Eastern Promises (2007)

               Eastern Promises             

NETFLIX SYNOPSIS:  Viggo Mortensen reteams with director David Cronenberg in this intense thriller, starring as Nikolai Luzhin, a notorious London gangster. When Luzhin learns that a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) has discovered incriminating evidence against his “family,” he finds his normally steely resolve compromised. Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Sinéad Cusack co-star.

REVIEW:  Review:  Mortensen and Cronenberg reunite in this story of a Russian mafia driver, his boss, and a nurse who wants to find out more about a pregnant barefoot teen who died in the ER while giving birth. The plot has some interesting twists near the end but drags a bit in the middle. Mortensen’s acting is the highlight of this film. It’s also noteworthy that Cronenberg keeps the gore to a minimum.

4 stars
HAWK

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***SPOILERS***

I once saw a documentary on undercover “sting” operations and one of the authorities interviewed said something along the lines of “The best undercover cops have to be the greatest of actors.” I think this is at the core of Viggo Mortensen’s amazing performance as a cop posing as a criminal chauffeur in ES. We’re never really sure how long Nokolai has been playing the role of gangster, but it must be some considerable length of time, as he’s managed to work his way deep into the heart of the crime family he’s investigating. And at one point late in the film he’s completely naked and we see his body is covered in the signature tattoos of the Russian mob, giving one the sense of his utter commitment to his role, while also signifying that perhaps Nikolai may never really be able to escape the character he’s turned himself into. As Mortensen plays him, Nikolai, in order to cope with the horrors he witnesses and, at times, must commit himself, has learned to bury his moral decency under a veneer of removed indifference – when asked by Anna (Naomi Watts) how he can be a part of the atrocities in which he is involved he responds, “I’m only the driver.”

One of the most brilliant aspects of the film, and Mortensen’s performance, is that we never get to know much of who Nikolai really is, except in the most brief glimpses. It eventually becomes obvious that he is a good man by his actions, but is his cold detachment merely part of the role-playing, or, more interesting, something from deep within himself that he has brought to the character? When we finally learn a little bit of his horrific past we come to suspect the latter, that perhaps his indifference is a defense-mechanism he’s developed in order to cope with his rage and anguish.

The plot sounds cheesy, involving a baby that may hold the key to bringing down a notorious gangster and the efforts of a nurse to protect her. But the movie is not sentimental, it’s often very cold and savage. In fact without Naomi Watts sympathetic character it would be too cold; she provides balance by portraying, in the most believable fashion, a normal, good person in the midst of extraordinarily evil circumstances. When Anna, against all common sense, confronts the gangsters in front of the restaurant, Watts doesn’t play the feisty heroine, she is quite obviously terrified, yet she can’t stop herself. She feels the same kind of moral obligation to the child and her mother that Nikolai feels toward his job.

Everything in the movie fits together and the last few scenes are just about perfect. Nikolai rescues the baby, whose DNA will prove that his boss raped an underage girl, thereby getting him out of the way so that Nikolai may advance in the family. When asked by Anna, who still believes he is a gangster, why he did it, he once again responds in character – “To be the king, I have to get rid of the king.” He never lets on to her the fact that he is undercover, yet she senses the decency that drives him. There’s a lovely moment when he and Anna, who is holding the baby, are standing close, and director Cronenberg shoots it as a classic tableau of the family that we know Nikolai may never have. Here we sense Nikolai’s longing for normalcy, and without words these two great actors, Watts and Mortensen, convey a picture of what might have been between these three wounded people in another time and place. It’s deeply touching.

The last two scenes are studies in contrast, warm and cold – Anna, who had a failed pregnancy, is taking care of the baby she has now adopted, fulfilled and happy in her home, sunlight fills the kitchen; Nikolai, sitting at at table in the closed, darkened restaurant of the gangster that he shall soon replace, has also achieved his goal, but he looks miserable, trapped, and we wonder if will ever escape the world in which he has become so deeply entrenched.

