Cops and Robbers: HELL OR HIGH WATER

Hell or High Water locates the western there for the taking underneath the modern post-industrial late-capitalism American west. It takes place in modern day, but it still has black hats and white hats and even some hats in between, and a preoccupation with who is allowed to make the rules and who is allowed to transgress the rules. The whole thing boils down to a hardtack cops and robbers movie, two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) hitting small-town Texas banks to raise enough money to keep their late mother’s farmland out of the bank’s hands. You see, there’s oil there, and the bank would very much like to sell it to a company willing to tap it and pump out liquid gold. The brothers would rather get out of foreclosure and see the profits themselves. So they pull on ski masks, hop in their dusty, beat-up cars, and drive from target to target. All the while, two cops (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) are in laid-back, laconic pursuit.

Read the film of a piece with screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s previous script, for last year’s Drug War thriller Sicario, and it’s plainly another movie about contemporary frontier law and order, where people forgotten and ignored simply do the best they can to scrape out a living whether it be through crime or punishment. Taken with director David Mackenzie’s previous film, British father-and-son-in-prison movie Starred Up, it’s another masculine vision of family tension rippling across a surface disturbed by their mixed loyalties and the threat of violence (both from within and from outside the family unit). The tough, smart Hell or High Water is a synthesis of these ideas, held together as if by saltines and spittle as a dry and dusty combination of exposition and foreshadowing. As the brothers draw closer to their fundraising goal the lawmen draw closer to catching them. This won’t end well, but there’s an egalitarian respect on the part of the filmmakers, recognizing both halves of the equation have humanity worth considering.

The movie’s sharp plotting and unassuming concern with its characters’ lives put me in mind of Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. Hardly a scene goes by without a line of dialogue that’s pleasing to the ear – an eccentric spin on a common sentiment, or a revealing exchange that casually illuminates some nook or cranny of personality a more single-mindedly plot-focused film would ignore. This extends to the robbers, as one fresh from prison remains jumpy and unpredictable, but also wounded that the other had their mother’s favor right up until the end. And then there are the cops, Bridges’ the old vet on the brink of retirement out for one last big case needling his Native American partner with the kind of affectionate racially-charged teasing he thinks is fine because it’s meant well, but lands with studied stoic exasperation on Birmingham’s face. Then there are the one-scene-wonders, bank tellers and managers, waitresses and patrons, casino employees and gamblers. Each of them makes the most of their moment, the heroes of their own stories living their own lives, only coming into focus for us because they happen to cross paths with the main event.

It plays out by turns thrilling and suspenseful, but often at a relaxed downbeat, building at a slow, steady pace. The robberies are sudden, messy, scary, dangerous. The investigation is methodical and folksy. It’s told in a style that’s terse, matter-of-fact. Vast desert landscapes and run-down small towns are the new Western terrain. In the forgotten corners of the Great Recession, poverty, Chevron, and concealed carry permits are the constants. But it’s not just recent downturn. Factories have dried up. Family farms can’t make ends meet. One old man stares out across a quaint but deserted downtown and intones, “No one’s made a living here in 150 years.” Who can blame the robbers for getting creative about getting by? They steal from the bank like the bank is allowed to steal from them. And yet who can say that they shouldn’t pay for their sins? With a strong, steady hand the movie finds an exciting climax, and a resigned headshake of an ambiguous conclusion. The movie’s like an old narrative folk-country ballad where the lyrics might err on the side of clumsy and derivative, but the chords are strong, the personality is bright, and the sentiment rings true.

Future Past: THE GIVER

The recent spate of films adapted from young adult dystopian fiction created the economic conditions necessary for a movie based on Lois Lowry’s beloved 1993 book The Giver. That book, with its special teen receiving wisdom about the oppression underpinning the pristine homogonous future world in which he lives, laid the groundwork for future YA tentpoles like The Hunger Games and Divergent. But as is often the case, tracing the fad back to the source reveals a starker, stranger, and more ambivalent and ambiguous work than its imitators. And so, superficial similarities to those recent YA films aside, this film has more in common with small scale 70’s sci-fi or an extended Twilight Zone episode with its earnestly metaphorical nature and careful tone.

In this future, the entire known world is only a town full of modular buildings and imagineered flora. The people, dressed in the same drab pajama-like clothes, never leave because they have no reason to. They have no concept of geography or history or memory. They don’t perceive emotion and can’t see color. Their daily injections keep them anesthetized and compliant. Ignorance really is bliss. Even the leader (a frosty Meryl Streep) blindly follows their institutional memories of How Things Are Done. The rules allow one person access to memories of life before, understandings of human nature – love, hate, peace, war – and creation – art, music, philosophy – for which the general public simply has no need. Living alone on the edge of town in a small book-lined house, he (Jeff Bridges, looking like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders) is only called upon when the leader needs advice.

