Monthly Archives: October 2015

On the morning of August 7, 1974, a Frenchman named Philippe Petite did the impossible, the unimaginable, the insane and, most certainly, illegal thing you could think of. He walked across the, as yet, unfinished twin towers of the World Trade Center on a cable no wider than your foot.

The Walk directed by Robert Zemeckis is an exhilarating account of this magnificent event. It plays out like a light-hearted caper film with Petite, played with high energy and joy by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, narrating from atop the Statue of Liberty. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this film. I expected half the film to be exposition into the life of Petite but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie is solely dedicated to Petite’s obsession to walk the wire between the twin towers. It’s a smart move. It makes the audience one of Petite’s accomplices.

Petite reads an article about the construction of the Twin Towers in a magazine while at a dentist’s office and gets the idea that he should walk between the towers on a wire. He spends the next 6 years learning to wire walk and planning his ‘coup’. He acquires a crew of ‘accomplices’ that will help him with his ‘coup’ much like you would see in a heist movie. He heads to New York with his girlfriend, Annie, his official photographer, Jean-Louis, his friend Jeff, who is deathly scared of heights. Once in New York, he enlists Jean-Pierre, JP (wonderfully played by James Badge Dale) who brings in stoner David and skeptical Albert to assist with helping set up the rigging and an inside man, Barry, who works on the 82nd floor and had seen Petite walk between the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris a few years earlier.

The last third of the film is the incredible execution of their plan to sneak into the towers, get the heavy equipment to the top of the buildings, set up the cable and the stabilizing lines (‘cavalettis’) and have it ready for the walk to begin at sunrise.
They would have to do this while avoiding detection by security. Of course, not everything goes as planned and they fall behind schedule. If you didn’t know all this actually happened you would think ‘this is absurd! This is ridiculous!”. But it did happen and it’s still hard to believe.

Once Petite gets out on that wire it is spellbinding. Beyond scary. Unreal. I’m afraid of heights and I was squirming in my seat like I was covered with red ants. Did I mention I saw this in 3D? I kept thinking “he’s going to fall!”. I know I would have. I know I would have never even thought to attempt such a crazy thing! But Petite seems to be oblivious to the danger. In fact, in his mind, there could be no danger. He was safe on ‘his wire’. As the crowds gathered 120 floors beneath him and the cops start showing up on the roofs of both buildings trying hopelessly to get him off that wire the film becomes a dark comedy. You’re laughing, you’re scared, you’re amazed!

Gordon Levitt is his effervescent self as Petite, graceful, passionate and likeable.
Ben Kingsley is excellent as his mentor and teacher Papa Rudy. The rest of the supporting cast are fine as they follow this crazy man and help him pull off his ‘coup’ all the while worried that they’re actions will lead to his death. The 3D effects are amazing. It definitely adds to the wonder of what Petite pulled off.

In the back of my mind, watching this film, I was thinking about 9/11. But, as often happens in good films, at some point, you stop thinking about anything else except what you’re watching. You get caught up in the story. You get involved with the characters and their struggles. The Twin Towers is a major character in the film. By the end, you are only thinking about this amazing act of daring. And you’re smiling. I’m glad there is no mention of 9/11, not even at the end. This is a film about an artistic triumph. It’s a film that honors Petite’s accomplishment and reveres the Twin Towers as one would Mount Everest. It’s a shining moment in history, one that gets overshadowed by later historical events but one that, also, should not be forgotten.

Space. The Final Frontier. It still thrills us. The space rescue film has been done before, some based on actual events (Apollo 13 1995), some fictional (Gravity 2013) and some so bad they made delightful comical fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Marooned 1969). So we’ve seen this type of film before done well and not so well. We’re an audience that demands something new and authenticity has never been so expected.

The Martian is a crowd pleaser. It has that loveable Matt Damon (despite his recent misstatements on racial and sexual equality in Hollywood), a large ensemble cast of familiar and likeable faces, a space adventure, a rescue mission and director Ridley Scott. It can’t miss! And it doesn’t.

The Martian is based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir. It tells the tale of the Ares III Mars mission which runs into a Martian sandstorm and must quickly abort and blast off back to Earth, leaving a man behind. You never leave a man behind! That man is Mark Watney (Damon) and, in all fairness, they had good reason to believe he was dead. But Watney is alive and must find a way to survive until the next manned Mars mission can come back for him….in THREE YEARS! Much like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Watney must use his ingenuity to make the oxygen last, to ration the food and find a way to communicate to NASA that he is still alive. Fortunately, he’s a botanist and a good one! (The best botanist on Mars!) Watney manages to find a way to set up a ‘farm’ in his controlled environment in order to grow potatoes meanwhile the world is mourning his death back on Earth.

Once NASA notices some movement on Mars they work out a way to communicate with Watney who has smartly recovered the Pathfinder probe, defunct from 1997, and frantically plan a way to send him food and supplies to last him until the Ares IV mission can rescue him – in three years!

Jeff Daniel’s is great as the head of NASA who butts heads with Flight Director Sean Bean (Ned Stark!). Bean feels the crew of the Ares III should be told that the man they left for dead is still alive but Daniels is worried that it might affect the crew’s current mission. Bean eventually does an end a round and Watney’s crewmates end up volunteering to turn back and go get their boy! Jessica Chastain is strong as the captain of the Ares III. Michael Pena and Kate Mara provide some lighter moments as fellow Ares III crew members. Chiwetel Ejiofor gives fine support as Mission Director Vincent Kapoor.

But it’s Damon’s show. He’s the glue that keeps the film together and propels the action. He gibes a very natural, nuanced performance. You feel his anguish and struggles and you’re rooting for him. This is a hip hip hooray kind of movie! You need a worthy hero and Damon gives you one.

