DVD Review: American Son (2008)

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One came home hungry and one came home wanting to go to the movies. The first time I saw two cousins separately on leave from the Marines before each one would later be deployed for Iraq, they smiled the same and looked more or less the same but there was an immediacy about their actions and an unmistakable tension that seemed to permeate whenever they entered a room. It was if they felt that the joking over delivered pizza or trying to get the ideal spot at the multiplex would suddenly be interrupted by a superior officer who would arrive ready to pull them back to Camp Pendleton at any moment.

Yet there was also that distinct Marine Corp pride-- the way they carried themselves with the perfect posture whether sitting or standing, the southern/military accent they'd acquired, as well as a sense that they had changed into a soldier. And as a soldier, they could no longer fathom the way civilians went about their lives and understood that civilians couldn't fathom the level of commitment and training that had turned them into "the few" and "the proud" in their daily lives as part of the Corp.

As filmmaker Neil Abramson's Sundance nominated American Son begins, nineteen-year-old Mike Holland was all set to exit the basic training at Pendleton to return to his Bakersfield, CA hometown for a nice four day leave. But when a superior walks in and informs the new young Marines that their deployment date has been moved up and after the 96 hour Thanksgiving break, they'll be shipping out to Iraq by way of Kuwait, Mike struggles to process the orders over an emotionally charged long weekend.

Unable to admit out loud where his post-leave destination will be, Nick Cannon's Mike seems to try and ignore the reality first by flirting with Cristina, a beautiful college student (Be Kind Rewind's Melonie Diaz) who by chance is journeying to the same location by bus. When she guesses that he's a Marine and their awkward but excited banter grows momentarily serious when she discusses a guy from her neighborhood who came back disabled, she senses his unease and says, "but you're not going there" which he never corrects until the 96 hours begin to run out.

For by admitting it out loud, he knows he'll have to admit it to himself and his moment of truth happens differently with various family and friends but most poignantly all alone when he breaks down in his car. Although he tries to fall back into the rhythm of his previous dead end lifestyle with his best friend Jake (Matt O'Leary) who gets his kicks dealing, doping, shooting guns, and picking fights as well as trying briefly to reconnect with his hardworking mother (April Grace), estranged father (Chi McBride), younger sister (Erica Gluck), and stepfather (Tom Sizemore), it doesn't take too long to realize that he'd rather escape into a different life with Cristina.

Spending most of his time with the young woman who becomes his new girlfriend rather than acknowledge that he just doesn't blend into Bakersfield anymore nor wanting to lie to those nearest to him-- Cannon's sensitive yet alternately playful, stern, and believable turn rings of authenticity even when a few plot points fail to do the same.

While a number of critics who screened the work at Sundance called it apolitical-- the subtext is there from the beginning-- and it works most effectively when friends make realistic remarks like joking about smuggling him into Canada if he had to go to Iraq or that they'd that freak out, wondering simply if he can just tell them he doesn't want to go.

On the other hand, addressing the issue bombs when we're hit over the head with it in a scene that wastes the immense talent of actor Jay Hernandez portraying Cristina's neighbor who came back from Iraq minus most of his leg and obviously psychologically damaged. In a scene that would've been perfect with just one shot of his choice t-shirt of "I Went to Iraq and All I Got Was Crippled" and another one when his mother asks Mike if there's another job he could get regardless of his disability, unfortunately it fails when it's dragged out to movie-of-the-week melodramatic effect. However, it's a forgivable misstep since its heart was in the right place in calling attention to the lack of support and help offered to our wounded combat veterans when they return home and there are some other issues of greater concern for the movie's structure.

Since it was filmed in a breakneck 20 day schedule its overall achievement must be commended. Nonetheless, it tries to tell too many stories in its 85 minute running time and thus, American Son is bogged down by some of the antics of the larger-than-life Jake mixed together with a serious lack of information about Mike's elusive junkie brother he tries to track down with his father that maybe would've strengthened it more if the two thematically similar plots were combined into one character or situation.

Obviously the film has the misfortune of bypassing theatres altogether and arriving straight to DVD after the summer has found so many critics and audience members deeply compelled by 2009's pitch perfect on-the-ground Iraq war film The Hurt Locker. Yet to see Nick Cannon's most believable performance so far and for audiences willing to venture past their hesitance to explore movies about wars that are still going on, it's nonetheless a personal and intriguing approach to the subject matter.

