Film

The unwatchables

Gangster Squad

When the release date of Gangster Squadwas delayed after the Aurora, Colo., theater shootings, the reason seemed to be due to a scene depicting violence in a movie theater. That scene, which was featured in the trailer, has been removed. They should’ve scrapped the whole picture. This movie is a mess. Gangster Squad depicts a very, very fictional account of the LAPD’s “under the table” efforts to remove gangster Mickey Cohen (played here by a truly awful Sean Penn) from power. While next to nothing in this movie actually happened, I could forgive a little artistic license when it comes to a gangster pic. What I can’t forgive is cartoon caricatures, terrible performances, misguided directorial tone and a crap screenplay. Hello, January. The film is set in 1949 Los Angeles, where mobster Mickey Cohen has a firm grip on organized crime and the cops. Well-meaning LAPD Chief Parker (a typically grizzly Nick Nolte) tells brave Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) to leave his badge at home, gather a squad of badasses, and disrupt Cohen’s operations. The squad includes soft-voiced Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), a slightly blasé officer who plays with his lighter a lot. There’s also the brainiac (Giovanni Ribisi) who spends much of the movie wearing headphones and tinkering with things. There’s the knife-wielding officer Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie) who will throw a knife at your hand in a crowded nightclub, even though he’s a cop and probably shouldn’t be doing things like that, what with lots of people standing around and all. And, finally, there’s the

comic book hero (Robert Patrick) and his sidekick (Michael Pena), both great with their guns and the wisecracks. Together, they form a force that they wish was as cool as The Untouchables, but achieves a lameness factor on par with the Scooby Doo gang. (Live-action Scooby, not animated. Animated Scooby was cool.) Director Ruben Fleischer is shooting for an authentic late ’40s gangster film feel, butby Bob Grimm achieves something more akin to parody. It’s a bunch of usually decent actors playing dress up bgrimm@ with their toy guns, and they all seem lost. newsreview.com Emma Stone wastes her time as perhaps the film’s most bizarre character. She’s Cohen’s etiquette coach—rather than making her a 1 straight-up hooker—somebody who is sleeping with a monster, and then two-timing him with Gosling’s Wooter. And, yet, we are supposed to like her. Good luck trying to make that character a sympathetic one. They dress Stone up in heavy makeup and flashy dresses, and feed her terrible dialogue. She’s completely wrong for the role, although I would have a hard time picking somebody right for it. Penn has chewed scenery before (I Am Sam, Casualties of War). This time out, he not only chews the scenery, he’s a freaking wood chipper. His entire performance goes in his hilariously contorted face and shoots out his butt. I appreciate Penn as an actor most of the time, but sometimes—just sometimes—he can be the worst actor on the planet. This is one of those times. Regrettably, the more reliable Gosling is just as bad, perhaps worse. He decides to use a voice here that makes him sound like a 12-year-old kid doing a lame James Cagney impersonation. It’s bad to the point of distraction, as is his constantly flipping his lighter in manner that I’m sure he thinks is authentic. We get it, Ryan Gosling, you learned how to flip your lighter, ’40s style. Now, knock it off. Gangster Squad lacks originality, a sense of purpose, style, class, ducks (I didn’t see one damned duck in this whole movie!), Michael Keaton (although it feels like his Johnny Dangerously character could pop out any moment), and a basic overall reason for being. The problem with this film wasn’t the violent movie theater scene they had to excise. The whole damn thing stinks. Ω

“This is for I Am Sam.”

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3A Haunted House I hate the Paranormal Activity sequels. Maybe that’s why this Marlon Wayans spoof of PAsequels, and other found-footage horror movies, had me laughing hard at times. Perhaps I’m in the target audience ready to laugh at the stupidity of foundfootage horror. Perhaps it’s because I think farts are funny. Either way, I’d be lying if I told you this didn’t have me laughing. Wayans plays a guy who has his girlfriend (Essence Atkins) moving in, so he buys a camera and gets security cams installed as well. The girl brings a demon with her, and that demon likes to get high and sleep with both of them while the cameras are rolling. This movie works because Wayans is fully committed to the lunacy, as is Atkins. It’s no comedy classic, but it scores enough raunchy laughs to qualify it as a keeper.

3Django Unchained Man, it bugs me that Quentin Tarantino’s latest is only passably entertaining. I have loved his past films. This is the first one I’m not in love with. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave purchased by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) two years before the Civil War. Django is purchased because he has seen some targets the bounty hunter is pursuing. Django is promised his freedom after they find those targets. When those targets are gotten, they pursue Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) on a plantation owned by the repellent Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). This one follows some of the same blueprints as Tarantino’s own Inglourious Basterds. It feels as if he is repeating himself a bit. There are some great performances, especially from Waltz and DiCaprio. It just doesn’t have the heft of past Tarantino efforts. Perhaps this has something to do with this being the first Tarantino movie edited by someone other than the late Sally Menke.

