Last Blood?

It’s pretty safe to say that we’re no longer where we were two or three decades ago.

Back then, it was the heyday for violent, R-rated fare. And two of the biggest movie stars on the planet were Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rambo. Predator. Rocky. Total Recall. Tango & Cash. Conan the Barbarian. Demolition Man. The Terminator. Cliffhanger. Eraser. Between these two men, Hollywood made billions at the global box office during the era that was the 1970’s through the mid-90's. Today, you can’t point at one actor or actress with that kind of guaranteed draw at the box office, and back then the industry had TWO.

Sadly, success was not meant to last forever. Part of the reason is that Stallone and Schwarzenegger are definitely byproducts of their era. At that time, we couldn’t get enough of the violent, pulpy and completely unbelievable action that permeated not only the movie industry but other facets of the entertainment industry as well; professional wrestling and American Gladiators were at their most popular, and our culture was definitely releasing some of the built-up frustration from the decades-long Cold War. Some of the most iconic moments in cinema were pithy one-liners from our action movies, as well. When Jesse Ventura uttered “I ain’t got time to bleed” in Predator, it was an instant classic. And he wasn’t even the STAR of the film. But changing times have seen the rise of films of multiple genres, including martial arts and “gore porn” (not to mention a similar rise in video games), most of whose heroes are not the jacked-up, testosterone-fueled supermen of the previous era, and while there are a few big men still succeeding in Hollywood, the aging action heroes of yesteryear have all but disappeared.

The team-up we've been waiting for since Expendables 2.

Still, these guys never quite go away, and they almost succeeded in a full-fledged comeback a few years ago with Stallone’s directorial effort The Expendables, which saw many of the older action heroes teaming up in an homage to movies past. Both Stallone and Schwarzenegger were part of that experience, and again two years later in the less heralded The Expendables 2. But now it looks like the Expendable phenomena might have run its course; practically nobody showed up to the actors' two releases this year, the puerile Bullet to the Head and the actually kinda-fun The Last Stand. Are we already tired of these aging stars of days gone by? Is the gimmick well and truly finished? Or will we still show up if they give us an Expendable­-like team-up in the form of new release Escape Plan?

Remember kids, drink your milk!

Formerly known as Exit Plan and The Tomb, Escape Plan features Stallone as Ray Breslin, a professional escape artist who breaks out of federal prisons in order to test their security measures. One day he is asked to step up to the next level, as the CIA want someone to test the viability of a new experimental prison for containing high-risk enemies of the State, based on Breslin's own study of prison design. But after accepting the job, things immediately go wrong as he is finds himself without intel, out of contact with his team and trapped in a hidden fortress surrounded by hundreds of the most dangerous people in the world. His only ally is Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), a career criminal with a few secrets of his own. Someone sent Ray Breslin here to die. As he attempts to escape, he is determined to find out who, and why.

He's going to "pump you up", and in prison that's just wrong.

Because this has all the earmarks of an old-school action flick (gratuitous violence, witty banter, etc) you'd be forgiven for expecting Escape Plan to be a generic action thriller, even more so because that's exactly what you're getting. Stallone and Schwarzenegger bring nothing new to the table besides Arnold's grey hairs and beard, though director Mikael Hafstrom (The Rite, 1408) manages to transition nicely from his more familiar horror fare to put together a decent well-rounded action film. That's the key word there, "decent." While the environment in which our heroes find themselves is pretty cool, everything else, from the faceless villain (Person of Interest's Jim Caviezel) and the rote plot to the cliched backstories, subplots and predictable twists mar the experience. But even with these things in the way, and a minor letdown of an ending, there's still a lot to like in this thriller, which goes heavy on the action in exciting and occasionally humorous ways.

Yup, "Fiddy" is here. 'Nuff said.

I really only have two complaints about the movie, though they're both major in nature. One is the treatment of co-stars. Obviously the bulk of the focus is on stars Stallone and Schwarzenegger (and they do as good a job as you would imagine), but there's actually a wealth of talented actors involved in this movie, and almost none of them have anything interesting to do. Caviezel, as I mentioned before, is fairly uninteresting as a character, though at least the actor's talent keeps it from slinking into irredeemable territory. But worse off are the trio of actors who play Ray's team on the outside. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson doesn't show anything proving that he's got talent as an actor, so it's a relief that he doesn't have much to do (and when he does it's appropriately cringe-worthy). But both Amy Ryan and Vincent D'Onofrio are great actors who are hampered by a simplistic script and limited interaction with the audience. Add in a surprising (and also limited) appearance by Sam Neill, and a cast that could have ably supported its stars is left in the dust.