And aside from an instantly forgettable title that even found Variety calling it "American Soldier" in the middle of their review, American Son is friendly to all sides as it deals with the war here in the states in a way that greatly differs from other recent and impressive works such as Stop-Loss, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah and Grace is Gone.

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Nothing Like the Holidays (2008)

Now Available on DVD & Blu-ray

Let's face it-- to quote Luis Guzman in Nothing Like the Holidays, classically speaking, holiday movies (most notably Christmas ones) are usually considered "white people s***."

Despite the flood of individuals from around the globe who ventured to the new world either when the Pilgrims crossed via the Mayflower or those whose ancestors braved the crowds of Ellis Island, our diversity as a country is seldom celebrated on film. Although Gurinder Chadha proved that dysfunction can be translated into any language with her underrated Thanksgiving film What's Cooking?, more often than not our holiday movies concern the plights of yuppie WASPS or granola hippies clashing over years of resentment or unrequited love such as evidenced in The Family Stone.

While on the surface, the obvious affection that director Alfredo De Villa (Washington Heights, Adrift in Manhattan) has for his Chicago based tale of a largely Puerto Rican family seems incredibly unique and fresh-- after a good fifteen minutes, it moves directly into Family Stone territory. And the similarity between the films is reaffirmed complete with echoing plot points. Yet Holidays is far more watchable as it provides much more warmth and humor to chill the icier edges of the former mean-spirited comedy.



However, along with the humor and obligatory "let's drink and talk" siblings hang out moments, dance parties, pillow fights, punches, cooking, and major revelations, it adds enough tension and subplots that I'm sure the screenwriters ran out of index cards within minutes... although hopefully they went green and used Final Draft in this process to avoid killing enough trees to fill Wrigley Field.

True to the paradigm, the grown offspring of Anna (Elizabeth Pena) and Edy (Alfred Molina) Rodriguez return home from the holidays one by one. The major and most compelling plot-line that ultimately separates Holidays from other films of its genres concerns the timely addition of a battle scarred Iraqi war veteran Jesse (the terrific Freddy Rodriguez) as he bids farewell to his friends and returns to his boisterous uncle Louis Guzman and best friend Ozzy (Jay Hernandez) to play baseball in the snow before venturing home. It's a unique moment that makes the film feel much more immediate however the crowded plot follows the two other adult siblings as well.

Although she feigns a life of glamor as a Hollywood movie star, with just one look at the beautiful, Tinsletown battle-scarred Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) getting out of an airport shuttle van we realize that she's going to be doing her fair share of pretending everything is all right as well. In the obligatory sitcom-like (and extremely Family Stone inspired) drama of the third adult returning to the nest, John Leguizamo dons a posh Wall Street styled wardrobe. As the much-needed yuppie, he journeys to Chicago with his uptight, humorless, white Jewish wife Sarah (Debra Messing) where they barely set three feet inside the door before his mother is demanding to know why they haven't given her any grandchildren.



As soon as we see Sarah struggling to adapt to forced hugs with her tight hair pulled back clothing all buttoned and zipped up to her chin and her Bluetooth earpiece and microphone attached to her ear, we realize that she's going to be the odd one out. But instead of giving Messing the misfortune of putting her through the motions of a really bad Meet the Parents gauntlet of stress, Anna takes the pressure of by announcing around the dinner table in the form of a blunt toast that she wants to divorce her husband of more than thirty years.

Convinced that her husband Edy-- the local bodega owning Don Juan-- and his legendary eye have done more than simply wandered recently, the siblings all adapt to the news in various ways, choosing sides, until they realize that their reaction to the news echoes some of the own attitudes they have about their current situations.



Bolstered by a terrific ensemble cast-- especially as far as Rodriguez and Hernandez are concerned, although the latter actor's storyline was never fully fleshed out enough to really justify the drama involved-- Nothing Like the Holidays begins to feel a bit like an old Christmas fruit cake as it wears on. However, despite its recycled plotlines and easy to predict confrontations, the film's heart is true and it's a refreshingly sincere and earnest addition to the genre.



This is especially obvious when the movie is contrasted with the cynical yet entertaining comedy Four Christmases, which had fun going for laughs by adding the actors to Santa's naughty list via UFC smackdowns with Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon hurling children around as though she were auditioning for Mickey Rourke's part in The Wrestler. Instead of broad humor, De Villa's Holidays aims for the heart. And while it may not provide as many genuine chuckles, Holidays promises that the nourishment value is up by ensuring you'll be served a balanced diet of holiday movies to help make your own family dysfunction much easier to bear by comparison.

