Movie Review: End of Sentence (2019)

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After a prison guard informs him that murderers make the best inmates because they smile and do what they're told, soft-spoken Frank Fogle (John Hawkes) asks him if the same is true for thieves. Common thieves, the guard explains, are the worst kind of prisoners because they don't want to listen or do what they're told. It's a sentiment that seems to strike a chord with Frank, who you can see try to find a silver lining in the storm clouds passing through his eyes from the exchange after the guard tells him that a good job is the key to reintegration . . . just before he admits that for ex-cons, finding work is almost impossible.

Having taken his terminally ill wife to say goodbye to their twenty-eight-year-old son Sean (Logan Lerman), an inmate doing a bid for automobile theft, after his wife passes away, Frank returns to the Alabama correctional facility to pick him up when he's released. There to follow through on an offscreen promise he made to his wife on her deathbed to bring her ashes to northern Ireland to be sprinkled in a lake, when the stubborn Sean first sets eyes on his father, all Frank represents to him is just another guard telling him what to do. Barely willing to acknowledge his father, let alone get in a car with him, it's clear that Sean prefers the company of strangers to his old man. Accepting a ride from a police officer to a job interview that proves unsuccessful, Sean holds out as long as he can before he gives up on hitchhiking and steps inside his dad's car at last.

Needing to be in Oakland, California in five days to accept a position in an electronics warehouse that will be given away if he doesn't arrive, Sean strikes a deal with his father. He tells Frank that he'll go with him to Ireland, help sprinkle his beloved mother's ashes, and look at a piece of property that both men have just discovered she'd inherited (which Frank has promised to give to him), if his father vows to fly him out to his new life on the west coast on Frank's dime when they're finished.

A situation that pushes both men outside of their comfort zones, as not only are the two estranged but his father is terrified of flying, it doesn't take long before Sean looks for a buffer — any buffer — to make the trip a little more bearable, which he finds in the beautiful Jewel (Sarah Bolger), a mysterious Irish lass with a troubled past. After the two flirt and frolic, Sean helps her scheme her way into a ride from Frank as they make their way from Dublin to his mother's final destination up north, not realizing that his father has found a buffer of his own when he sets out to learn more about his late wife's life.

 
Using a classical journey motif to double as the path these two men need to take to learn more about one another (only to eventually uncover that they have much more in common than they'd realized), in his feature filmmaking debut, director Elfar Adalsteins begins subtly linking his characters together in their literal and figurative prisons of grief from the very start of End of Sentence.

Isolated in their respective frames, with Frank struggling to go through the motions of eating and sleep after his wife's death and Sean alone in his cell or answering a call from his father in a lonely Taxi Driverish prison hallway before he hangs up without a word, Adalsteins' approach is as beautifully understated as it is highly effective. Working with both his cinematographer Karl Oskarsson in terms of blocking as well as his trio of editors Guðlaugur Andri Eythórsson, Kristján Lodmfjord, and Valdís Óskarsdóttir to keep the men separated often in cuts and frames, when they're in the same shot together early on, Adalsteins' Sentence gives off the impression that it might actually be painful for the Fogles to look one another in the eye.

And even though we absolutely know where the film is headed in terms of their relationship — owing as much to a deft screenplay by Beautiful Boy writer Michael Armbruster as it does its talented leads — for a majority of its running time, the compelling Icelandic, Irish, and American co-production refuses to take any shortcuts. In fact, it only opts for a slightly contrived twist at the precise moment that the film needs it most when, after the years of resentment that Sean has been building up towards his father erupts in a volcanic but necessary confrontation, the film gives the two men a fresh reset as they're pushed to tackle a problem from the same temporarily united side. And it's a tremendous credit to the work done here by Hawkes and Lerman that it works better than it might've perhaps had Sean and Frank been embodied by two lesser actors. 

Though Lerman has the advantage of voicing his frustrations aloud, Hawkes (who first caught my attention in Winter's Bone) turns in a phenomenal performance as a quietly dignified, beaten down, but still polite man searching as much for the truth as he is the ability to feel anything other than the devastating loss. Revealing an important truth about Frank in a heartbreaking payoff to an earlier scene that Adalsteins opts to convey without words (which suddenly makes you look at everything he'd done in the film thus far in a new light), it soon becomes apparent just how nuanced Hawkes' portrayal of Frank has been all along.

A subtly potent and moving work that was shot in 2017 and released to VOD now in 2020, End of Sentence is one of those universally relatable films that addresses the emotional rift that can exist between not only father and son but any two people who grew up in the same house together. Unable to see past his own anger at the man he most likely views as his very first warden, it's only when the two leave the confines of their separate and isolated lives in the United States that Sean realizes that his father might understand his rage better than he does.

