revenge thriller about the survivor of a violent crime who is determined to regain control of her own life, even if that means prowling the streets at night, deliberately setting herself up as bait.
Admittedly and unabashedly subversive, it’s bound to incite controversy, along with accolades for Jodie Foster’s astonishing performance, one of the best of her career. And Terrence Howard delivers on the promise he displayed in “Hustle & Flow” and “Crash.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Brave One” is an almost tortuously high-tension, exciting 8. “Someone is playing God out there – in the name of justice.”

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Halloween

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Halloween” (Dimension Films)

Ron Zombie’s “re-imagining” of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (1978) has made a killing at the box-office so it’s impossible to ignore.
The story delves deeper into what turned young Michael Myers into a psychopathic killer. And – guess what? – it’s his dysfunctional family.
There’s his stripper mother (Sheri Moon Zombie), abusive stepfather (William Forsythe), trampy older sister (Hanna Hall) and baby sister – most of whom 10 year-old Michael (Daeg Faerch) dispatches in a variety of nasty ways, sparing only mom and the baby. Michael is sent to a maximum-security sanitarium under the watchful eye of Dr. Sam Loomis, a child psychologist (Matthew McDowell). But rehabilitation doesn’t happen; Michael won’t talk and has a mask fetish, creating Leatherface out of papier-mache. So it’s no surprise that, 16 years later, when he’s being moved to another facility on Halloween, now grown-up Michael (former pro wrestler Tyler Mane) escapes, leaving hacked-up corpses in his wake.
Back in Haddonfield, he discovers that baby sis, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton, ineptly replacing Jamie Lee Curtis), has been adopted, so he goes on another killing spree, eliminating her best friends – both boys and girls – much to consternation of the sheriff (Brad Dourif) and Dr. Loomis. This mayhem is accentuated by Tyler Bates’ generically creepy score. Curiously, there’s no visual allusion to the Halloween celebration – no carved pumpkins, no trick ‘n’ treaters.
It’s said rock star-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie (“House of 1000 Corpses,” “The Devil’s Rejects”) spent only about $15 million, but Bob Weinstein, co-founder of the Weinstein Co., doubts that there will be another sequel: “I never say never, never.but it would have to be something very different.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Halloween” slashes its way to a violent 3, making mincemeat of far better films at the multiplex.

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Across the Universe

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Across the Universe” (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Innovative theatrical director Julie Taymor (“The Lion King”) turns more than 30 Beatles songs into a lavishly phantasmagorical audio/visual experience.
It begins on a Liverpool beach, where a young man, Jude (Jim Sturgess) sits on the sand singing, “Is there anybody going to listen to my story – all about the girl who came to stay? She’s the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry; still you don’t regret a single day.”
The girl is Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), just one of the invented characters, along with her older brother, Max (Joe Anderson), who gets drafted. Somehow they’re sharing a bohemian pad in Greenwich Village – with rockers JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy) and Joplinesque Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and a lesbian cheerleader from Ohio, Prudence (T.V. Carpio), who croons “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” against a football ballet.
Back in 1998, the Bee Gees “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” tried – and failed – to re-create the ’60s and Beatlemania, so credit 54 year-old Julie Taymor (“Frida,” “Titus”) for courage, collaborating with composer/arranger Elliot Goldenthal, choreographer Daniel Ezralow, along with screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.
“Let It Be” transforms into a gospel hymn set in the Detroit riots, while “Strawberry Fields Forever” is Vietnam-themed. There’s Bono as a Beatnik poet musing “I Am the Walrus” and Salma Hayek as five sexy, sinister nurses who administer morphine to Max in a VA hospital to the strains of “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, plus cameos by Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard. Not surprisingly, the stylized cinematography ranges from realistic to surreal. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Across the Universe” is a unique, if incoherent 7, a fantastic, counterculture voyage to nowhere. All you need is love, man.

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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Warner Bros.)

