FILM

Money pit

The usually reliable pairing of director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan hits a speed bump with Greed, perhaps the weakest movie the duo have ever produced.

The Winterbottom-Coogan combo has been responsible for, now, seven films, with such winners as the many Trip movies, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and, my personal favorite, 24 Hour Party People. When word hit me that the two were working on a new satire about the fashion world and the upper class, with Coogan headlining as a shifty millionaire, I said, “Sign me up!”

The resultant movie, written and directed by Winterbottom, is a muddled mess with only a few laughs and no true sense of purpose or direction. It starts as sort of fictional biopic, the making of fashion mogul Sir Richard McCreadie (Coogan), who will rise to power by buying up struggling clothes businesses and spinning them for dollars through bankruptcies and other manipulations. He basically steps on a lot of faces on his way to the top.

Problem number one is that there’s nothing at all surprising or engaging about McCreadie or his rise to power. Coogan portrays the character through varying ages (a couple of other actors portray him at his youngest), and he seems to be going for a mixture of Donald Trump and Coogan’s own Alan Partridge character. He sports big white teeth and a sweet tan— not unlike a certain cranky President.

The script basically calls for Coogan to be a real asshole, and we see him buying people out with no regard for their feelings and chastising well-meaning employees in public. There’s just no reason to care about this guy, whether in flashback or the present day. It would help if he were nasty-funny, but very few moments come off as funny in this movie, so McCreadie is basically just an unpleasant presence and experience.

In the present, McCreadie is trying to put together a 60th birthday celebration featuring celebrities, a Roman Colosseum replica and a real lion. Celebrities tend to make a big deal of their 60th. (Howard Stern threw a big, star studded bash.) And maybe Winterbottom was trying to poke a little fun at those types of parties. Other than one funny joke featuring a George Michael impersonator, the whole big party premise is a dud.

Toward the end of the film, Winterbottom decides that his movie isn’t really a comedy about greedy jerks at all. It’s a scathing take on the fashion industry and the way it employs the underprivileged worldwide for menial sums. Or it wishes it was. The change in tone—including a violent “WTF” ending that comes out of nowhere—reeks of desperate storytelling. It’s like Winterbottom set out to make a satire in his usual mode, but then decided his film needed to be The Big Short of fashion industry movies at the last minute. It all induces major head scratching.

Too bad. Coogan is almost always fun on screen, so it’s a real task to make him a bore. Isla Fisher shows up as McCreadie’s wife, and their unorthodox relationship could’ve been the basis of its own movie, but gets little screen time here. A subplot involving McCreadie’s biographer feels like it was supposed to be a substantial part of the film but comes off as something that got lost in the editing room. There are other characters in this movie that suddenly rise up in a way where we are supposed to care about them and their plights, but the script has done nothing to justify such feelings.

No big deal. Entertainers who work together as much as Winterbottom and Coogan do are bound to lay an egg every now and then. Greed is a stinker, but the duo will rise above and entertain again. They are already working on another movie, and I’m sure there will be a couple after that before they are done. None of those, I assure you, will contain the further adventures of Sir Richard McCreadie. Ω

“I don’t always take selfies, but when I do, it always takes about 200 attempts and some editing.”

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3Bad Boys for Life Twenty-five years have passed since detectives Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) first suited up for Captain Michael Bay in Bad Boys, and 17 years have passed since they joined him again for Bad Boys II. For this third helping, the directing team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah does a sufficient job of continuing the mayhem, easily topping Bay’s lame original and providing a chapter that is as good, and sometimes better, than chapter two. Burnett is eying retirement, while Lowrey is dealing with the psychological and physical ramifications of aging. (He’s dyeing his goatee, so it’s all good.) A crazy witch lady gangster Isabel (Kate del Castillo) has escaped from prison and has put out a hit list for her son Armando (Jacob Scipio) to work his way through. Isabel has some vengeance in mind. The targets are former associates, and they have connections to Lowrey. Lowrey himself is on that list, and he takes a couple of bullets early in the film. I’m not giving too much away here in telling you that Lowrey doesn’t die. There’s no movie if Lowrey dies. So, a brief healing time later, Lowrey and a very reluctant Burnett are back in action, wisecracking and shooting people in slow motion. Some familiar faces return, including Theresa Randle as Burnett’s long suffering wife. She’s good in a subplot that has Burnett becoming a grandad while getting more house time in attempted retirement. House retirement doesn’t go well. Bad things happen with ceiling fan repair. Joe Pantoliano makes a welcomed return as Pepto-Bismol-swigging Captain Howard, a still capable riff on all of those screaming captains from Beverly Hills Cop movies.