With his hunched shoulders and meek manner, while Sean itches to escape his present situation the quickest way he knows how (and whether or not his problems will follow), Frank accepts his fate. Resigned to the past and uncertain how to make sense of a solitary future, with a shy, compliant smile, John Hawkes keeps his head down and tries to survive like the rest of us . . . until eventually he's forced to look up.

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Blu-ray Reviews: The Martian (2015) & Everest (2015)

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Teamwork is at the heart of these two tonally different yet thematically similar tales of survival against all odds.

Featuring a bevy of Oscar winners and nominees on both sides of the screen, while both pictures are ensemble driven overall, Ridley Scott’s humorous and heartfelt Martian shines particularly bright as a veritable one man show for actor Matt Damon.

From its tongue-in-cheek soundtrack of ‘70s disco era hits (which provide endless opportunities for comedic counterpoint) to its high key lighting and bright color palette, the undeniable appeal of The Martian as an all-around crowd-pleaser is so strong that the film inexplicably garnered multiple Golden Globe nominations and wins in the category of Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Infusing what in someone else’s hands might’ve been an overwhelmingly bleak and cerebral storyline with unexpected optimism and charm, The Martian benefits from Damon’s most affable and charismatic turn since his breakthrough role in Good Will Hunting.

Hoping to prove that there can indeed be (plant) life on Mars, Damon’s astronaut/botanist Mark Watney is forced to rely on outside-of-the-box thinking after he’s erroneously mistaken for dead by his crew and left behind on the red planet during the horrific sand storm which opens Scott’s strongest character driven feature since his 2003 sleeper, Matchstick Men.

Storms of an altogether different kind factor into director Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest, which (in stark contrast to Scott’s science fiction adaptation of Andy Weir’s eponymous novel penned by longtime genre specialist and former Joss Whedon co-scripter Drew Goddard) is rooted in fact.

Set during the catastrophic climbing season back in the spring of 1996 where over the course of a single day countless souls lost their lives in their quest to the top of the world’s highest and deadliest mountain, Everest aims to make viewers feel as though we’re right there on the mountain alongside its many larger than life personalities.

A globe-spanning epic that, much like the intergalactic Martian has been captured in 3D, while unfortunately I’m unable to judge Martian’s usage of the format since Everest was the only Blu-ray I received for review in 3D, to its immense credit Everest does much more than just dazzle the senses with out-of-this-world three-dimensional cinematography.

Lensed with the stunning clarity of an IMAX documentary, Everest makes the most of the medium’s ability to enhance our understanding of the experience in an experiential approach.

Whether they're dangling us on the edge of the icy ladders alongside the mountaineers or making sure we can practically feel each gust of wind during a blinding snowstorm, the filmmakers do a tremendous job recreating the harrowing events of May 10 as that long, hellish day journeys into an unforgiving night.

Working from an ambitious and emotionally potent screenplay by 127 Hours scripter Simon Beaufoy and former Ridley Scott collaborator and Gladiator scribe William Nicholson, Kormákur and his talented cast including Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Keira Knightley are able to elevate the film beyond the level of a mere visual effects spectacle.

Thematically similar to The Martian in its celebration of mind against matter and creative problem solving, both Everest and The Martian soar in part thanks to the empathy, compassion, and integrity inherent in the performances of the stars that embody the films’ many characters.

Yet, much like their differences in tone, their reliance on the alignment of these stars varies from one film to the next.

Cool, quotable, and compelling right from the start, even though Goddard’s screenplay sets the stage for a much more memorable cinematic experience, intriguingly whenever it cuts away from Damon and chronicles the roles that others (including Jessica Chastain, Donald Glover, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, among others) are playing in trying to bring our Martian home, the film loses a little of its hold on the audience.

Alternatively, in Beaufoy and Nicholson’s thoroughly researched Everest, the actors manage to disappear so seamlessly into their well-written roles to such an extent that we know (at the very least) one or two important character-defining details that sets each one apart from the rest.

Yet surprisingly more often than not when it comes to The Martian, the only discerning characteristic a supporting player has to set them apart from another person in the scene is the name of the celebrity playing them.

Fortunately for Scott's film, this hardly amounts to a major flaw since The Martian is much more focused on Damon’s lead as well as the thrilling scientific innovation that he (and others) will have to rely on to try and reunite Watney with his crew.

Still while both pictures suffer slightly in their rushed final acts as The Martian, in particular stretches our suspension of disbelief near its breaking point, in the end it’s The Martian that leaves a far more lasting impression by knowing precisely the right note it wants to end the film on.

Two thrillingly crafted stories of science and survival that play even better together as a double feature, while both possess minor flaws, the greatest successes for each lies in their commitment to championing those who inspire us to reach new heights by daring to dream.

Text ©2016, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.