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“No, really, darling, there are good scripts in this world, somewhere.”

Off the rails

Despite good performances from a cast that includes Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux and Allison Janney, director Tate Taylor’s The Girl on the Train winds up being a little too ridiculous for a movie that wishes to be taken seriously.

Blunt spends much of the movie blotto drunk as Rachel Watson, a slurring alcoholic who aimlessly rides a train to New York City every day, spying on the people living in her former house, as well as the neighbors. Rachel is divorced from Tom (Theroux), who seemingly couldn’t take Rachel’s drinking and their inability to have a child. Tom is remarried to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), they have a child, and they would really like Rachel to stay away.

Tom and Nancy’s nanny, Megan (Haley Bennett), lives nearby with her husband, (Luke Evans). Rachel spies on them in their most intimate moments as she races by on the train, envying what she sees as the perfect young romance. Then, Nancy sees Megan with another man—setting off an odd, drunken tailspin that results in her getting involved in the drama when Megan goes missing.

So, for starters, I’m just not down with this premise. A deliriously drunk woman is able to decipher the goings-on inside homes as she races by in a train. Yes, sometimes the train slows down, and she does know the inhabitants somewhat, but this is a highly unlikely plot gimmick that’s stretched out to unrealistic proportions. Then she gets involved with the missing woman’s husband, and eventually finds herself a target in the investigation.

Rachel is the most unreliable of characters, constantly blurred by hard alcohol she slurps from a sippee cup. The script calls for many of her observations and actions to be unreliable due to her constant intoxication. She blacks out, loses time, and even has other characters telling her lies to convince her she’s behaving abnormally.

And, yet, she’s able to put together key elements of a woman’s disappearance while racing by on a train with a blood alcohol count in the stratosphere. Sorry, sometimes scripts just ask me to go to places I can’t go, and I couldn’t go along for the ride on this one. I found it too silly. Too much of this movie calls for the viewer to accept some unrealistic circumstances and situations in a movie based in reality. Did I still enjoy the movie on some levels? Yes, somewhat. I like how Blunt plays inebriated in this movie. She’s a total mess, but she keeps herself sympathetic. Theroux is great as the confused, protective ex who pleads with his current wife to cut Rachel a break, up until the point where he can no longer defend her. Janney is awesome as the grinning investigator who doesn’t buy Rachel’s story. I want another movie with her as the main character. There’s a big mystery at The Girl on play here, and the answer to that mystery becomes obvious the Train perhaps earlier than Taylor suspects it does. Still, I liked 12345 Director: Tate Taylor Starring: Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Allison Janney how the mystery played out, and the performance opportunities it leads to for some of the performers. Some of the cast gets to go to truly dark places, and they do it well. On a technical level, this is a very good-looking movie, creepily shot by Charlotte Bruus Christensen, with a terrific score by Danny Elfman. Even though his movie goes to some goofy extremes, Taylor clearly knows how to get strong performances from his cast, and he’s assembled a nice one. The Girl on the Train has its problems, but it isn’t a complete waste of time. See it if you are a Blunt fan, or if you’re a fan of the book. If you haven’t read the book, could care less about Blunt—strange, but possible—and like your thrillers a little more plausible, this one might not be for you. Ω

3Amanda Knox Directors Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn investigate the horror show that was the Meredith Kercher murder and the many injustices rained down upon American exchange student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend of one week, Raffaele Sollecito, in Perugia, Italy. Both were convicted by an Italian court, along with a third suspect, of stabbing Knox’s roommate Kercher to death, and both served time as their cases went through a series of appeals. The two, now free, sit down for interviews and speak of the confusion that was their interrogation, their whereabouts on the night of the murder, and the hell they endured in prison. The film mostly skips over the trials, concentrating more on Knox and Sollecito’s recollections about the night of the murder and the aftermath. The subject probably requires an entire series, not one 90-minute documentary, but the story is covered pretty well given the time constraint. Other interviews include an idiotic journalist who admits much of what was reported on Knox was rushed, inconclusive or even made up. The head prosecutor on the case also sits down and insists upon Knox’s guilt even though there was a lack of evidence. (Available for streaming on Netflix.)

4Birth of a Nation Director Nate Parker’s biographical film about Nat Turner plays out like the scariest of horror shows, and it very well should. The film scarily portrays Turner’s slave rebellion in the South, one that resulted in many African Americans being slaughtered in retaliation. It’s bloody, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s the two-by-four to the face type of film the subject warrants. Parker plays Turner, a slave raised as a preacher and exploited for money by his plantation owner (Armie Hammer in a scary performance). Parker’s performance is powerful. As for his directing, he portrays white plantation and slave owners and preachers as hissing, hateful, almost cartoonish demons, and I say amen to that. Some of the history might not be 100 percent accurate, but the portrayal of the hatred and disgusting state of affairs that led to Turner’s uprising is vivid and on target. Jackie Earle Haley, a.k.a. Kelly Leak of The Bad News Bears, successfully portrays one of the most repugnant, irredeemable characters ever put to screen. Stylistically, the film gets a little strange in a few moments, but the end results and impressions are long lasting, very meaningful ones.

