Movie Review: Wrath of Man (2021)

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With his mischievous wit, jaw-dropping athleticism, and old-fashioned charm seducing us right from the start of his very first movie – writer-director Guy Ritchie's auspicious 1998 feature filmmaking debut "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' – enigmatic British actor Jason Statham taught viewers to expect the unexpected whenever he hit the screen. But, unable to be pigeonholed as one specific thing in an industry that thrives on packaging people like products to be marketed, sold, and moved with the same felicity as a bottle of salad dressing, Hollywood has never quite figured out what to do with the unique skill-set of Jason Statham.

Equally at home in comedic, dramatic, and action-focused fare, Statham's ease and dexterity in conveying emotion and information both verbally and nonverbally have, in the years following his last film with Ritchie in 2005's "Revolver" made him something of a half Cary Grant, half Jackie Chan, twenty-first-century unicorn film star. Serving up different sides of himself in everything from "The Bank Job" to the "Fast and Furious" franchise to "Spy," while he's consistently done good work, the 2010s found Statham playing a few too many interchangeable smartass badasses as he coasted from one hit-or-miss action movie to the next.

Having left the clever ensemble oriented crime dramedies that first put him on the map behind, as it turns out, Statham's situation is remarkably similar to the one faced by Guy Ritchie who's struggled to put his own stamp on summer studio tentpoles like "King Arthur" and "Aladdin" in recent years. Now, with the two old friends who first hit fame alongside one another a generation ago agreeing to re-team for a smaller and more intimate, but nonetheless compelling character-driven action film, they've both made the bold decision to address their creative habits and strip their work back to its essence in the stealthily efficient '70s style heist revenge movie "Wrath of Man."

Based upon the 2004 French film “Le convoyeur” aka “Cash Truck” from director Nicolas Boukhrief, which Ritchie adapted alongside his frequent screenwriting collaborators Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson, “Wrath of Man” is a sharp left-hand turn for the British helmer away from the hyper-kinetic brand of filmmaking most synonymous with his name.

Gone here is Ritchie's obsessive kid in a candy store aesthetic of near eye-twitching levels of fast-motion stimuli, which at its best, dazzled viewers and worst, drove us to distraction right along with his penchant for camera trickery. In in its place, he's placed greater emphasis on his man-on-a-mission character-centric storytelling, which makes sense for this tale about a mysterious man (Statham) who walks in off the street and gets a job working for a frequently hijacked L.A. armored car company, only for us to discover that his reasons are far more personal than they are professional.

Taking an unexpectedly understated approach, for the film's first act, I could barely distinguish the U.K. based director of this film from men like Steven Knight or Simon West who'd helmed other vengeance fueled works of this type like “Redemption” and “The Mechanic” for Statham in the late aughts to early '10s. And while initially, it feels more like Ritchie is a director for hire than say, the man that made the newest versions of “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Man From Uncle,” I like how secure he is as a more mature filmmaker to know that the last thing this film needs is a bunch of sudden jump-cuts or shots from the point-of-view of bullets being fired from a machine gun. Ritchie’s strength here is in knowing who, what, and why we’re watching and getting us so lost in the story that when he finally decides to let us behind the curtain, we’re hooked.

Unwilling to mug for the camera or flash that megawatt smile that sometimes makes it impossible to separate a Statham character from the man himself, Ritchie's more restrained technique compliments the quiet power of his leading man very well. Uncovering the real reason why Statham's protagonist joined the armored car company, when the film finally abandons its early over-reliance on male bravado as its employees (played by Holt McCallany and Josh Hartnett) try sizing up the new guy, we begin to see “Wrath of Man” for the bare-bones revenge film that it is.

A terrific director of actors who's known for his ability to attract stellar talent from all corners of the globe, one of the best things about Ritchie's latest work is the trust and patience he places in his cast to reel us in. Developing slowly like a Polaroid that Ritchie's unwilling to shake, once “Wrath” introduces its second group of characters led by Jeffrey Donovan (who's been tacitly doing some of the best work of his career recently elevating even B-movies like “Let Him Go” and “Honest Thief”), we see precisely why everyone said yes to this remake. 

