Focus (2015)

** ½ out of ****

Back when I was in high school, a rap duo named “DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince” had a few hits. Normally I despise rap but I thought these two were alright, mainly because they were a deliberate joke. Most of their songs had to do with parents, horror movies and Mike Tyson instead of guns, drugs and drive-bys, and the front man (“The Fresh Prince” aka Will Smith) had a lot of presence and charisma.

Fast forward a couple of years and Smith was given a TV show. Again surprisingly it was pretty good, and even more surprisingly he was very good in it. The character he played (a street punk type from Philly) wasn't much of a stretch but he was charming and funny, and seemed to have some talent. Even with all that, when he transitioned to film nobody expected what we got – the kid was a flat out talented actor. The first film I ever saw him in (“Six Degrees of Separation” 1993) showed him to be able to stretch himself into a role you where wouldn't have expected him to do so well. The ascent of his Hollywood star was enough even to build an entire movie around (“Jersey Girl” 2004).

In the 20+ years since then Smith has been a very reliable box office star. His movies are successful (sometimes wildly successful) and now and then he shows acting chops that continue to prove his worth as an actor. My personal favorite was “Seven Pounds” (2008), though often his forays into a little deeper material tend to be his least successful efforts.

“Focus” is one of these. Actually a very interesting idea that doesn't quite come off, it still has some tremendous scenes and Smith is excellent in the role of con-man Nicky Spurgeon. Nicky isn't the “big deal” con man we often see in movies – he thinks of guys that go after the big con as suckers, destined eventually to end up in the slammer. Instead, he runs a crew that goes fast and furious for the little grifts, building their criminal success on quantity and skill instead of the value of each individual job.

Nicky takes under his wing Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie) a young con artist with unpolished skills. Together they and Nicky's crew spend Super Bowl week picking pockets and running enough small scams that they end up with over a million dollars in cash. They then disband the crew and Nicky and Jess head off to watch the Super Bowl. The Superbowl sequence is by far the best of the film, as Nicky gets involved in a high-stakes game of chance contest with a supper-rich compulsive gambler. This 10 minutes alone made the movie worth seeing.

Nicky eventually sends Jess away, as he believes he should never get romantically involved with other con artists. Years later they run into each other again, leading to the so-called drama that eventually concludes the movie, but it is all second-rate drama compared to the first half of the film. The Super Bowl scene is the apex of this movie, and it goes downhill from there. It's worth a watch, but loss of steam through the final act left me a bit cold.

Smith proves again that he is a terrific talent, and he carries this film entirely on his back. I'd love to see him in a few more roles that really stretch his abilities, as I think he is well capable of award-winning performances. Films like “Focus” can be enjoyable, but he is capable of so much more. As he approaches 50, I hope he discovers a few roles that really put it on display.

Chappie (2015)

* ½ out of ****

In a movie that has aspirations of teaching us something, instead we get “Short Circuit” meets “Robocop” for the brain damaged. A lot more of “Short Circuit” than “Robocop”, if that's any consolation.

In the near future a South African corporation called Tetravaal has developed a police robot that is in wide use for crime control. Deon (Dev Patel), the engineer that developed the robots, has aspirations of creating a true artificial intelligence but he is rebuffed on his design plans by the company's CEO (Sigourney Weaver). Meanwhile a competing engineer at Tetravaal (Hugh Jackman) wants his much larger, more aggressive and heavily armed robot to be given a shot. Unfortunately for him, the police prefer the original model. Anyone see a Robocop ripoff here?

Deon decides to steal a decommissioned robot scheduled to be destroyed to test his artificial intelligence program on – I guess he never heard of Skynet or the Terminator. It just seems that giving an indestructible robot free will is a little risky.... But Deon is kidnapped with his materials by a group of criminals – led by Ninja and Yolandi (played by.... Ninja and Yolandi). The have plans to get one of the police robots and get it to work for them. Their timing is impeccable.