Hi, Amy Ryan! Bye, Amy Ryan!

The second issue is the script itself, especially the dialogue. I can accept most of the sweeping generalities in a Stallone/Schwarzenegger action flick, so the story itself - while truly and deeply flawed - shouldn't bother most thrill-seeking audiences. No, the problem is the "witty" banter that simply wasn't. Puns are bad enough when they actually tie into the scene or moment in question, but when they're used seemingly without reason, the result is less funny than confusing. Screenwriters Miles Chapman (original) and James Keller (rewrite) can't seem to make the dialogue work consistently, and even the best actors couldn't have pulled if off effectively (and interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger proves equally inadequate at acting in German as he does in English). It sucks when even the intensely-hated Batman & Robin has better puns in comparison, and is indicative of just how rushed the scriptwriting process obviously was.

Is there a reason they have masks? Is that ever explained?

Escape Plan looked like it could have been more than just a decent movie based on its star power alone. But Hafstrom's effort is too much of a love letter to an era of Hollywood history for which few people still really care. After a brief resurgence in nostalgic popularity, the lack of audiences for this feature might be proof that audiences are getting weary of plus-sized commandos and their feats of immortality. With so much varied fare out there, this specific brand of violent entertainment is definitely on its way out for the time being. If it will have any chance of a sustained comeback, more will be required from its genre than the bare-minimum effort of Escape Plan.

Winning

My history with the work of Tom McCarthy has been somewhat of a surprise. While I'm sure I'd recognized his face from earlier, minor roles, I first became truly aware of his existence from his role as dishonest journalist Scott Templeton during the fifth season of HBO's excellent TV show The Wire, which I'd caught on DVD. I hated his character, but only because McCarthy (whose name I didn't even know at the time) was so damned good playing a jackass. After that, I swear I began to see the guy everywhere. When I watched the excellent 2008 film The Visitor (do yourself and check it out if you haven't already), I was shocked to see in the special features that the director was in fact the same Tom McCarthy, the very man I'd seen months previously. Then there was the amazing animated film Up, which had McCarthy on staff as a writer. After all this I'm building a lot of respect towards this artist, who seems to do great work and create objects of true entertainment value. And so when I see a trailer for McCarthy's latest directorial piece, it of course catches my attention. Win Win seems to have all the feel-good aspects that make for an entertaining theater visit but what might make this the biggest film for McCarthy's career so far is the acting talent involved, most notably award-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Paul Giamatti in the lead role. It may be limited to smaller theaters at the moment, but that only encouraged me to diverge from my usual routine and see the film at the Coolidge Corner Theater here in Boston, a practice I'd advise to any and all who are able to watch this great film.

Being sent to the Principal's office: never fun

Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) is going through a rough patch. His small law practice is floundering. Money is tight. The school wrestling team that he coaches is completely hopeless. In short, nothing is going right for Mike, and he dreads having to reveal all this to his wife (Amy Ryan) and two daughters. Becoming the guardian for an elderly client named Leo Poplar (Burt Young) inadvertently introduces Mike to Leo's grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer), who ran away from home and his addict mother. Now under Mike's care, Kyle helps turn things around by joining the school's wrestling team and helps put them on a streak of wins that help alleviate the family's problems and steer Kyle toward greatness... at least until his mother Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) arrives in town, looking to take home a son who wants nothing to do with her.