Becoming as involved in Donovan's morally complicated plight as we are in Statham's as though they're two flip-sides of the same coin, it's the actors who invest us in watching what (on paper, at least) would otherwise be an admittedly standard heist drama unfold. Featuring a chilling turn by Scott Eastwood (visibly relishing the opportunity to star in the kind of film his father would've certainly gravitated to in the '70s), “Wrath of Man” is a crackerjack B-movie that works so much better than it should because of the A-talent involved on both sides of the screen. And as one of the film's screenwriters, Ritchie understands this well.

Reuniting with his old friend Statham who, in shifting from one genre to the next over the years, lives to astonish, “Wrath” finds the two in the mood to reevaluate just what it is they can and should bring to a film when they're planning a stripped-down heist as opposed to an over-inflated tentpole.

Relatively straightforward both stylistically and narratively, save for a few flourishes because Guy is Guy after all and he loves to turn a straight line into a maze, “Wrath of Man” might not be what most people would think of when they hear the name Guy Ritchie, but this only works to the film’s advantage. Playing against audience expectations Statham-style, while this is one stellar vehicle for the movie star he put on the map, the biggest surprise of all in “Wrath of Man,” is that twenty-three years after “Lock, Stock,” Guy Ritchie is introducing himself to the world once again, saying, “Okay, you've seen that. Now, look what else I can do.”

 

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Film Movement Movie Review: Oh Lucy! (2017)

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Executive produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gloria Sanchez Productions – the female-centric sister company to Gary Sanchez Productions – this quirky character driven dramedy centered on a bored middle-aged Japanese woman's impulsive journey to California makes for a downright intriguing double feature with Matt Spicer's fellow 2017 directorial debut Ingrid Goes West.

Comprised of people and places writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi knows very well, Oh Lucy! is based upon the filmmaker's multiple award-winning 2014 short film by the same name, which served as her MFA thesis at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

And while there's a lot to like about the creatively ambitious director's wholly original take on the globetrotting road movie, unfortunately (and again similarly to Ingrid) her tonally uneven first feature starts to run out of gas before we've reached the final act.

Released by Film Movement following its successful run at fests around the globe (including screening as part of International Critics Week at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival), Oh Lucy! is bolstered by Shinobu Terajima's Independent Spirit Award nominated performance as a stuck-in-a-rut office worker inspired to start over by her charismatic English teacher, played by the always affable Josh Hartnett.

Likewise, in a welcome return to the screen, Hartnett fires on all emotional cylinders in an unusual and fascinating turn – serving as the tour guide to American culture for the film's leads as they journey after a runaway relative.

Focusing more on situational humor than audible laughs, Lucy revolves around the role past hurts and betrayals play on the film's familial triangle of lost female souls trying to move forward and find themselves.

As the characters inevitably combust, Lucy heads into darker territory despite the filmmaker's attempt to lessen the impact of the cruel third act twists by (disappointingly) using the film's men as the predominant voices of sanity.

Without offering the viewer more information about our leading lady – which is sorely needed to better understand what seems like a one-note response – Hirayanagi's Lucy moves backwards instead of forwards right along with our often antagonistic protagonist.

Seemingly trying to lighten things up a la genre-similar works such as Stranger Than Paradise and Sideways before it reaches its darkly comic yet foreshadowed ending, Oh Lucy! fails to fully pay off on its unique premise and dynamite second act.

Still in spite of its flaws, the picture remains an uncompromising, thoughtful, and impressively fresh cinematic calling card for its imaginative storyteller, which makes me eager to see what Atsuko Hirayanagi will bring to the screen next.


Text ©2018, 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 or screener link 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.

Blu-ray Review: Parts Per Billion (2014)

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In his overly ambitious yet ultimately overwrought feature-filmmaking debut, writer/director Brian Horiuchi takes an Altman meets Iñárritu style approach to his end of the world tale of three couples whose romantic relationships are put to the test on the brink of a biomedical weapon hastened apocalypse.

Filled with confounding edits and nonsensical transitions that frequently lead us forward and backward in time before we’ve even begun to get our bearings straight, Horiuchi’s meandering work moves so awkwardly from one place, point-of-view and time to the next that we’re left with a knotted yarn we can hardly unravel as opposed to the poetic tapestry I believe he was attempting to weave. 