Deon puts his programming into the robot, who wakes up with all of the intellect of a baby. Of course, it learns much faster. Yolandi immediately feels a parental responsibility to the robot, who she calls “Chappie”. Deon wants the robot to develop intelligence for science's sake, while Ninja wants him to be a dog-on-a-leash killing machine (Ninja is a hard-core jackass).

Chappie is little more than Johnny 5 with titanium casing, without the laughs. The robot's personal development and learning his own desires and needs, his grappling with his own mortality, and his wrestling with feelings are all meant to be “deep” but are very contrived and silly. Meanwhile Hugh Jackman's unstoppable desire to get his own robot in use no matter the cost shows him to be an utter psycho rather than the self-possessed “bad guy” he was intended to be.

The effects aren't bad, but the robot effects and Chappie's “humanity” have been done before, most recently in “I, Robot” (2004).\ The late-film ability to upload consciousness is also torn directly from another film, “Transcendence” (2014) which itself was a ripoff....

Look, I understand that a movie like “Chappie” isn't meant to be realistic, but everything about this movie, the villains, the heroes, the criminal-underground subplot.... it's all too ridiculous to even try to suspend disbelief. Add to it (no spoiler intended) and ending that just defies reason in every way.

The movie isn't a complete waste of time, but the filmmaker's attempt to be meaningful is obvious and falls completely flat. The human characters are universally stupid an unlikable, and the lack of logic in virtually everyone's thinking and actions make this whole thing a very poor effort.

My recommendation is to stay away.

Whose Life is it Anyway? (1981)

**** out of ****

When people talk about the great actors of the aging generation (actors that started in the 1960s), you usually get the standard names: De Niro, Pacino, Nicholson, et al. A wild card may throw in a Robert Duvall or Dustin Hoffman.

But for my money the most underrated actor of that entire generation is Richard Dreyfuss, and his turn in “Whose Life is it Anyway?” is the performance of his career. This one, along with Adrien Brody's in “The Pianist” (2002) are the single greatest achievements in acting that I have ever seen.

Dreyfuss is Ken Harrison, a gifted and popular sculptor who is involved in a terrible car accident in the film's opening sequence. After months in the hospital being nursed back to health, he finds himself a quadriplegic with no hope of ever walking, using his hands or being self sufficient. As a man whose entire life depended on his being able to express himself through sculpture, this is too much for him to bear. He decides that he prefers to leave the hospital's care and die rather than live out his days in this condition.

Unfortunately for him, the doctors don't agree. Given that Ken is a bright, lively and intelligent man they decide to keep him alive, certain that he will thank them for it later. But Ken is determined, and is able to put forth very reasonable and coherent arguments for him to be allowed to meet his fate in the manner he prefers. Eventually it ends up in a court hearing, where the hospital tries to have him deemed incapable of deciding for himself, and Ken arguing for his right to self-determination. It is fascinating from start to finish.

But what makes this film so astounding is Dreyfuss's performance. He BECOMES Ken Harrison, a man tormented by his own imagination and inability to express it anymore. He delivers each of lines from a prone position (either in bed or in a wheelchair) and can only use his face to convey his emotions. He is sweet, funny (often hilarious), angry and miserable, and you feel every moment of his pain. Richard Dreyfuss is nothing less than amazing in this film.

And that isn't the only wonderful thing the film has going for it. The dialogue is beautifully written, and virtually every exchange seems totally authentic. Ken's friendship and bantering with his Jamaican orderly John (Thomas Carter) alone would make this film worth seeing. Add to that absolutely stellar performances from Christine Lahti and John Cassevettes as Ken's two primary doctors, and a riveting one from Kenneth MacMillan as the judge, and you have a film that couldn't possibly be more heart wrenching or entertaining.

I literally cannot say enough about how absolutely magnificent this movie is – it's one of my 5 favorites of all time. You will laugh, cry, and be torn about Ken's decision to die – you like him so much you kind of hope the hospital will win the case. Ken's own lawyer (Bob Balaban) even says to Ken at one point, “You know, this is a case I could stand to lose.” Ken's reply, typical of his succinctness and intelligence is, “You do.... and it's a life sentence for me.”

This film isn't easy to find these days. But find it. Watch it. Your life will be enriched by it.