Hopefully fans of The Office will flock to see Ryan in this

Amazing acting abounds here, and there's not one weak performance in this whole bunch. Giamatti, who most recently won a Golden Globe for his similar portrayal of an everyman in Barney's Version, is just as compelling here as a regular Joe who suddenly gets the chance to control his crazy life for the first time in a long while. As always, Giamatti is the best part of his film, though several others do come close. It's especially amazing to see a guy who's not a Clooney or a Pitt do so exceptionally well; Giamatti is a symbol to actors of all ages that pure good looks can't preclude amazing talent. Shaffer makes his feature film debut as troubled teen Kyle, and you wouldn't know it to watch his performance that he's fresh blood. Perfectly personifying the youth at risk that we hear about every day, Shaffer's character is one you can't help but root for, as he goes from aimless to determined over the course of the film's events. Amy Ryan may have had better roles the Oscar-nominated Gone Baby Gone and The Wire, but her amazing work here can't go unnoticed. Going from a wife and mother who doesn't trust Kyle under her roof to one who connects with him so closely that she sees him as the son she never had, Ryan is just too wonderful, and if you don't know her talents by now this would be a good place to start. Some of the best scenes in fact focus on the budding relationship between her and Kyle, as they learn more about the other. You wouldn't think Bobby Cannavale to be a great actor to look at him, but you can't help but love Terry, Mike's best friend and confidante who got dumped by his wife for his contractor. Cannavale steals many of the scenes he's in, hopefully gaining himself a few fans in the process. Great smaller roles are filled by Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, and especially Melanie Lynskey as Kyle's druggie mother. With this cast, there are no weak points, and this helps really keep the audience vested in each small sub-plot as well as the main story.

Did you know Melanie Lynskey is from New Zealand? Me either!

With such great characters, you need a narrative that does them justice. Thankfully, that is covered by the wonderful tale McCarthy himself pens. Fully believable, the film taps into the financial crunch middle America is currently feeling, while managing to feel timeless as well; I can imagine watching this again ten years in the future and still connecting to the story as easily as I do today. Sweet but not so much as to be saccharine, and funny but not for the wrong reasons, the different sides of Win Win blend into the perfect concoction of relatability, honesty, and "aww"-inducing moments. It's obvious McCarthy set out to make the perfect feel-good film, and thanks to his efforts he succeeds with flying colors.

Unitard enthusiasts need apply

It's often tough to judge indie films like this against those of much larger Hollywood budgets, which can often afford whatever they want. The limited funds of indies also often leave them with glaring holes or deficiencies, easy to pick out and disappointing compared to the rest of the film. Win Win is not one of those films. It may not be on the same level of McCarthy's The Visitor (which was it's own brand of simple beauty), but Win Win is the kind of film that will make you stand up and cheer, not only for the film's talent but the strong message it tells. For that it's my new #1 film of 2011. Everything a good film should be; if you're lucky and it comes to a theater near you, choose it over Battle: Los Angeles and other massive Hollywood fare. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how a little bit can go a long way.

Green With Envy

It's hard to believe that it's been thirteen years since Matt Damon, along with running buddy Ben Affleck, won an Academy Award for the screenplay they wrote for the Harvard-based drama Good Will Hunting, way back in 1997. Since that time, while Affleck was originally thought to be the film's breakout star, moving quickly from role to role, especially action flicks like Daredevil, Damon at first had the more subdued career. but has churned out a superior career including Saving Private Ryan, The Departed, the Oceans series, and the extremely popular Bourne series, the films of which are not only some of the best action movies of the new millennium and are inspire most new films of the genre, but also cemented Damon's star status and made any movie in which he starred one that instantly garnered major public interest. So when Damon stars in Green Zone, a film that promises the love child of the Bourne movies and last year's Oscar darling, The Hurt Locker, it begs to be seen.

The story, based on the popular book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Ravij Chandrasekaran, revolves around a familiar news item to anyone over the age of twenty, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the military's failure to locate these weapons. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, played by Damon, is the leader of a squad of soldiers who are constantly being sent to suspected WMD sites, with orders to capture and secure this mythical ordinance. Every time they reach and secure a site, many of which still harbor enemy combatants, they discover that the location in fact holds no such bounty. The sources pointing to these sites come through the office of Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a Pentagon Special Intelligence officer who claims the locations are from an anonymous source, codenamed "Magellan". Miller decides to go "off reservation" to find out not only why he and his team are sent into empty sites, but also to capture the "Jack of Clubs", General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), and bring him to justice.

"Wait... was that my credibility?"