Nonetheless, to his immense credit and future promise as a storyteller, Horiuchi utilizes a clever foundation with which he begins to build his narrative.

For contrary to their initial introduction as everyday citizens watching events unfold on the news over which they seemingly have no control, we soon realize that the film’s main three couples are not only linked to one another but also to the war-related attack that’s hastened the end of civilization.

While this alone should’ve ensured a promising thriller, tragically Horiuchi uses the lightest of brushstrokes to illustrate this idea rather delving further into a greater exploration of man’s culpability and link to one another on a global scale.

Thus instead of focusing on the actual tangible moral drama inherit in the setup, Horiuchi’s film spends way too much time manufacturing sudsy soap operatic subplots involving marital strife, economic woes and domestic issues that are all in desperate need of a major rewrite.

And while this could’ve proven intriguing if the narrative had perhaps unfolded a bit more conventionally in chronological order, unfortunately by inserting lines of dialogue that don’t even begin to pay off  (or even make sense until much, much later) it all feels very inconsequential when you contrast the petty squabbling with the end-of-the-world framework that should’ve taken precedence throughout.

Moreover although the literary technique might have served the material much better on the page than on the screen, ultimately as a film, the odd priorities of foolish arguments and vague inferences that never fully explain just where the characters are coming from make Billion largely ineffective overall.

A work where certain moments as well as the chemistry of its cast (most notably between Penn Badgley and Teresa Palmer) help keep you watching, all in all there’s not enough for the players to do to sustain your interest for long.

And perhaps sensing that and ultimately giving in, Horiuchi chooses a strange moment for the action to simply end in a cut to credits that feels more like a surrender than a stopping point.

A major letdown for actress Rosario Dawson (who also inexplicably produced this cinematic blunder) as well as Josh Hartnett (who plays her husband in a likewise underwritten role), Parts Per Billion not only fails to generate any empathy or genuine understanding for those two leads but it doesn’t even bother specifying a certain fate for the characters in its bizarre conclusion.

Although Gena Rowlands and Frank Langella help class up Horiuchi’s pretentious misfire, overall it’s one of those mind-boggling, conceptually clever yet half-baked celebrity driven film festival bait movies where one A-list caliber actor signs on and it starts a chain reaction for other under-utilized, talented performers to join the pursuit even if they’re unable to heighten the film based on their charisma alone.

An apocalyptic Altmanesque film that tries to build tension before realizing that there’s nowhere for the movie to go, although Horiuchi’s Parts Per Billion started with an enviable amount of potential, ultimately what we’re left with is less a cohesive work worthy of your time than simply a mismatched collection of its disparate parts.

Text ©2014, 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 evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Sin City (2005) -- Recut, Extended, Unrated 2-Disc Edition

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A.K.A. Frank Miller's Sin City

To hear Frank Miller explain it, the creation of Sin City was one he undertook for the most selfish reasons in deciding to build a comic book around all of the things he enjoyed drawing the most such as fast cars, hot babes, and more. And of course, to match the images with the tone, it would all be carried out in the style of film noir complete with a Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane feel of hard-boiled insanity lurking around every dark corner.

Although, truth be told—we’re all united by taste and art is the greatest bridge upon which to build a relationship-- so with the unrelenting passion of super fan and digital filmmaking genius Robert Rodriguez who damn near stalked Miller down (contacting his editor, agent, and lawyer Godfather style), Miller realized he’d found a like-minded artist who was turned on by and tuned into the exact same things.



Flash-forward more than a decade and—eager to prove his worth and mettle for the material—Rodriguez invited Miller out to his very own Troublemaker Studios in Texas for one day to run a “test.” Humoring Rodriguez by obliging to visit-- all the while wondering what on Earth a filmmaker could accomplish in a single day—Rodriguez managed to round up A-list talent like Josh Hartnett with the plea of “I don’t have the rights; help me convince Miller” to shoot what is now the opening sequence of the film as the old-fashioned, handsome Hartnett startles a beautiful blonde on a rooftop, mistakes her into trusting him for a smoke and embrace before she’s left dead for reasons unknown.