Lakeview Terrace

Welcome to the neighborhood;
it’s time to move.

In his previous films, writer/director Neil LaBute has warned us that even disabled women aren’t safe In the Company of Men, one never can predict the deception living within the hearts of Your Friends & Neighbors, pleasant symmetry isn’t to be expected in The Shape of Things, and you don’t need medical training to be called Nurse Betty. And although he’s moved away from the Mamet-like morality tales of the evil lurking behind the smiling and welcoming faces we encounter on a daily basis by directing some less-than-stellar Hollywood fare, his obsession with miscommunication, misperception, and the just plain meanness to be found in the unlikeliest of places is again the subject of his entertaining if lukewarm new thriller Lakeview Terrace.

Unfortunately, its heroic main characters, the young, bright, and beautiful interracial couple Chris (Little Children’s Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington), weren’t forewarned with a LaBute memo. Thankfully, their new neighbor, the stoic disciplinarian and widowed LAPD police officer Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) is not only able but all too willing to turn and inform them that they’re not exactly welcome in his neighborhood. Greeting them with the intimidating gesture of an unfilled out traffic ticket with a note scrawled on the back that either threatens or chides, “Welcome to Lakeview, neighbor; observe all parking regulations,” it’s only a matter of time before he decides to confront Chris directly.

“Meet Your New Neighbor.”

Obviously, one shouldn’t rely too heavily on first impressions and Lisa tries to give her new neighbor the benefit of the doubt but it’s Chris who receives the most disdain as Abel not only repeatedly announces his dissatisfaction with their relationship but also begins to drive a wedge in the previously solid relationship between the married Mattsons. Whether it’s refusing to take down his insanely bright security lights that seem like they could double at an airstrip, which flood through his neighbor’s windows and emit an annoying high-pitched buzzing, running a near dictatorship when dealing with his two children, or when he’s all too willing to cross a line at work along with his loyal partner Javier Villareal (the always talented Jay Hernandez), eventually Chris has had enough.

Although in polite society, one’s first line of defense is to always attempt to work things out conversationally. Yet after Abel continually proves unwilling to change his attitude and ramps up his hostility to the new young couple, Chris—upon realizing that even if he could phone the police, they obviously wouldn’t choose his side—tries to reason with Abel directly before it escalates into an ultimatum.

“Back Off.”

Produced by Will Smith, LaBute’s film which was based on a script by David Loughery and Howard Korder doesn’t quite pack enough heft to justify the talent involved including not just the aforementioned producer and director but also its talented cast and gifted Dutch cinematographer Rogier Stoffers (Mongol).

Still, Stoffers is no stranger to suburban tales of evil neighbors and domestic discord, having lensed the Jennifer Lopez Sleeping With the Enemy-styled Enough and the impressive Rear Window teenage update Disturbia, and while we’ve no doubt seen this storyline dozens of times before such as in the over-the-top police thriller Unlawful Entry, I couldn’t take my eyes off the powerful Samuel L. Jackson. And within moments, it’s easy to see why—even though I wish LaBute would get back to his roots or make something as wonderful as my favorite (Nurse Betty) again—he would’ve been so fascinated by the material and the chance to work with Jackson.

Neil LaBute

And similar to his work in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown—it is all the more fitting that Jackson’s character is named Abel Turner as he’s consistently able to turn from funny to frightening in two seconds flat. As the cop who’s quickly going off the deep end, Jackson’s charisma is off the charts. And although the last act of the film has so many dubious plot-holes and logic free rationalizations that it’s ultimately distracting, he’s the one holding things together, making me laugh at even the scariest of moments. This is especially evident in a phenomenal understated scene where you feel as though you can cut the tension with a knife as Abel attends Lisa and Chris’s housewarming party and tries to make frightening small talk with their liberal friends.

You’re never in doubt of the fact that—no matter how ludicrous the finale seems in the world of actual police procedure—Jackson not only knows his character inside and out but we can actual feel as though we’re witnessing his very thought processes. It’s too bad that some of his best work in recent memory is in something that in the end feels like a slightly above average made-for-TV thriller but fans of Jackson’s won’t be disappointed. Not to mention that-- all of its problems aside-- I still enjoyed the film far more than the other cops-and-robbers-themed press screening held that day for the far more advertised A-list offering, De Niro and Pacino’s mystery, Righteous Kill. So in the choice between these two, I wouldn’t hesitate that you head over to Lakeview Terrace, although ignore your financial advisor and rent before you buy since you never know with whom you’ll be sharing a fence.