1Hyde Park on Hudson Bill Murray plays FDR in this tonally abhorrent, stank movie about the former President’s dalliances with distant cousin Daisy (Laura Linney) around the time he was meeting Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) and King George VI (Samuel West) to discuss World War II and eat hot dogs. Watching FDR get a handjob from his cousin is bad enough, but this film’s obsession with hot dogs is maddening. Olivia Williams is on hand as Eleanor Roosevelt, and she’s good enough to make you wish the movie was just about the former First Lady. Murray is dull here, giving us an FDR that doesn’t seem capable of staying awake, let alone running a country. Even worse is Linney, who looks and sounds lost (her voiceover narration is infuriating). Director Roger Michell doesn’t seem to know whether he’s making a historical drama, a comedy, or sleep fuel. It’s uneven, it’s embarrassing, and it needed to be stopped. Yet, here it is, trying to garner Oscar nominations. In case you can’t tell, I hate this movie. I hate it very much.

5The Impossible A family struggles to survive in Thailand after the massive 2004 tsunami that claimed more than 230,000 lives. Naomi Watts is Oscar-worthy as Maria Belon and Ewan McGregor is equally good as her husband Henry. The two are on Christmas vacation with their children when the tsunami hits, and become separated. Tom Holland gives one of the great breakthrough performances of 2012 as their oldest son. Amazingly, the film is based on real people and their actual experiences. Director Juan Antonio Bayona has made a respectful film about one of the worst recorded disasters in human history. It’s a testament to the people who lost their lives, and those who survived. Watts will tear your heart out, especially when she lets out her first, terrifying scream. Of all the images that stuck in my head from 2012 films, that one might be the one I’ll remember the most. 5Les Misérables This is a grand, beautifully shot adaptation of the legendary musical, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hugh Jackman in the heavy-lifting role of persecuted bread thief Jean Valjean. Set in 19th century France, the musical calls for nearly every word to be sung, and it’s a major undertaking. Hooper had his cast sing live on the set rather than prerecording in a sound booth, and this results in a moving musical experience. Jackman has a spectacular voice, and you get at true sense that he and his costars are acting these songs, rather than lip-synching. Anne Hathaway will probably win an Oscar for her work as Fantine, singing her big number in one take and summoning honest, heartwrenching tears. Russell Crowe, as Valjean’s lawman nemesis Javert, doesn’t have half of Jackman’s voice, but there’s something about his interpretation that’s appropriate and amplifies the character’s loneliness. Every number is treated with a majestic grace that makes this one of the greatest movie musicals I’ve ever seen.

2Promised Land Just what the hell is this film trying to say? Matt Damon plays a corporate man who goes to a small farming town to buy up their land for natural gas mining. His corporation intends to use fracking, a drilling method that cracks stone far beneath the Earth’s surface and releases natural gas. It’s a method with some known environmental side effects, and I think this movie is preaching against it. Or is it? In the end, the film seems more concerned with salvaging the Damon character as virtuous rather than tackling the bigger questions it seems to be asking. John Krasinski, who cowrote the screenplay with Damon, also plays a strange, strange character in the movie who serves to do nothing but puzzle the viewer. Damon was supposed to direct, but had to call upon friend Gus Van Sant to take over. The result is the second bad film in a row, after Restless, from Van Sant, normally a very reliable director.

4Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper is on fire as Pat, a troubled man recently out of a mental institution and obsessed with his ex-wife. He’s so obsessed hat he can’t see the value in Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recently widowed neighbor trying to befriend him. Directed by David O. Russell, the movie is a funny, slick treatment of people with real problems that works because Russell and his performers find the right balance. Robert De Niro does his best work in years as Pat’s obsessive father, and Chris Tucker gets big laughs as Pat’s former mental institution buddy. Cooper and Lawrence make for one of the year’s most interesting screen couples. They are certainly unique. Russell is establishing himself as one of the industry’s most reliable and innovative directors.

5Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow getting snubbed by Oscar for this taut, scary, intelligent movie about the war on terror and hunt for Bin Laden is a travesty. Well, it’s a travesty when it comes to movies and stuff, not so much in the grand scheme of things. Still, Bigelow deserves praise for putting together a movie that is both exciting political thriller and terrific action movie. Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain is deserving of the accolades as Maya, a composite character of CIA agents who managed to find Bin Laden in Pakistan and end his life. The film contains scenes of torture, but it doesn’t feel “pro-torture” by any means. It’s a great movie that will only get greater with time, and yet another reason to call Bigelow one of the best in the business.

Reno

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