2Birds of Prey After being the only thing worth your time in Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn gets her own show in Birds of Prey, a marked improvement over the film that housed Margot Robbie’s first go at the role. Sadly, in this case, improved doesn’t necessarily mean good. There’s something very askew plot-wise in this movie, in that it doesn’t really have one, and the shards of a plot it does have are presented in especially sloppy fashion. The movie hops around time like a tweaker on a pogo stick. Also, while I love Robbie, her Harley Quinn shtick can get a little grating at times. Harley Quinn is joined by the Birds of Prey this time out, and the likes of Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) all get high marks for what they bring to the party. The basic plot involves bad guy Roman Sionis, a.k.a. Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), trying to get a big diamond from a young pickpocket (Ella Jay Basco). That’s about it for story. Much of the film is spent talking about the Joker, which is a bit strange because this movie is supposed to be proof that the Birds of Prey don’t need the stupid Joker in their movie. OK, Harley broke up with the Joker so, mercifully, we don’t have to endure Jared Leto’s take on the character again. Get that plot element out of the way, and then move on. Instead, the film contains near constant references to the fact that Joker is not in this movie. Director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson seem afraid to let go of the Clown Prince of Crime as a plot presence. Newsflash … nobody cares about the Suicide Squad incarnation of Joker.

2The Call of the Wild A grumpy, growly Harrison Ford stars alongside a CGI dog in this latest cinematic take on Jack London’s classic—far too nasty to be faithfully adapted for kids—The Call of the Wild. Shooting for a safe PG, much of the story’s violence, against humans and dogs alike, has been removed in favor of a more family-friendly take on the fable of a man and his dog. The dumbing down of the original text might’ve been forgivable if some of the CGI animal antics weren’t so jarringly unrealistic. Buck, the cartoon dog, would’ve been far more suitable for a completely animated CGI affair. In a way, it’s the humans who sometimes throw things out of whack. The humans and the CGI beasts don’t look like they belong together. I can give the movie a mild recommendation if you’re looking to take the kids out for the night. This movie slips into that category of clumsy family fare that will please the kids and allow the parents to watch a movie comfortably knowing that nobody gets fully naked or rips somebody’s tongue out. But as straight-up adult viewing, with no kids, The Call of the Wild probably won’t do the trick.

1The Last Thing He Wanted Holy hell, is this ever a bad movie. I mean, it’s bad. Like, really, really, really, really, really bad. Anne Hathaway trudges through this adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel, a movie that casts her as an ’80s reporter who must know the truth. Fed up with boring stories involving Reagan’s reelection campaign, she winds up going all over the world, simultaneously trying to help her crazy daddy (Willem DaFoe, whose character is supposed to be sickly, but man, he’s never looked better in a movie— quite vibrant!) and, I think, trying to blow the lid of the Contra scandal. I say “I think” because, honestly, I have no fucking idea what was going on in this stupid movie. Ben Affleck shows up as a creepy diplomat who eats pie and eventually goes to bed with Hathaway’s character because, well, actually I don’t know why that happens either. Hathaway is reduced to extensive phone acting scenes, where she is really concerned or very upset or totally angry and, gosh darn it, she’s on the phone when it’s happening. Hey, if you can figure out what’s going on in this movie, you have my respect. Wait, maybe not. If you can follow this movie, you might be as messed up as this movie is. Actually, if you like this movie you might not want to talk to me. Chances are we won’t connect on any social or intellectual level. We are from different worlds, you and I. (Streaming on Netflix.)

2Sonic the Hedgehog When Sonic the Hedgehog comes out of the gate, it has the makings of what could wind up being an early frontrunner for year’s worst. It’s irritating, it’s unoriginal, and it features multiple jokes about cops eating donuts, as if we haven’t heard those before. Then Jim Carrey shows up as the villain, and almost saves the whole damn thing. Almost. Sonic is voiced by Ben Schwartz. While this incarnation definitely looks better than that first mess Paramount Pictures tried to get past the masses, he’s still a grating presence. Sorry, Mr. Schwartz, but your voice is nails on a chalkboard. A brief prelude shows Sonic being sent to Earth by a heroic owl, left alone in his cave with a bag of gold rings that provide gateways to other worlds. After an encounter with Tom Wachowski, the small-town policeman (James Marsden), Sonic’s gold rings are accidentally transported to San Francisco. He must join with Tom, who he calls the Doughnut Lord because, as I stated before, this movie’s script is screamingly unoriginal, and they go on a road trip. In pursuit of the pair is Dr. Robotnik, played by a totally game Jim Carrey, who hasn’t been this manically fun in years. He gets legitimate laughs that are surprisingly offbeat considering his kiddie movie surroundings. Alas, Carrey’s role is a supporting one, and he doesn’t get nearly enough screen time to save this from being a relatively rote affair.