Needless to say, Miller was dazzled and honored by just how incredibly faithful Rodriguez was to his material as the two collaborated as co-directors on one of the most surprisingly visceral, visually spectacular cinematic works of 2005—complete with one mini-macabre comedy sequence filmed by guest director Quentin Tarantino-- whom Rodriguez hoped to seduce with technology as a gateway drug to encourage QT to move from film stock to all-digital filmmaking. It didn't work but boy, did Tarantino have fun as he's all over the Blu-ray and commentary tracks.

Joking that despite the enormity of the three men’s egos they were still able to get along, Miller stated that he wouldn’t have relinquished the rights to Sin City if he hadn’t had the opportunity to help direct. Throwing out the idea of a screenwriting credit and even alienating the Director’s Guild of America by Rodriguez’s incredible vision and determination to bring Miller in on the same level, he decided he didn’t want to simply make a movie of the comic but instead use the medium of cinema and turn that into the comic since at their core, he argues that they’re very similar mediums that both use still images.

The best evidence of this theorem you can see below in the aforementioned rooftop scene beginning with Miller’s drawing, the use of the green screen during production, only to digitally transform the background in the post-process to the startling and riveting finished product.





Relishing in every opportunity to be as deliciously twisted or lurid as possible—watching the film again today on Blu-ray, a few years after seeing it for a paper I wrote on modern day neo-noirs in film school—it dawned on me that for those who were disappointed by the Grindhouse film undertaken by Rodriguez and Tarantino with their respective contributions-- Planet Terror and Death Proof respectively--Sin City is the answer.

Moreover, you can see how well all the time spent watching "grindhouse" movies in the ‘70s was put to use in this alternatively exploitative and disturbing yet compelling and mesmerizing contradiction of a trashy masterpiece.

Although the second disc of this astounding Blu-ray transfer gives the filmmakers the opportunity to present the complete unrated, recut and extended version of the film which adds on a little more than twenty minutes and gives you the opportunity to watch the individual stories unfold one at a time with four specific breakdowns—aside from the Hartnett cameo that opens and closes the work-- essentially the film can be broken down into three distinct stories all directly pulled from Miller’s series of graphic novels.

A cross between vintage film noir with a bit of the old west spirit thrown into the mix (and not simply just in the scene with exotic dancer Jessica Alba whipping up the crowd with her lasso)-- the film’s characters who populate the eponymous Sin City aren’t presented to us in the traditional white hat/black hat or good guy/bad guy Hollywood standard, instead showing us the evil and the good side by side and on both sides of the law as in the case of the film’s standout storyline.

This finds Bruce Willis’ dedicated cop John Hartigan ignoring his doctor’s orders and warnings about angina in order to save eleven year old Nancy Callahan from the clutches of a sadistic pedophile, who is incidentally the son of a powerful politician. When his partner turns on Hartigan and leaves him for dead-- pinning all crimes involved on Hartigan-- he gets locked up for eight years trading his freedom to save the beautiful little girl he’d rescued who sends him weekly letters under the pen-name of “Cordelia” until one day they suddenly stop.

Fearful that she’s either grown too old to write pen pal letters to the cop that had saved her life or that something has happened to Nancy—and not knowing which thought is worse to Hartigan who states that her written words were the only thing that kept him from killing himself—he confesses to the crimes he didn’t commit and ventures back into the dimly lit, dicey streets to hopefully rescue Nancy once again.

Of course, by this point in the nonlinear narrative that jumps around with characters and storylines that overlap and blend together unexpectedly, we’ve realized that Nancy is none other than the beautiful Jessica Alba who has fallen in love with her childhood hero. But, unfortunately endings are never traditionally happy in the world of noir and especially not in the realm of Miller’s Sin City as the same themes of love, loss, and revenge are woven throughout the other tales.




Featuring a nearly unrecognizable Mickey Rourke as the battered Marv who falls in love with the angelic “perfect woman” Goldie-- a one night stand to whom he awakens to find dead,-- he tears throughout the city in order to avenge the woman he considers his true love, enlisting the help of others including his tough but tender lesbian parole officer Carla Gugino who maternally reminds him to take his anti-psychotic medication without which he has a tendency to hallucinate.

Worried that he’s been led down the wrong path by his own mind playing tricks on him, Rourke’s Marv gets far more than he bargained for when he starts down a horrifying maze of bloodshed, insanity, cannibalism, conspiracy, and mad science that are far beyond his worst nightmares.