It’s a clearly metaphorical place, a cautionary tale about smoothing over humanity’s rough patches in the pursuit of a blind form of conflict-free sameness. It’s not Orwellian as much as it is right out of Huxley, who feared in his novel Brave New World that the future would find knowledge devalued and the populace passive through nothing more than a regular dose of happy ignorance. No one would question the system because no one would think to. You don’t need thought police once the people have forgotten how to have thoughts. Putting The Giver’s world on screen, director Phillip Noyce, finding a balance between his character-driven dramas like The Quiet American and rip-roaring actioners like Salt, shoots in black and white, representing the cognitive state of the people. It’s a grey world, seductively crisp and eerily blank.

When 18-year-old Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is handpicked to be the new Receiver of Memory, he begins to get access to the history of human thought and experience. It’s dangerous. The former Receiver (Taylor Swift) mysteriously disappeared rather than keep receiving enlightenment. Bridges warns the boy about the dangers, and then grabs his forearms and beams psychic transmissions into his protégé’s brain. Rushes of knowledge are represented by colorful blasts of high-def nature photography, pixilated home video snippets, and grainy archival footage. As his understanding grows, Jonas sees color slowly seep into the frame. He stares at his best friend (Odeya Rush). Her hair is a soft red in an otherwise black and white frame (a la Pleasantville). Soon pale green grass and soft blue sky appear in the film’s imagery. Then, eventually, the film is in full color. It’s a nice visual representation of one of the book’s most interior concepts.

Jonas goes off his meds and discovers stirrings of romantic interest that set him apart even further. His parents (Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgård) look at him confused and worried. He’s moved beyond their unknowingly small perceptions of life. It’s a clever metaphor not only for oppression, but for growing up, moving out, and becoming your own person distinct and yet still a part of your family unit. Eventually, Jonas must decide what to do with all this newfound knowledge, and that’s where the movie begins to dumb itself down to get into the category the marketplace needs it to fit.

Screenwriters Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide ramp up some of the movie’s more contemporary YA adjacent ideas, creating a pro forma romantic triangle that’s admirably restrained given the characters’ flat affects, but distracting nonetheless. Then the climax gussies the small, allegorical plot up with a few chase scenes and a nonsense race-against-the-clock climactic save-the-future goal that runs counter to the material’s tantalizingly philosophical ambiguities. I could feel the movie straining against its commercial impulses as it tries to find a happy ending in what is a muted and ambiguous vision. It ends up feeling cheaper and more familiar than the intriguing opening suggests. But it retains enough of a glimmer of its source material’s introspective personality and distinctive mood to wish it was willing to be less derivative, instead of chasing the past success of the book’s successors. 

Dead on Arrival: R.I.P.D.

R.I.P.D. is a fantasy cop movie with a few good ideas played badly. The acronym stands for the Rest In Peace Department, the movie’s best idea. If your movie is going to have one best idea, might as well make it the central concept. (In this case, that concept is undoubtedly reproduced from the comic books by which the movie’s inspired.) The idea here is that cops killed in the line of duty are sucked up to a heavenly way station where they’re offered a chance to serve a tour of duty back on Earth. The job of the R.I.P.D. is to hunt down dead souls who’ve somehow slipped through the cracks and have remained shuffling around on this mortal coil. Once found, the souls are brought up into the clouds to receive their rightful judgment. Within that premise, there should be plenty of room to stage interesting paranormal spins on cop movie tropes, but the whole enterprise quickly takes on the feeling of a bargain basement Men in Black knockoff.

A recently deceased cop (Ryan Reynolds) finds himself paired with a grizzled Wild West lawman (Jeff Bridges) who has been on the R.I.P.D. for quite some time. They’re sent out on their rounds by their no-nonsense chief (Mary-Louise Parker) who looks like just the kind of official who’d demand an officer’s badge and gun and take them off a case the instant things start to deviate from protocol. Reynolds is playing his usual sheepishly competent handsome guy, while Bridges seems to be enjoying playing his Rooster Cogburn again while letting a little bit of a Tommy Lee Jones impression sneak around the sides. These two wild card cops clash with each other, but of course we all know that their time on the streets together will loosen their distinctive personalities and let friendship in. Would we have it any other way?

But anyway, the problem isn’t in the easy genre staples, but in the execution. The actors are trying their best to put over some severely clunky material. The script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, the guys behind the Clash of the Titans remake and the big screen Aeon Flux, not an encouraging track record, is a broad blend of silly banter and zippy action. But it all plays out stiffly, the plot moving through predictable motions leadenly while the actors try valiantly to keep afloat characterizations that are so one-note, the only movement comes when they seem to go out of tune to conform to the script’s schematic emotional arcs. Director Richard Schwentke brings to it all a digitally swooshing camera that, for all its showy movement, fails to bring the dead material to life. Like his last film, the similarly antic and dull old guy actioner Red, there’s lifelessness behind the would-be comic-book-style-approximating compositions.

