Double Feature: Sports Flick Drama

Sports movies are something special. Sports movies based on a true story are even more so. But sports movies based on a true story and produced by Walt Disney Studios?

Meh.

Today we're going to look at two sports flicks that have come out recently that aren't exactly the second coming of Moneyball. The first, Draft Day, is a fictional behind-the-scenes look of an NFL team - in this case, the hard-losing Cleveland Browns - whose General Manager, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) gets the opportunity to trade for the #1 pick in the draft, just hours before one of the most celebrated sporting events in the United States goes live. He's under pressure from the owner (Frank Langella), his former championship-winning coach (Dennis Leary), and even his mother (Ellen Burstyn) to make a splash for a team and a city that have been suffering an epic Super Bowl drought. It's a lot of pressure on one man, who only wants the chance to build a team of his own and see what can be done.

"You can't let them in here! They'll... they'll see the big board!"

It's not everyday you see the National Football League have an actual presence in a movie - usually, unless the movie in question is a biopic, NFL team names are either replaced by fictional fill-ins or mentioned in passing - but they're all over Draft Day, along with a healthy presence from ESPN for good measure. While on the surface that might seem like a raw, artificial deal, this is a film in which the combination of Hollywood and the showmanship of the NFL really works. Thanks to a surprisingly deft script (courtesy of newcomers Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman), it's got the strengths of both sides, with an excellent, stylized, expertly-edited narration that keeps you guessing as to the final outcome, and few of the weaknesses you might expect to come from that coupling.

Hey, I didn't know the Browns were interested in drafting Jackie Robinson.

Despite the strength in presentation, does Draft Day have its faults? Well, sure, the characters are all kinds of cliches, the subplot of the office romance between Weaver and Jennifer Garner's otherwise-cool "female sports executive" (because a woman can't be in a sports movie unless she's the love interest, mother or daughter) is forced, a bit unsatisfying, and absolutely a pandering to a potential female audience, and when you cast rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in a major role, need I say more? But under the expert direction of Ivan Reitman (yeah, I forgot the director of Ghostbusters was here) the actors mostly put in excellent efforts, the characters are at certainly memorable, whether it's Leary's gruff antagonistic Head Coach or Chadwick Boseman as a flamboyant, energetic potential draftee. Reitman is definitely a master storyteller, as this had all the potential to be an artificial-feeling romanticization of the real NFL. It still goes a little over the top, but Draft Day is a surprisingly fun football movie, and if you can still see this in the theater, you could do a whole lot worse.

And by "a whole lot worse," I'm obviously referring to Million Dollar Arm, which had all the potential in the world as a sports tale based on a true story, before Disney got its hooks in it. On the surface, the tale of a down-on-his-luck sports agent (John Hamm) who travels to India to recruit Cricket players as potential Major League baseball players seems like JUST the idea a clever storyteller brings to the big screen. In practice... well, if you were offended by the whitewashing and "white savior" controversy that was The Help, then you haven't seen anything until you see White People Problems: The Sports Flick.

As far as acting goes, this movie has a ton of talent. Hamm transitions smoothly from TV, and while he's certainly helped by his square jaw and gruff demeanor, he shows a range that may surprise you if you havent' yet gotten around to watching Mad Men. He's also surrounded by a strong supporting cast, including The Life of Pi's Suraj Sharma and Slumdog Millionaire's Madhur Mittal as the two young athletes the agent recruits, Lake Bell as his neighbor/love interest, and Bill Paxton and Aasif Mandvi in smaller roles. Hindi star Pitobash steals many a scene as a young baseball fanatic, and while Alan Arkin tends to play the exact same character these days, you can't discount his presence or entertainment value whenever he's on the screen. In all, gun-for-hire director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, Fright Night) gets excellent performances from his talented team. Unfortunately, that's where this movie's upside just about dries up.

I was feeling like Arkin when I saw this, too.

But while the story of these two young men and their introduction to the sport of baseball is interesting and occasionally inspirational, we really don't learn all that much about newfound pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel. The script paints them as coming from typically poor settings, and even if the representation of their upbringing is accurate, it doesn't make up for characters that are shallowly written, despite the charm that Sharma and Mittal bring to the roles. Instead, the story focuses all its attention on Hamm's J.B. Bernstein, combining a typical fish-out-of-water story with  money problems and a "will-they-won't-they" love story with Lake Bell's polar opposite neighbor (again, even if the events are remotely accurate, why does it all come off as classic Hollywood schlock?). As good as Hamm is, he really ought to have been a supporting character in this tale, but for the Disnification by the film's financiers.

The Daily Show auditions ran a little late...