The acting here is pretty good, though not nearly as good as it could have been. While Damon is the meat and gristle of the film, there's not an enormous amount of depth to his character. A competent leader, Miller has no trouble questioning authority when it leads him to location after empty location. While others around him don't care about the fact that they haven't found anything yet, Miller is the only one to question why. Damon plays all this well, but lack of a background makes him fairly anonymous compared to other, more famous military-based characters. Kinnear is fine as a slimy suit, but it's not much of a stretch for him. At least this movie with Matt Damon isn't Stuck on You. Another fantastic actor, Amy Ryan, is sorely underused here. As a Wall Street Journal reporter who writes the stories based on what Poundstone supplies her, Ryan should have been better. She's been one of the best undervalued actresses in this century, from HBO's The Wire to her stint on The Office to her Oscar-nominated role in Gone Baby Gone, and this stock character is the best she can be provided with. It's a real shame. Another underutilized actor is Jason Isaacs, who can be a brilliant performer when given half a chance. Here, as a Special Forces Major who clashes with Miller, he's dry and vaguely uninteresting, his take on American bravado here almost looking as false as his ridiculous fu manchu. Speaking of talent, Brendan Gleeson is yet another actor who doesn't get enough to really make his character interesting, though he comes out better than most of the others, Damon included. As the CIA's bureau cheif in Baghdad, he briefly recruits Miller to find out what's going on with the WMD hunt.

"Yeah, I've got another Bourne movie coming out next year."

Actually, the best actors are those portrayed as living in the country our forces are occupying. As one of the film's main antagonists, Naor (who played the country's former ruler two years ago in BBC and HBO's House of Saddam), is elegant and strong in his portrayal of an exiled Iraqi General who plots to unite Iraq's scattered and hidden military to drive out the Americans. But the real star of the film may be Khalid Abdalla, who plays an informant by the name of Freddie. Freddie doesn't love the Americans invading his homeland, but he hates more the villains and traitors who ignored and harmed the people of their own country. Abdalla puts forth a brilliant performance as one who can't quite bring himself to trust Miller or the Americans, but has put himself in somewhat of a tricky situation, with the alternative being the rule by his evil-minded kinfolk. He's by far the reason to watch this film.

Wow, this must be a good movie if they're in it... not.

The film could be used as a cynic's guide to why the War on Terror was a sham, especially as many of the events pictured, at least early on in the film, are based on true events, especially big, familiar events such as the first Shock and Awe bombings of Baghdad, and the adaptation of real locations (such as the safe, secured "Green Zone" for which the movie is named) and people (despite the usual disclaimers that the characters are fictional and not based on anyone, many have pointed out the obvious real-life people the characters are based on). It's probably Hollywood's first and last attempt to accurately depict the War on Terror, as the film did quite poorly, especially for it's big budget. It's not surprising, since the film is inaccurately portrayed as an action film, while anyone actually watching it would be entertained by the constant view of the Americans fucking everything up. It's probably a little too picky for it's own good, as it garnered many an anti-American and Anti-military label, a death-knell for the box office.

Isaacs and Damon search for a better film to make

My above statement of the Bourne movies and The Hurt Locker making sweet, sweet procreation seems to bear fruit. While the film seems to paint a true picture of life and combat during the War on Terror, it contains much more action than last year's Best Picture winner, culminating in a huge, over-the-top end battle where all the main protagonists and antagonists duke it out. This is about the point where the film jumps the shark, as while it's not out of the realm of possibility to have action sequences in a war movie, the scene is so overblown that it feels like a complete other movie, with only the related characters being any bridge between the two.

Woot, action scene!

By the time the whole thing is over, you're reminded that 90% of the reason you went to see this movie was the ten minutes spent on the action sequences, the studios obviously not putting much faith in the film's cynical view of the US Military and fearing perhaps a backlash from those in power. It's a shame for director Paul Greenglass, who's previous work on The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and United 93 were far superior that this film performs poorly and did so well at the box office. However, someone has to be put on the spot for casting so many brilliant actors and letting them fall flat on their faces with bland drivel that would make Gregory Peck look like a rank amateur. As far as Green Zone goes, you can safely skip it and just pick up last year's deserving Oscar winner instead.

"I'm %&#^$ Matt Damon"

A final note, thanks again to my readers: Yesterday, The Latest Issue put together it's 2000'th official hit, and I owe it all to your dedicated readership! I hope you continue to enjoy my reviews, as I love writing them for you! Enjoy.