Adding to the weightlessness of it all is the wobbly special effects, which appear distractingly rubbery and artificial. Once an action scene starts, with a dead soul popping out of its mortal casing in grotesque and unpleasant ways, the characters get all bouncy and unreal, impossible to believe and difficult to care about as destruction makes little impact on their forms. I found myself wondering if there was any real world stunt work done on this production at all. As the action gets bigger and bigger and the undead souls appear to be gathering an artifact that will allow them to reverse the flow on the heavenly funnel cloud that sucks all dead into the afterlife, it all gets ever increasingly unmoored. Not even Kevin Bacon as a crooked police officer can salvage the CG spasms that explode in generic special effects mayhem of the blandest kind. The cop movie turns into a stop-the-MacGuffin movie. At least it’s the source of the movie’s one good self-knowing laugh. When Parker explains the object in question’s world-ending properties, Bridges scrunches up his face and asks, “Who’d ever want to make that?”

Gods Inside a Machine: TRON: LEGACY

Tron: Legacy is my inner 12-year-old’s favorite movie of the year. It’s a slick, entertaining film, though in some ways a standard, solemn blockbuster. It’s also a rather stunning directorial debut for Joseph Kosinski, who manages to find some moments of visual poetry amidst the sleek, glow-in-the-dark sci-fi aesthetic. The first Tron, directed by Steven Lisberger, flopped upon its release in 1982. It has a fascinating concept but is unsure how far to push its garish kookiness, telling the story of a talented computer programmer (Jeff Bridges) who is sucked into the computer world he helped create for the shady technology company Encom. Built from once cutting-edge computer technology, the effects are no longer special. Indeed, they are now an impediment, but no more so than the collision between the real-world corporate espionage plot and the ugly computer world visuals.

With this late sequel, Kosinski makes the concept as cool as it should have been in the first place. He, along with former Lost writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, bring back Jeff Bridges for a film that stands alone, working better than its sequel status. In a prologue we learn that, though Bridges emerged from the computer to become a success in our world, he eventually disappeared, orphaning his young son (Owen Best). This son grows up to be a successful programmer in his own right, and by the time the story proper begins, he wants nothing to do with the company his dad helped create.

Now played by the woodenly earnest Garrett Hedlund, he broods and scowls. Not even pulling a prank on Encom’s Board of Directors brings a smile to his face. Soon enough, he receives a mysterious signal from his dad’s old office and shows up to investigate. Once there, no big surprise, he accidentally ends up inside the computer as well. There he must battle his way out of a gladiator lightshow complete with the Machiavellian maneuverings of programs that have rebelled against the user (also their creator), thus keeping Bridges trapped and exiled for all this time, powerless against the ageless program he made in his own image.

The film is driven forward by its marriage of sleek visuals to an insistent, driving Daft Punk score (a great piece of film scoring). Tron: Legacy is exciting, even in its moments of stasis and vagueness (most likely symptoms of Disney’s attempt to turn Tron into their next big franchise). This is a film of poses and moments, and I found both aspects equally striking. An early moment takes us from a grieving young boy’s bike ride to the angst-filled motorcyclist he becomes, spanning two decades of character development in one elegant cut. Criss-crossing neon beams of energy dot the 3D computer-world landscape, with its towering future-noir buildings and its arenas and highways that serve as stages for glowing spectacle. Later, Bridges will make a dramatic entrance into a tense situation backlit like an electric Jedi. The film is a fluid, shimmering sci-fi sensation, drawing from aesthetic influences like the Star Wars prequels, the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer and Matrix sequels, the blockbuster fussiness of David Fincher’s more fantastical films, and the somberness of Christopher Nolan’s Batmans.

The leads’ acting is merely functional (yes, even from the dependable Bridges), but the supporting performances are nicely honed pieces of genre work. An early cameo from Cillian Murphy is the most promising of the film’s attempts at sequel setting. Bruce Boxleitner lends some weight to the first-act exposition, reprising his role from the first film. Olivia Wilde struts about in a striking black suit that really pops against her artificial paleness. Michael Sheen brings the only comedy as he strokes a glowing cane and snaps off his snippy dialogue while strutting through his role as a campy nightclub owner. It’s all good fun.

Though hardly revelatory, Tron: Legacy is a refreshing event film that promises no more than it can deliver. It’s an eye-candy spectacle with top-of-the-line effects that manage arresting visuals and an addictive tone amidst the action. The film finds a sleek, cool groove in which to operate. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself so drawn into the pleasing charge of the imagery and sounds, and that my inner 12-year-old was so delighted.