In the fascinating but a bit overly long and meandering middle storyline that boasts a ridiculous number of gifted actors including Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel and others—the tone changes from darkly comic to terrifying as the talkative, flirtatious barmaid, Shellie (Brittany Murphy) tries to stop her married, old abusive boyfriend (Del Toro) from busting down her door where she’s presently with her new one (Owen).

And despite the fact that Del Toro has brought along a group of heavy-hitters with weapons, we all know that the man who should’ve been James Bond can easily take ‘em down as Owen chases them off into the night, venturing into Old Town which is coincidentally run by the women of the night who look after their own and exact their own brand of justice.

When things get out of hand and Del Toro’s character is killed before they discover his profession as a police officer, Owen and his ex—the dominatrix styled Rosario Dawson—begin preparing for an all-out war. Not willing to let the mafia or the cops take Old Town from the women, Dawson and her motley crew of nubile, scantily clad but deadly divas strap on guns, ropes, and ammo in a standoff that lasts far too long when a double-cross enters the equation and too much time is spent explaining what we’re seeing in a way that would’ve benefited from tighter editing.

While the men are mostly out for the kill whether it’s in the name of love, revenge, or insanity (and sure enough the second disc boasts an interactive "killing" game) and the women are either damsels in distress or vixens—essentially, the work is a depiction of violence at its most primal and carnal. Additionally, it's one that never shies away from its exploitative tendency (repeatedly on display throughout the oeuvre of Robert Rodriguez from the most over-the-top sex scene in Desperado and beyond) but despite this, the film keeps you watching for the sheer audacious aesthetic appreciation of the groundbreaking techniques employed in its creation.

Primarily filmed in black and white with flashes of color whether it’s in a woman’s blue eyes, red lips, a dress, blonde hair, blood, or the personification of evil in the form of the monstrous “Yellow Bastard"-- Sin City is that rare film you find yourself wanting to turn away from but realize you’re unable to do so since you’re riveted by this wholly creative, free-wheeling, yet painstakingly precise world concocted by Miller and Rodriguez.

While Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Miramax have managed to nail down the Blu-ray format to an exact science with recent releases, they’ve truly outdone themselves in what has to be the second most impressive Blu-ray of the year, closely following their amazing restoration and multi-disc presentation of Pinocchio.

The level of clarity in the sound and picture makes Sin City honestly a film that looks much richer on Blu-ray than it did in the theatre as it was originally filmed with high-definition Sony cameras, so its move right into 1080 pixels helps reaffirm that for Sin City’s origins as a digital picture, “there’s no place like home” on Blu-ray.

While in these economic times, I’m usually pretty cautious in recommending readers upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray unless there’s a marked difference in quality or features viewers truly want-- I have zero hesitation this time around in advising you to move directly to Blu without passing go.

Having fun with the format itself and equipping the film with D-Box motion control along with three different audio tracks (including commentary and one Austin Audience Reaction track), you’re also given the opportunity on the first disc alone of utilizing the “Cine-Explore” feature that incorporates behind the scenes extras into the viewing experience itself.

Giving viewers the freedom to watch the individual stories separately on the second Blu-ray in their longer, uncut forms—Rodriguez continues with his grand tradition of loading discs with some truly first rate bonus features such as his short “15-Minute Film School,” along with a surprising inclusion of a “10-Minute Cooking School.”

While some of the extras are fun but not quite necessary like the cooking lesson and Willis rocking with his band—the making-of-featurettes are all quite interesting breaking down the film from the costumes, special effects, props, to interviews and play-by-play recollections with Miller, Rodriguez and Tarantino such as in the one I cited at the start of this review, “How It Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller To Make The Film.”

Although unfortunately as filmgoers master the art of digital technology and that irresistible green screen that makes anything and everything possible and unfortunately sometimes making films feel a bit cooler, artificial, and uninvolving like the beautiful but vacuous recent Miller release The Spirit-- in Sin City it feels absolutely essential in transferring the comic to the screen.

Therefore, it makes one even more excited for the 2010 announced sequel as surely Rodriguez’s wizardry and penchant for digital invention will have the opportunity to climb even greater heights five years after the first film was made.