Million Dollar Arm has a slew of smaller problems, as well. The dialogue is full of genre cliches and familiar arguments. Worse, the arguments presented are forced and don't really make any sense from a logical perspective. For instance, many characters throw down in arguments with Bernstein in terms of his treatment of the players, even though the script makes things perfectly clear that in certain explicit situations he has no power over the topic in question, making the idea of his "redemption" (from asshole to nice guy) feel ill-conceived and baseless. And along those same lines, the redemption subplot is poorly implemented, and whether the numerous red herrings that are his out-of-nowhere character turns are due to poor writing or atrocious editing is pointless to ruminate on, as either way still kills much of the story's momentum. The film even wastes the musical talents of Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman, whose unique style is wiped away to provide a simple, rote soundtrack completely void of character or identity.

"Urge to kill... rising..."

And despite that, I can't really call Million Dollar Arm a BAD movie. It accomplished exactly what it set out to do, as mistaken as the goals it postulated were. It's occasionally fun, inspirational and interesting. It's also brainless, with the focus in the completely wrong place. Not to mention that since this is a Disney movie, they avoid pointing out any serious negative about the story (like the fact that one of these young men has already been released by his major league baseball club, while the other has suffered a string of injuries and may never pitch in the majors). I guess Disney figured that nobody would want to see such a strong cultural tale told from the point of view of someone who WASN'T an American, but since nobody bothered to see this, either, I guess that concept backfired on them anyway. This MIGHT be worth a DVD rental sometime in the future, as there's definitely some interesting stuff to glean from the story's mere existence. But when compared to Draft Day, or ANY decent sports movie for that matter, Million Dollar Arm comes up a bit lame.

The Ass-Kicking of 2012

The career of director Steven Soderbergh has been a strange one. After his debut film Sex Lies and Videotape made him a household name (and earned him the Palm D’Or at Cannes) back in 1989, Soderbergh went on to become one of the most popular directors of the modern era, with a filmography that includes Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the unimaginably successful Oceans trilogy. While some of his work is perhaps a bit overrated (the mediocre Contagion comes to mind), anyone should be able to appreciate the boundaries he attempts to breach with his filmmaking. That creativity of his has become more pronounced in recent years, as 2008’s Che was so long it had to be split into two parts for theatrical release, and he took an enormous chance in hiring then-active porn star Sasha Grey to headline his street-level look of humanity in The Girlfriend Experience. He’s even the director behind the Channing Tatum stripper biopic Magic Mike, due out later this year. But the most anticipated of his new films, at least in my eyes, has been the female-centric action film Haywire, starring former MMA fighter Gina Carano. Carano had been approached by Soderbergh to star in his new action film back in 2009, and as she had just lost a high-profile match to Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos and was looking to get out of the MMA spotlight, she took him up on the offer. It would not be her first film appearance (That would be the cult film Ring Girls), but this would be the first major motion picture to feature the potential action star out in front, where the world could see what so far only a few had actually witnessed of her abilities.

Gun play thankfully is kept to a minimum

Told in flashbacks, Haywire relates the story of how mercenary Mallory Kane (Carano) has come to be on the run from her former employers after they framed her for a crime she did not commit. The scion of a military family and a former marine in her own right, Mallory was the best agent the firm had, and was just about to take her earnings an move on to more relaxing climes. Now she must fight her way through a private army of goons, assassins and generally unlikable sorts to learn why she has been betrayed, and attempt to reclaim her old life by any means necessary.

Yes, our old friend (and Oscar snub) Fassbender is here...

There’s one important thing to remember when watching Haywire: if a character other than Mallory has an ass, it’s most likely going to get itself kicked. Soderbergh designed Mallory to be a versatile weapon of mass destruction, and Carano fills that gap admirably by beating up anybody that gets between her and victory. Mallory is also shown as being extremely dedicated, living by a moral code, incredibly intelligent and knowing exactly what she wants and how to get it. The only real flaw with Mallory is that she really HAS no flaws, with only the diminutive stature she brings against her larger, male opponents anything close to a weakness. Seeing her in action, it’s apparent that slight edge doesn’t last long, and as one character advises another, thinking of Mallory (or Carano, for that matter) as just a woman “would be a mistake.” With amazing camera work, Soderbergh captures elements both beautiful and ugly in the fight scenes, moving between graceful athleticism and brute force whenever necessary. There are precious few action heroines in the business, and Carano’s addition is one not to be taken lightly, even for a moment.

Turning an Uzi into a blowtorch in six easy steps...