A Man Named "Bad": CRAZY HEART

Crazy Heart is a stunningly self-assured debut feature written and directed by Scott Cooper. It’s confident, steady work that wisely foregrounds its lead performance, which also happens to be its best asset. If at worst the film seems to be cliché, it serves to remind us that some peoples’ lives sound like a cliché. There’s a specificity to the film that keeps it honest, especially in the deeply felt and tenderly wrought performance from Jeff Bridges as “Bad” Blake, an alcoholic country singer whose glory days are a couple of decades behind him. Here is a character that feels real despite being a familiar type. As the film ends, with two characters literally walking into the sunset, there’s a feeling that the film may be ending, but the characters will continue to exist, pulling their weary selves through one more day, one more week, and one more song.

At its most interesting the film is a portrait of the modern country music scene with a striking dichotomy between the raw, intimate singer-songwriter style and the super-slick productions that border on pop. In the film, Blake’s protégé (Colin Farrell) illuminates this difference. He has surpassed his mentor in popularity and success, selling out huge arenas while Blake fills dive bars and bowling alleys. The difference is one of glittery buses on one side and beat-up pickups on the other. And yet, there is no demonization of this difference. Its matter of fact interesting and it leads up to a brilliant set of scenes in the center of the film that play out with beautiful ease. Bridges and Farrell flesh in back-story in a natural, unforced way, not through exposition, necessarily, but through acting and tone. We get a sense of their history and their friendship without any kind of forced conflict or tension, and especially without pages of on-the-nose dialogue. Neither man is a villain. Neither man is a hero. They simply are.

This respect extends to the other relationship that is central to the film. The radiant Maggie Gyllenhaal is a small-town reporter who falls for “Bad” Blake. She sees through the grizzled exterior and spies the soul of a true artist. He begins to work on a new song that might provide a needed boost to his income. We hear snippets of lyrics and melody for at least half of the film. Only at the very end do we hear a character slowly strumming a guitar, rasping out the words until the sound and scene segues into a full-blown country-radio version played by another character which carries us into the end credits with the feeling of artistic accomplishment. We have seen a great new song develop before our very eyes and ears.

If the relationship between Bridges and Gyllenhaal feels a little forced, and it does, it’s never the fault of the actors, who bring to their roles a bone-deep sense of characterization. Bridges, especially, brings a sense of seriousness and depth to characterization with a performance that’s worn comfortably. The late addition of a character played by the unmatchable Robert Duvall only adds to this feeling of expertly performed roles. The plot may grind them down in sometimes tired ways, but they never let it feel false. This is a film that is respectful and intelligent with well-earned sentiment. It left me with a deeply felt sense of satisfaction that settled comfortably upon me as the credits began to roll.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

The Men Who Stare at Goats has a great title and, with George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey, a great cast. Unfortunately, it’s a comedy that’s stuck awkwardly between light and dark, soft and edgy. It spins its wheels tonally while also forgetting about narrative drive or thematic development. As a result, it’s merely 90-minutes of watching big stars goof around in a giant sandbox playing true characters, mostly (Clooney, Bridges and Spacey) psychic soldiers trained in a secret Armed Forces project known as New Earth Army. McGregor is just a tag-along journalist (inexplicably shifted from London to Ann Arbor in a pointless case of adjusting the truth) learning about the history of the group, who call themselves Jedi Warriors (cute, considering they’re talking to Obi-Wan Kenobi).

The four men provide the film some modest pleasures. Clooney is good-natured and humorous, as he usually is, here deadpanning dubiously effective combat technique and flatly describing improbable abilities including a “death tap” that killed a man (Instantly? Nope. Eighteen years later. One never knows when the curse of the death tap will strike). Bridges is basically an enlisted Lebowski who indulges in New Age hippie-culture and invents the majority of techniques on display. Spacey has a great few scenes, rolling back his eyes and talking in a funny voice for one scene in which he tries to fake paranormal powers. In another scene he will calmly pass on good wishes to a newlywed couple with the funniest two lines in the movie (Spoiler: “Congratulations. Sorry it doesn’t work out”).

Directed by first-timer, but longtime actor, producer, writer, and friend of Clooney, Grant Heslov, the movie ends up a wishy-washy mess, not as good as it should be, but not as bad as it could have been. The movie’s good-natured enough, but ultimately Heslov can’t muster up enough heft to really start the movie so that by the time it’s wrapping up I found myself thinking “is that all?” It’s a goofy, insubstantial little thing (save for a case of most unfortunate timing with a scene showing an acid-tripping soldier shooting up his base) that just never works. The last scene has McGregor’s reporter typing away, promising to tell the world what happened, then lamenting that his story received little coverage in the media. We’re supposed to sympathize with him, but I found myself agreeing with the media. This story’s a non-starter.