Run All Night (2015)

** out of ****

You know, the more I see Liam Neeson the “action movie star” the more I wonder why I ever thought the guy was the talent I used to view him as. He plays action characters so one-note, so stereotypically, that I can't imagine him stretching his acting legs anymore. But he is being accepted in this new type of role, so what the hell do I know?

When Neeson started with the “Taken” series, I liked what he was doing. It's nice to see a guy that only takes serious roles doing something fun and campy for once. But that seems to be ALL he is doing these days. The three “Taken” movies, “The Grey”, “NonStop”, “A Walk Among the Tombstones” and now “Run All Night” all have, on paper at least, very different types of leading characters. Yet Neeson plays them all so milquetoast that they are all basically the same guy.

In “Run All Night” he is Jimmy “The Gravedigger” Conlon, a once-feared mafia hitman.  His closest friend and mob-boss is Shawn MacGwire (Ed Harris), who continues to keep Jimmy on the payroll despite his now being a washed-up drunk. Jimmy's fall from grace came when he left his family, including his son Michael (Joel Kinnaman) so they wouldn't be contaminated by his evil deeds, and he is haunted by his decision to leave them. 

Michael is now a limo-driver, and one night he witnesses Shawn's son murder some drug dealers.  After some cat-and-mouse and plot complications, Jimmy (Neeson) ends up killing Shawn's son to protect Michael.  MacGwire decides he wants Jimmy's son to be killed in retaliation so that Jimmy suffer the same pain he is feeling.  Father and son go on the run.

It's all pretty typical action movie fare, though it is all pretty well done. My biggest issue with the film was Neeson's inability to connect with the character. He didn't seem like an agonized drunk looking for redemption, he still seemed the assassin from “Taken” who was now just pretending to be someone else.  It seems to me Neeson plays all these action movies exactly the same way.  Despite liking the film on the most basic levels, I couldn't get into it due to this.

Overall it's okay, but one that will be forgotten almost as soon as the credits finish rolling.

Jurassic World (2015)

*** ½ out of ****

Often I see movies that I thought would be bad but turned out to be pretty good. Even more often I see movies I expect to be good and find they are pretty bad. But once in a while I see a movie I expect to be pretty good and find it to be far better than I expected. “Jurassic World” is one of those.

Hard to believe it's been 22 years since Steven Spielberg put the world on its ear with the first film that fully realized the potential of CGI. I remember going to see that movie 2 or 3 times in the summer of 1993 and being swept away by the visuals of seeing dinosaurs that looked absolutely authentic on the screen. It didn't hurt that the story was fantastic, the performances (particularly Jeff Goldblum) were wildly entertaining and the tension and pace were neck-breaking. Now finally, after two really unimaginative sequels featuring members of the original cast (“The Lost World” in 1997 and “Jurassic Park III” in 2001) we have another film in the series that is worthy of the wonderful original.

John Hammond's dream of a dinosaur-based theme park has been fully realized, and “Jurassic World” plays host to 20,000+ people at a time. They have 22 'attractions' including T-rex and a sea monster called Mosasaurus. Claire (Dallas Bryce Howard) is the park's operations manager, and her two nephews Zach and Gray come to visit the park. Grey is about 11 and wildly enthusiastic about seeing the park, while Zach is a protypical 16 year old – he can barely look away from his phone long enough to notice the T-rex....

But Claire is a victim of the same type of thinking that Jeff Goldblum warned us about in the original. Her lack of humility in the face of nature is staggering. Apparently the world is bored with real dinosaurs, so Jurassic World genetics experts have developed a hybrid one that is bigger, smarter, more aggressive and “has more teeth”. This hybrid creation is called Indominus Rex, and he's one scary bugger. Smart enough to try to set traps for the humans and to figure out how they are tracking him, with the added ability to camouflage himself like a chameleon and change his body temperature to hide from heat sensors. Pretty clever, except it's also a 50-foot killing machine......