The film is long at two hours and twenty minutes but it never feels padded or loses steam. Damon keeps us captivated and the ensemble works just as hard to get Watney home as they do in keeping the audience entertained and engaged.

Ridley Scott redeems himself for Prometheus at least until the Prometheus sequel is released. Let’s hope the energy and excitement he put into this film also goes into that one.

Everest, the film, opens by telling the audience that 1 in every 4 climbers that attempt to summit Earth’s highest mountain, die. In other words, this film is not going to have a happy ending. If you’ve read Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air, or are familiar with the story it tells, then you’re aware that this film is based on real events. This is a harrowing tale. Director Baltasar Kormakur (2 Guns, Contraband) shows restraint by not trying to over dramatize the story and by doing so creates an eerie sense of doom and frustration instead of excitement. It feels right. You find it difficult to imagine why people would put themselves through this life and death ordeal but these are not super men or women. They are regular folks like you and me.

The film focuses on Rob Hall (well played by Jason Clarke) who’s company Adventure Consultants pioneered the commercialism of climbing Mt. Everest in 1991 and the group he lead on the tragic 1996 Everest climb. Clarke’s portrayal of Hall is of a decent, caring man who knows what he’s doing but as his business rival, Scott Fisher (Jake Gyllenhaall) says to him, he’s a ‘hand holder’ and that is a trait that leads to his demise.

Hall says goodbye to his pregnant wife, Jan, warmly played by Keira Knightly before meeting up with his group in March 1996 to begin training for a March 10 summit attempt. Josh Brolin is a standout as Beck Weathers, a Texas doctor with plenty of swagger who’s left his wife, Peach (Robin Wright), back home and angry about his taking this trip without consulting her. John Hawkes is solid as Doug Hansen, a mailman making his third attempt to reach the summit in the hopes of setting an example for his kids of what a simple man could accomplish through sheer will. The always reliable though little known Michael Kelly plays Jon Krakauer, who’s on the trip with the intention of writing a story for his magazine Outside. Naoko Mori is Yasuko Namba a middle aged business woman who had already summated the other 6 highest mountains in the world. Everest would complete the 7 Summit quest.

Climbing Everest had become so popular that the mountain was overcrowded that year which caused log jam issues getting up and back from the top. Hall convinces Scott Fisher to combine their teams and work together in hopes of sharing the workload and getting to the top and back before the oncoming storm reaches them. The last third of the film takes place on May 10 and their summit attempt. It doesn’t go as planned, of course, though most of them do reach the summit they don’t all make it back down. I won’t go into detail about this portion of the film but it is heart wrenching.

The film is wonderfully shot and well acted. It’s nerve racking and intense and thoroughly engaging to the end. I’m a big fan of these types of adventure films but it is not for the faint of heart. You will definitely need a big cup of hot chocolate with a hefty dose of brandy to recover.

Whitey Bulger was a terrible man. He was a lifelong criminal and murderer who ran roughshod over South Boston for 25 years. And he did it while being under the protection of the FBI! It’s an amazing story. A true story. It’s great material for a movie. A great movie! But true stories are not always so easy to bring to life in a film. Especially, when everyone already knows how the story ends. Apollo 13 did it wonderfully. Donnie Brasco also managed to pull it off. Black Mass comes close. It does have Johnny Depp.

It’s good to see Johnny Depp in top form again, sinking his teeth in a juicy role and knocking it out of the park. Unfortunately, the film falls a little flat. It has all the makings of a great gangster film, good cast, great real life story, and director Scott Cooper whose last film Out Of The Furnace, while not a commercial success was well received and had a strong visual sense. Black Mass just doesn’t build enough tension to bring the viewer to the known conclusion. They finally get Whitey Bulger!

Depp plays Whitey Bulger, a small time local South Boston hood who becomes allied with a young, ambitious FBI agent, John Connelly, well played by Joel Edgerton, who also grew up in South Boston and was friends with Bulger and his brother, state senator William “Billy” Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch). The last thing a gangster wants to be is a ‘rat’ but Whitey begins to use his relationship with Connelly to his advantage. The deal was that Whitey would avoid illegal doings while being an FBI informant but instead he accelerates his illegal activity and commits murder after murder while being protected by Connelly. As the years go by, Connelly falls deeper and deeper into the darkness and begins to provide Bulger with info to keep him safe and which actually leads to the murder of another informant. He starts to partake in the finer things a gangster life can offer, nice suits, fancy watches, trips, and women. Connelly’s marriage disintegrates along with his soul and when a new tough States Attorney is brought in with a hard on for Whitey Bulger both men know the jig is up.

Black Mass gives you everything you need to know about Whitey Bulger, and introduces his gang of toughs (Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, W. Earl Brown) and his politician brother who is complicit in his knowledge of his brothers’ business but the movie just seems to flat line before getting to the end. Cochrane, Plemons and Brown are all fine but are given little to do and their characters aren’t fleshed out. The most effective scene is between Depp and Julianne Nicholson who plays Connelly’s put upon wife. If the movie had more scenes like this one it would have benefited greatly. Bulger’s 2011 capture in California after 16 years in hiding is shown as an epilogue and seems anti-climactic. It sure seems like an opportunity was missed.

Martin Scorsese’s Oscar winning film, The Departed used Whitey Bulger as the inspiration for the Irish mobster, Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson. I hate to compare the two films but The Departed is a film that really builds tension. Scorsese is one of the best directors in the history of film. Scott Cooper has promise but he has a ways to go. Hopefully, this experience will pave the way for a film that will deliver the goods.