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Wired up

The Walk

Robert Zemeckis, with the help of some massively talented special effects artists, puts you on a wire over 1,300 feet above Manhattan in The Walk, an uneven but ultimately thrilling account of Philippe Petit’s amazing 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. If you’ve seen Man on Wire, the documentary featuring Petit himself, you’ve seen most of what happens in The Walk. The big difference here would be a stunning reenactment of Petit’s stunt rather than still pictures. The people who crafted this film have done a terrific job recreating the towers,

3and Zemeckis really does put you on the wire with Petit.

Having grown up in Long Island, New York, I spent some time in, around and on top of those towers. While I can’t account for what it was like to walk a wire from one building to another—because I’m not the insane type who would attempt such a thing—I can tell you what it was like to be standing atop one of them, or gazing up at them with wobbly legs from the ground. Zemeckis absolutely nails it. Every inch of the buildings looks authentic. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sporting a French accent that sounds a lot like Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, plays a very jovial Petit. The film picks up when he was a young man miming in the streets of Paris. After a visit to the dentist’s office, Petit spies a picture of the Twin Towers and immediately starts planning his “coup.” The buildup to the big walk is a little goofy and a tad tedious. Zemeckis uses a framing device that has Petit narrating from the torch on the Statue of Liberty, and it feels trite. Opting for the early ’70s, rusty, dirty Liberty torch is a nice authentic touch. The city

cleaned up the statue about 10 years later, so if you were to visit it today, that torch is seeing better days. After some uninteresting stuff involving Petit and a tightrope walking circus mentor (Ben Kingsley in a useless “Obi Wan” role), Petit goes to Manhattan and assembles his team. As soon as he gets next to those buildby Bob Grimm ings, the movie soars to a new level. With the help of some fake moustaches, bgrimm@ architect and construction worker disguises, newsreview.com Petit and friends managed to study the building multiple times before actually shooting a wire between the towers with a bow and arrow and shocking the living heck out of city dwellers on their way to work. The walk itself has to be one of the year’s finest examples of special effects doing their job. I watched the film in 3-D IMAX, and the last act of the movie is something to be experienced. In addition to perfectly replicating the buildings, there’s a sense of being on that wire holding a big pole and being one misstep away from a very long drop. Petit didn’t just do one cross and call it a day. He was on the wire for over a half hour, during which time he laid down on the wire, saluted the people down below and saluted skyward like the absolute maniac that he was. Sure, Evel Knievel did some messed-up stuff on his motorcycle around the same time, but I have to cite “the walk” as the most amazing daredevil feat of the 20th century. Levitt is fine in the central role, even if his accent is a bit distracting at times. Apparently, he trained with Petit himself and got fairly astute at wire walking and juggling. He also taught himself how to speak French. That’s a lot of work for a movie not many are likely to see. The film had an initial IMAX-only week, then expanded to more theaters. It’s not doing well. Perhaps that’s because most people who would be interested feel that they have already seen the film after taking in Man on Wire. Even if you have seen the documentary, see The Walk. When it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s like the most dizzying of amusement park rides. The final 40 minutes are some of the most fun you will have at the movies this year. You just have to wade through the pre-Manhattan, Parisdwelling boring minutes first. Ω

This picture makes me so dizzy, I might spew.

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3Black Mass Johnny Depp breaks his slump with a riveting performance as James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston crime lord who also acted as informant to the FBI while killing people and destroying lives. Depp goes under some heavy makeup, including some gross teeth, to play the infamous brother of William “Billy” Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) and pal of FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). The movie examines the strange dynamic that occurs between one of the worst criminals in Boston history, his high-ranking brother, and his meat-headed FBI friend. All three are very good in a film that, alas, feels like it was supposed to be a lot longer. (I suspect there’s a four-hour cut of this movie somewhere in director Scott Cooper’s basement.) Depp is scary good, yet his work feels strangely abbreviated, making him feel like more of a supporting player. Edgerton’s Connolly feels a little more well rounded, and this continues a fine year for the actor after The Gift. Peter Sarsgaard, Kevin Bacon and Dakota Johnson are all good in supporting roles. As mobster movies go, this is a good one, but it should’ve been a great one.

4Everest Director Baltasar Kormakur makes a grueling testament to the hell that is climbing the world’s tallest mountain in a production that demands to be seen on an IMAX screen. Jason Clarke does his best work since Zero Dark Thirty as Rob Hall, who co-led an ascent of Everest that resulted in the deaths of eight people in 1996. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Scott Fischer, another of the expedition’s leaders and legendary for his ability to scale the mountain without the aid of oxygen. Josh Brolin is on hand as Beck Weathers, the brash Texan who has perhaps bitten off a little more than he can chew, and John Hawkes chimes in as Doug Hansen, an ambitious climber returning after a failed ascent the year before. Yes, some of these real people have been written a tad stereotypically and thin, but you won’t care once the snow hits the mountain. Kormakur has crafted a movie that puts you right in the middle of things—genuinely uncomfortable things. The effects are very good, and there’s a nice attention to detail when it comes to the perils of climbing. Supporting cast also includes Emily Watson as the mother hen at base camp, Keira Knightley as a worried wife, and a solid Sam Worthington as climber Guy Cotter. This expedition is the one Jon Krakauer based his book on. He was on the expedition and he’s in the movie, played well by Michael Kelly.