The park also has a brilliant animal handler named Owen (Chris Pratt) who makes a point of handling the dangerous animals with the utmost respect. He is called in to assess the precautions they are taking with Indominus Rex only to find it gone, presumably loose in the park with 20,000 visitors, including Zach and Gray. What fun this becomes.

Much like the first in the Jurassic series (but unlike the previous sequels) we are given a bunch of likable characters to root for here. We're also given some stupid villains (inGen engineers hoping to weaponize the Indominus) which we should also expect from this type of story. But again like the original, the thrills are thrilling, the scares are scary (if a little predictable) and you spend much of the second half on the edge of your seat. Tremendously entertaining.

If I were to complain about anything it would be the complete lack of acknowledgment given the two previous sequels. This film refers to John Hammond and the original Jurassic Park effort at some length, but makes no reference to the disasters at Isla Sorna or the ill-fated explorers to Isla Nublar in “Jurassic Park III”. The characters in this film are worried about possibly being shut down if anyone dies, but dozens of people died in those sequels and they never discuss how they got licensed considering those additional deaths. I suppose, much like the film “Rocky Balboa” where they ignore Rocky's brain injuries discussed in the previous film, they decided just to pretend it never happened.

That's okay, if a bit puzzling, because of the final product. “Jurassic World” is fantastic from start to finish, scary for the kids (if they are the sensitive type – I took my 11 year old twins and they loved it) but entertaining for everyone. Very highly recommended.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

**** out of ****

In 1983, when I was 13 years old, I got my hands on my first Stephen King book; a collection of four short novels called “Different Seasons”. The first short novel in the book was called “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” - that story was my introduction to Stephen King. I have since collected all 50+ of his books and read them all as many as 20 times each, but “Shawshank” remains my very favorite story.
 

Fast forward 11 years and I was laying on my couch watching the David Letterman show. PVRs hadn't been heard of yet so you actually had to sit through the commercials, and one of the ads on this particular night started with the line “I guess there's a guy like me in every prison in America – I'm the guy that can get it for you.” I sat bolt upright, knowing exactly where I had read that line countless times before. I became tremendously excited realizing they had made a movie from that story and I couldn't wait to go see it.

Of course, this was not a typical summer at the movies. “Forrest Gump”, “Pulp Fiction”, “The Lion King”, “True Lies”, “Dumb and Dumber”, “Speed” and “Interview With the Vampire” were packing them in and theatre screens for new releases were at a premium. As a result, “The Shawshank Redemption” never came to my hometown - I had to drive over an hour to the nearest theatre where it was playing. And I did.

Five times.

In its initial release, “The Shawshank Redemption” only made $11 million at the box office – less than half it's production budget. Blame this on a few things: it's a prison movie, it had no really big stars in it (Morgan Freeman was a much smaller star then than now), and it had a very unusual title. I used to tell people that I accounted for half it's initial box office take. Once it was nominated for 9 Oscars a few more people went to see it, so it broke even after all, but it was anything but a popular movie, not even scraping into the top 50 for the year.

It has since been discovered on video and AMC and become something of a pop culture wonderkind – and IMDB has it as the most highly rated, beloved film of all time. But for a short time I felt like it was mine and mine alone, and for more than 20 years has been my single favorite movie, bar none and by far.

“The Shawshank Redemption” seems to be the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker who is sent to prison for murdering his philandering wife and her lover. Actually, I have always thought of it as the story of Red (Morgan Freeman), another convicted murderer and Andy's best friend inside the prison. When Andy arrives Red has already been there 20 years, and the two and a half hour story tells of their burgeoning friendship, and of how Andy's indomitable spirit transforms how Red sees life in prison and life in general.

Andy claims, right from the first day, to be innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. His crime's scene saw the victims shot repeatedly, bullets and a broken bourbon bottle with Andy's fingerprints, but he remains steadfast about his innocence. Luckily for him he knows how to play the prison game, and after proving his worth to the warden (who has plenty of scams and graft money that he needs laundered) Andy eventually has it pretty easy inside. He also runs the library and utilizes his altruistic streak in helping young inmates get their high school diplomas. Eventually he runs afoul of the warden, which becomes a part of the movie's endgame but despite the intrigue of the plot, the story isn't what makes “The Shawshank Redemption” so special....