When a film’s running time is 2 hours and 40 minutes, it’s often because the writer is also directing – so there’s no one to tell him to cut out 40 minutes, or else!
Back in the 1870s, Jesse James (Brad Pitt) was the country’s most notorious outlaw. Celebrated in dime novels, his exploits were legendary. As years pass, most of the original gang members die and Jesse’s brother (Sam Shepard) retires. Hanging on the coattails of his older brother Charley (Sam Rockwell) and longing for acceptance is fawning, hero-worshipping 19 year-old Robert Ford (slyly played by Casey Affleck, Ben’s real-life younger brother). History records Ford as “the coward” who shot 34 year-old Jesse in the back, but the plot delves into the psyches of both gunslingers and what may – or may not – have precipitated that infamous murder.
Jesse James is said to have been charismatic and complex, but you’d never know it from Brad Pitt’s stolid, stoic performance, most remarkable for its pensive stillness – a trait which served Gary Cooper well in many Westerns.
Based on Ron Hansen’s novel, it’s self-indulgently adapted and languidly, pretentiously directed by Andrew Dominik, whose previous experience includes TV commercials, music videos and “Chopper” about the notorious Australian criminal Chopper Read. Perhaps it’s also not the best judgment to have the star (Brad Pitt) also serve as producer.
Since it’s so tedious to watch, the cameo by Washington pundit James Carville as the Governor of Missouri is a welcome diversion. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is a turgid 4, making one wonder why it takes such a long, long time to kill Jesse James.

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Eastern Promises

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Eastern Promises” (Focus Features)

The naked bathhouse fight is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated scene in director David Cronenberg’s latest thriller – but there’s more to it than that.
Once a prisoner in Siberia, stoic, stone-faced and ruthlessly ambitious Nikoli Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen) works as a driver for twinkly-eyed, mild-mannered Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the proprietor of an elegant Russian restaurant in London. But behind the scenes – and the perpetually bubbling borscht – Semyon is the shrewd Godfather of the expatriate mob. Known as Vory v Zakone, its members, like Japanese yakuza, have distinguishing tattoos.
When hospital midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) retrieves a diary, written in Cyrillic, off a teenage girl from the Ukraine who dies giving birth to a baby girl, she naively asks Semyon to translate it – after her Russian-born uncle (Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski) refuses. The diary details how the girl has been exploited as a sex slave, serving the kingpin and his minions, including his nasty, psychopathic son, Kirill (French actor Vincent Cassel), who obviously feels homosexual urges toward hard-bodied Nikoli.
Mortensen’s highly publicized naked scene takes place in a Turkish steam bath where he’s attacked by two black leather-clad, knife-wielding Chechen thugs. Gratuitous and exploitive, his full-frontal exposure makes him particularly vulnerable during the brutal, four-minute encounter, which is perhaps the longest male nude scene ever in a Hollywood mainstream movie.
Working from Steve Knight’s (“Dirty Pretty Things”) maudlin script, Cronenberg (“A History of Violence”) and cinematographer Peter Suschitzky ratchet the tension by adding shadowy, sinister undertones, amplified by Howard Shore’s melodramatic score. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Eastern Promises” is a grimly gory, ultimately surprising 7. And it certainly makes you stop thinking about Viggo Mortensen as “Lord of the Rings'” King Aragorn of Middle Earth.

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In the Valley of Elah

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “In the Valley of Elah” (Warner Independent)

Academy Award season is officially underway with the release of this hard-hitting drama by Paul Haggis (“Crash”), exploring the emotional wreckage of the current war.
Soon after a young soldier, Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker), returns to Fort Rudd from active duty in Iraq, he’s reported AWOL. When his commanding officer phones his parents (Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon) in Tennessee, they’re mystified. Hank’s a stoic Vietnam vet but they’ve already lost the eldest son in a helicopter crash. So he drives to the New Mexico base to investigate, dutifully stopping en route to correct a Guatemalan immigrant who is flying the American flag upside down by mistake.
Meanwhile, there’s a jurisdictional skirmish between military police and local detectives over the incinerated remnants of a dismembered body found scattered in a field near the base. Forensic evidence indicates it’s Mike – but recently promoted Det. Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), a single mother, is baffled by the crime scene, which the Army brass (Jason Patric, James Franco) dismiss as a drug deal-gone-bad. Utilizing his experience as an Army MP, Hank suspiciously interrogates Mike’s clean-cut comrades and hires a techie (Rick Gonzalez) to hack into Mike’s cellphone and retrieve scrambled video footage he took in Iraq, which, eventually, sheds light on what occurred.
Adapted from a Playboy magazine article, “Death and Dishonor” by Mark Boal and elegantly photographed by Roger Deakins, it features one of Tommy Lee Jones’ finest performances as an agonized father questioning long-held beliefs. Charlize Theron, Frances Fisher and Susan Sarandon are convincing, but Sarandon is woefully underutilized. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “In the Valley of Elah” is a profoundly powerful and disturbing 9, taking its title from the Biblical valley where David fought Goliath.

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