1Blair Witch This is the second sequel to The Blair Witch Project, the original “found footage” horror film. This movie is essentially the original with louder noises, a few more gizmos—drones, walkie talkies, better tents— and, yes, lots more sticks tied together with twine and piles of rocks. For those of you who are scared shitless by stick men made out of twigs and twine—and piles of rocks in front of tents—this movie will fuck your shit up. I’m thinking that accounts for perhaps .00009832 percent of the movie-going population. The rest of you will be bored out of your minds. James (James Allen McCune), long suffering brother of the original film’s Heather, who vanished all those years ago, has found … a tape. That tape contains shaky footage made by somebody moronic enough to try to keep the action on camera rather than focus on their much needed getaway. In said footage, a messed-up looking woman is glimpsed for a second, so James instantly thinks it’s Heather. James assembles a crew of idiots to go into the forest, the cursed forest where people disappear and strange tapes are found, in search of the house where the footage was filmed.

3Deepwater Horizon I think my shockingly lustrous eyelashes got singed watching Deepwater Horizon, director Peter Berg’s harrowing account of the worst oil rig disaster in American history. That’s because Berg’s film drops the viewer into a situation where fire and explosions are so realistic, you can feel the heat and disorientation of the 2010 disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 men and led to an oil spill eclipsing all other oil spills. Mark Wahlberg is first-rate as Mike Williams, a man who was actually on the rig at the time of the disaster. Kurt Russell equals his power as Jimmy Harrell, who questions the integrity of the rig, and then proceeds to have the worst shower in cinema history since Janet Leigh had a showdown with Anthony Perkins. Berg puts his film together so that the mere sight of mud oozing from a pipe is terrifying. When the stages of the disaster go into high gear, it’s as scary as any horror film to hit screens this year.

3The Greasy Strangler This totally bonkers film plays out like David Lynch meets John Waters. Grouchy old man Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels, who once played a security guard on Diff’rent Strokes) and his weird son (Sky Elobar) conduct disco tours in which they lie to tourists about where the Bee Gees wrote their music. In the evenings, the grouchy old man just might be the Greasy Strangler, a man who is basically what his title implies: a dude covered in grease—partly due to the greasy food he eats—who strangles people. Things become complicated when Big Ronnie takes a liking to his son’s girlfriend, resulting in a lot of full-frontal nudity from all cast members. First time director Jim Hosking traffics in a sort of absurdist humor that won’t be appreciated by all, but for those who like their movies weird, he serves up a smorgasbord with this one. It’s also really gross, with lots of grease, farts and eyeball consumption. If you’re a fan of such cult films as The Dark Backward, you will eat this up. (Available for rent on iTunes and Amazon during a limited theatrical release.)

3The Magnificent Seven Director Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven, which was itself a remake of Seven Samurai, has enough in common with the Yul Brynner/Steve McQueen film to make it feel like a retelling of the classic story. It also contains enough departures to make it feel like a fresh take rather than just a rehash. The Mexican bandits led by Eli Wallach are replaced by an evil, land-stealing company led by Bartholomew Bogue. As played by Peter Sarsgaard, Bogue is a memorable villain who makes the skin crawl. He rolls into a mining town, kills a bunch of good hard-working people, and winds up getting the group in the movie’s title on his ass. Let the spectacular gunfights commence! Fuqua’s pal Denzel Washington—they did The Equalizer and Training Day together—is first-rate as Chisolm, basically Brynner’s role from the 1960 classic. When the wife of one of the deceased (Haley Bennett) comes looking for help and mentioning Bogue’s name, Chisolm flies into calm, collected and most certainly valiant action. He enlists six other men to visit the town and prepare the townspeople for the fight of their lives.

1Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Holy hell, is this film a boring mess. Tim Burton directs a leaden Asa Butterfield in this adaptation of the Ransom Riggs novel. The movie is sloppy, as if the special effects weren’t completed. The story is convoluted, as if the filmmakers thought hiring a big time art director and costuming department were a fair swap for a good script. The narrative involves some nonsense regarding mutant children in a house in the ’40s that’s stuck in a time loop. The house is led by Miss Peregrine (Eva Green, the only good thing about the movie), and visited by young Jake (Butterfield), who heard about the place from his late grandfather (Terrence Stamp). The kids all have “peculiarities” but no personality. They are X-Men with no sense of purpose. Butterfield, a normally reliable young actor, decimates nearly every line he utters in this film. Burton stresses the visuals, as usual, but without a strong lead like Johnny Depp or Michael Keaton, Burton is a lost cause. This will hang tough as one of the year’s biggest disappointments. Samuel L. Jackson does show up with a gray version of his wig from Unbreakable, along with Venom’s teeth. He has his moments, but he can’t save this thing.

on stands nov. 10

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