5 stars
Harold

Longford (2006)

               Longford            

NETFLIX SYNOPSIS:  In Tom Hooper‘s film based on true events, Jim Broadbent stars as Lord Longford, a devout Catholic whose controversial pursuit to rehabilitate convicted murderer Myra Hindley (Samantha Morton) drew outrage from the British public. While Hindley served a life sentence for murdering children, Longford spent decades championing for her second chance. The made-for-TV movie garnered four Emmy nods, including ones for Broadbent and Morton.

REVIEW:  This is based on the true story of Lord Longford’s attempts to rehabilitate convicted child murderer Myra Hindley. The cost to Longford and his family is great, and it’s a price that most of us would be unwilling to pay, especially after learning the things we learn about Hindley throughout the film. Yet Longford perseveres, unmoved in his mission of forgiveness. Slow-paced, as are most character-driven dramas, yet ultimately fascinating as we watch one man’s commitment to doing what he feels is right, even in the face of great public outrage.

4 stars
HAWK

Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

            Cyrano de Bergerac           

NETFLIX SYNOPSIS:  Jose Ferrer won a Best Actor Academy Award in 1950 for his convincing portrayal of Cyrano, the soldier with a generous nose, in this movie inspired by Edmond Rostand’s classic story. In love with the fair Roxanne (Mala Powers) but afraid she won’t like him, Cyrano uses the handsome Christian (William Prince) as his messenger, hoping to woo Roxanne with Christian’s looks but his own words. But what happens when she finds out?

REVIEW:  The only version of this story I had previously seen was Roxanne, so I was surprised how much Steve Martin’s remake was faithful to this film version. Ferrer earned his Oscar with his gallant portrayal of Cyrano, a heroic yet tragic figure who is unable to declare his love for the lovely Roxane. The DVD print is awful and begs for a Criterion restoration, but the film itself is enduring.

4 stars
HAWK

Shoot ’em Up (2007)

               Shoot ’em Up              

NETFLIX SYNOPSIS:  When a mysterious loner named Mr. Smith (Clive Owen, Children of Men) delivers a woman’s baby during an intense shoot-out, he inadvertently lands himself at odds with the ruthless Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti). Aided by the enigmatic DQ (Monica Bellucci), Mr. Smith is tasked with protecting the newborn from Hertz and his henchmen. Written and directed by Michael Davis, this bullet-riddled action thriller also stars Ramona Pringle and Chris Jericho.

REVIEW:  This was a laugh-out-loud action movie. It was a thrill ride from the start and I loved it. It was reminiscent of Die Hard and McGyver and at one point I started singing ‘It’s raining men, hallelujah’. It was over the top, but that didn’t matter. It was just pure, mindless fun. And of course Clive Owen is not bad to look at either.

4 stars
Sophiene

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My god, the sheer badosity of it. I know it’s commonplace in actioners for the good guys to be great shots and the bad guys to be the worst shots ever, but SEU goes wayyyy over the top. I suppose the filmmakers would say that’s part of the joke, but the joke isn’t very funny and it’s repeated ad nauseam. Since the shootouts are the only thing that’s going on, and they’re not staged w/any kind of imagination or flair, it just gets boring watching scores of villains shooting at and missing our hero (Clive Owen), while he nails everyone of them w/one bullet. In one scene Owen is being chased down a very narrow aisle by 2 assassins who could not be more than 10 friggin’ feet behind him and they’re both blasting away w/a gun in each hand and their shots are hitting the shelves and the ceiling and the floor…

Like the just-as-awful “Smokin’ Aces” and the even worse “Lucky Number Slevin,” this is a purported comedy-actioner that ain’t funny and ain’t exciting. The humor consists of awful dialog and terrible puns, the hero killing bad guys w/a carrot, a villain whose wife keeps calling and interrupting him at (of course) the most inopportune moments, a shootout during a birth, a shootout during sex, a shootout during a parachute jump… I don’t think the plot made any sense but I lost interest and may have missed something relevant. The biggest plot holes come from the bad guys always knowing where Owen is, even though he’s constantly on the run and they couldn’t possibly have any way of finding him, but they just show up out of nowhere, blasting away.

Netflix Rating: Absolute garbage.
Harold