3The Final Girls This is a semi-entertaining ode to the summer camp slasther movies of yore. Max (Taissa Farmiga) loses her mom (Malin Akerman) in a car accident. Her mom, Nancy, was a struggling horror film actress best known for a Friday the 13th-type, summer camp slasher movie made in the ’80s. After agreeing to show up for a screening of her late mom’s film, Max and her friends journey inside the movie, where Max winds up hanging out with her mom, who isn’t really her mom and is actually Amanda, the character she played in the film. The movie is crazy enough to work on a few levels, although it suffers a bit because the movie is rated PG-13, strange for a movie spoofing films that have hard-R ratings. There are some good laughs due mainly to a strong supporting cast with comedy chops, including Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley), Adam Devine (Workaholics) and Alexander Ludwig (Grown Ups 2 … OK, Alexander doesn’t provide a lot of laughs). Dan B. Morris provides a nice bit of authenticity playing Billy, a slasher villain modeled after Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. Morris has the moves down well, and deserves to be in the running for the sureto-happen someday Friday the 13th reboot. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson has made a fun film, but it could’ve been batter had it added some more horror elements like over-the-top gore. It feels like the movie chickened out a bit. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during a limited theatrical release.)

3Knock Knock Just a couple of weeks after the release of his career worst movie, writer-director Eli Roth is at it again with a far better offering. Keanu Reeves stars as Evan, a loving husband with two children who is left alone for a couple of days while the wife and kids go on a trip. Right as Evan is about to light up the old pot pipe, there’s a knock at the door. Two of the most beautiful women in the world, Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas) are soaking wet and in need of assistance. Evan innocently lets them in to use the phone, dry their clothes and, as things eventually turn out, have mad sex with them. Unfortunately for Evan, he winds up being part of a nasty torture game where he will pay for his infidelities in horrible, gut-churning ways. While Roth never really reveals why the girls are acting this way, there are hints, and that’s all the film really needs. Reeves does a nice job of acting scared shitless and out-of-his-mind angry. He has a rant near the end of the film, tied in a chair, that might be the best single moment of acting he’s ever produced. Izzo, the only good thing about The Green Inferno besides some of the eating scenes, is actually great here as the ringleader, while de Armas makes for a fun, wildly sadistic sidekick. If anything, the movie restores a little faith in the directing chops of Roth, while giving Reeves another good movie after last year’s John Wick. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during a limited theatrical release.)

4The Martian Ridley Scott’s latest is a fun and funny movie that represents lighter fare for the often dark director. Yes, it’s about some poor sap getting stranded on Mars but, no, aliens don’t burst from his belly after breakfast. Matt Damon spends a lot of time onscreen by himself as Mark Watney, a botanist on a mission to Mars who becomes the unfortunate recipient of a satellite dish to the gut during a storm, a violent squall that mandates the evacuation of his crew. After an attempt by his commander (Jessica Chastain) to retrieve him, the crew bugs out, thinking Watney has bought the farm. Watney awakens to find himself alone on the red planet. The film has fun with science facts involving things like the creation of fertilizer, the surprising need and effectiveness for duct tape and tarps on Mars, and trying to make fire out of mostly fire-retardant materials. Scott and his writers present these overtly nerdy aspects of the movie with great humor and the right amount of intelligence without making things too complicated.

4Sicario Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), an FBI Agent who deals with kidnappings, inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a Mexican drug cartel war after being enlisted by a shifty government type (Josh Brolin). After finding a houseful of dead bodies, Brolin’s character shows up, has a little meeting, recruits Kate, and puts her on a private jet with Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a mysterious sort who seems to be along for the ride in some type of consultant role. After being told she is going to Texas, she winds up in Juarez, Mexico, and eventually fighting for her life in a border gun battle. Director Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Prisoners) keeps things intense, especially when Del Toro is on the screen. The real reason for his character’s presence, revealed late in the film, is a real kicker. Brolin is great as the crusty agent who wears sandals to meetings and sleeps on planes. However, in the end, this is Blunt’s movie. It’s another action-intensive role for the versatile actress, and she’s a contender for a Best Actress Oscar.

2The Visit M. Night Shyamalan makes another bad movie, but this one actually shows a little bit of promise after a rancid run of films that includes The Village, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth. Becca and Tyler (Olivia LeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) have never met their grandma. When Mom (Kathryn Hahn) decides to go on a cruise with her boyfriend, she leaves them with her parents, even though they have been estranged for many years. Becca and Tyler are game to meet their Nana, so they board a train to Pennsylvania and meet her and their granddad at the station. Things get weird fast on the farm. Nana (a delightfully strange Deanna Dunagan) is prone to sleep walking and projectile vomiting, sometimes naked, after 10:30 p.m., while Pop Pop (creepy Peter McRobbie) has a tendency to stick shotguns in his mouth and pile his used adult diapers in strange places. There are a couple of good scares, but Shyamalan (who wrote the script and directed) opts for the stupid found-footage gimmick, which does nothing but trip up his narrative. The film doesn’t need the found-footage angle, and it suffers for it. Still, Dunagan is a creepy movie monster, and Shyamalan shows that maybe he still has some creativity left in the tank. With him, it seems simpler is better, but still not that good.