Andy Dufresne is a unique movie character. We've seen prison movies before about guys that couldn't be broken (see “Cool Hand Luke” or “Papillion”), but never in the self-possessed way that Andy is. Red comments that Andy seems to stroll through life in prison, like a man without a worry or a care in the world. As Red discovers Andy's strength the movie gets better and better, and there are a few scenes where you get chills as you see how far he can take his feeling of inner peace and freedom. Basically, I don't know what to call it other than “uplifting”.

“The Shawshank Redemption” is often ugly, gritty and show some of the grimier sides of prison life. But it is also joyous, thrilling and beautiful on many levels. As I had read the story before seeing the film I already had little mind-movies about certain scenes, visions that director Frank Darabont realized almost exactly. One scene in particular toward the end, as Red walks into an open field with a rock wall and an oak tree, literally took my breath away. I had already seen it in my mind precisely like that 100 times.

Thank you to Stephen King for writing such a wonderful story and thanks to Darabont for so perfectly realizing King's story on the screen. If I could only pick one movie to watch for the rest of my life, this would be it. It is, as far as I am concerned, the closest thing to perfect any movie has ever been.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

** ½ out of ****

Before talking about this movie, which was better than expected (as are all the Insidious movies), I have a question. Do you have an actor or actress that you so identify with one particular role that no matter who they play, you can only see that one character from their past? I do – one of the stars of “Insidious Chapter 3”, Dermot Mulroney. No matter what role he plays, all I can ever see is Dirty Steve from “Young Guns” (1988). Throughout this film I kept expecting him to start yelling that Chavez was outside “doin' it with his horse”.

Now let me preamble a discussion of “Insidious: Chapter 3” with a few comments about the first two films in the series. I am a big fan of scary movies, of which there are remarkably few good ones. Lots of exploitation films out there have jumps in them, but they are not scary per se. For me, a scary movie is one that leaves those invisible fingers crawling up your back and makes the hair on your arms stand up. It's something that is just creepy as hell and makes you feel really uncomfortable. And for my money, “Insidious” (2010) is the scariest damn movie I have seen in decades. It lost steam for the last 30 minutes, but only because they had to reduce your imagination and show things on the screen to help wrap up the story. But the first hour had my skin crawling. I loved it. And the second movie, "Insidious Chapter 2" (2013) was, shockingly, able to do many of the same things. They are genuinely scary movies and I love them.

That being said, “Insidious: Chapter 3” is a horse of a different colour. It is a decent little fright-fest, but falls more in line with the typical “let's give them a few jolts” style of scaring than in the disturbing creepiness of the original two films. It isn't bad, but if you're looking for more of the same as delivered by the first two, you won't find it here.

This film tells a story occurring three years prior to the events of the original “Insidious”. Here we find Elise (Linn Shaye - the psychic lady from the first two films) is retired, having found her abilities to communicate with the dead to be too disturbing, and certain that some of the dead want to do her harm. She is visited at her home by Quinn (Stefanie Scott), a teen that recently lost her mother and wants badly to communicate with her in the afterlife. Elise warns her that her mother is not trying to communicate and that continuing to try is dangerous. “When you call out to one of the dead, they ALL hear you.”

Quinn wants to be an actress, and wants badly to escape from the life she is in. Her father (Dermot Mulroney – aka Dirty Steve) needs her help in bringing up her younger brother and Quinn feels she has too much on her plate. But against Elise's advice, she continues to try to reach her mother, opening the door for a spectre that wants to possess and destroy her. Pop-out-of-the-closet, made-you-jump hijinks ensue.

The most interesting thing about the film is the evolution of the character Elise, and her eventual participation in trying to save Quinn. We again meet Tucker and Specs (Angus Simpson and Leigh Whannel) as the paranormal experts, and they contribute their usual chuckles to the story.

Overall this was a decent film, certainly worth seeing considering the massive amounts of crap you find in the horror genre, but it really falls rather short of the first two. The hair on my arms didn't stand up once.