Speaking of Miss Carano, I would have settled for her performance to be dry, dull, and propped up by the more experienced names on the cast list. I honestly wasn't sure an untrained actress would be able to carry such a burden on her first major attempt, and figured that the reason Soderbergh surrounded her with such talent was to offset her own limitations. Silly me. Carano, while not always perfect, still manages to do a whole lot correctly, turning Mallory from a potential black hole of personality into an real life character, one with all the strengths I listed earlier. I don't doubt that the offers will start rolling in, and Carano will amass a decent film career thanks to this amazing start. That said, her supporting cast slouches only slightly, and while not everyone is worth their weight in gold, they do enough to help propel the story forward. Ewan McGregor is smarmy and sly in the main antagonist role, a reversal put to good effect in the case of his usually charming demeanor. In small roles, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum and Bill Paxton do their share of adding to the film when need be. And Michael Douglas chews the appropriate amount of scenery as a government suit. Despite a sagging Antonio Banderas, this is a well-acted film with deep characters and believable interactions, and is as great as it is thanks to Carano being able to carry it on her shoulders for most of the time.

Guess who'll win this one

Despite a well-told and fast-paced tale, a few details still manage to go missing, and some leaps in the film's logic aren't always cleanly explained when they are. Regardless, Haywire should be considered a success both in the final product and in the casting of Carano in a leading role. What the MMA hoarded for four years is finally out of the box, and I'll be sorely disappointed if this talented young woman doesn't go from being the "Face of Women's MMA" to the face on movie posters across the nation. There are a few female action stars in Hollywood right now, but I have little doubt that this woman has the strength, charisma and determination to best them all. At least for now, she stars in the #1 film of 2012.

Alien Nation

Since I'm known as a movie guy in my circles (not THE movie guy, mind you; I'm still working on that), I often get asked my opinion as to what I think of certain films and genres. Some questions, for instance what I thought was the worst film EVER, are difficult. There are so many bad films released every year, you have to present the question to exclude the low-budget hack jobs that never should have been made in the first place. Even THAT doesn't necessarily pare down the list too much, as true scatological pieces like Waterworld and Red Riding Hood multiply in quantity each year. In short, some questions are so difficult that I may never have a true answer. Naming my favorite film is nowhere near as tricky. Long my movie of choice, Aliens has held a foremost place in my heart since just about forever. While I had been somewhat familiar with the series as a child, what really brought me into the franchise was the batch of Aliens toys that were released several years after that film's theatrical release, sometime in the early nineties. The toy series was loosely based on the characters and creatures from the film, and I had action figures of Ripley, Bishop, Apone and a few Aliens growing up. Later, my cousin showed me his VHS (no DVD back then) of Aliens, and it was love at first sight. It has ever since been my favorite title, and I will herald it as the greatest science fiction film of all time to any who will listen. With some free time on my hands and no compulsion to trudge out to the theater, I decided that I had gone long enough between viewings of My Precious, and enjoyed a perfect evening on the couch.

Campfires on LV-427 traditionally ended in bloodbaths

For those unfortunates not in the know, Aliens is the sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 space horror film Alien. Directed by sci-fi prodigy James Cameron, Aliens was a vast departure from the film that preceded it. Unlike the horror archetype that dominated the story of the original, the new film introduced action and adventure to the mix, with the liberal addition of guns, soldiers and explosions. Fifty-seven years after surviving the events of Alien, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finally makes her way back to Earth frozen in a tiny escape capsule. After being thawed out, her warnings of an alien menace are ignored by "The Company", mostly because the planet where she and her crew dredged up the titular monster had become home to a colony in her absence, and none of them had encountered any problems. Not long after her warning, however, contact with the planet LV-246 is lost, and Ripley is asked/cajoled by her employers to return in the company of rough and tough Space Marines, assured that the mission is to go in and wipe the alien species out, once and for all.

"Got Milk?"

So what is it that makes Aliens so compelling? While the original is a classic, where it lacked was in the character development and plot aspects, two items that usually determine how much I appreciate a film. While Alien successfully introduced a brand new creature that still scares today, it did so in such a way that was somewhat derivative of similar horror fare, and the characters who died for our entertainment did so not as epic personalities, but big name actors (Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm) playing shallow roles. Now, don't get me wrong; I LIKED Alien. I really did. But Cameron just did such a good job improving on the original that it feels like a whole other storyline, not the part of a whole that it is in reality. It helps that at the time Cameron was at the top of his game, having just finished Terminator and soon to be going on to make the spectacular sequel T2: Judgment Day. I know I may have my detractors, but I believe Aliens to be his best work, and it's a shame that these days the vision he once had seems to be rather limited in scope to what he can do with technology instead of story. After all, The Abyss was tons better than both Titanic and Avatar, two films for which he has received far too much dubious credit. Back in the eighties Cameron not only made great movie but managed to create two of the most memorable characters in film history, and both just happened to be women: Ripley, and Terminator's Sarah Connor.

Now you're his SPECIAL friend!

Strong character is a staple of any good film, and back in the day Cameron was among the best at building a wealth of personality into his films. And it's not just the leads that get a steady stream of development. Watch the first scenes of Aliens aboard the Marine starship Sulaco: those sequences where we are introduced to the diverse and dangerous marines practically weep character. After just a few moments of dialogue and interaction, we can map their entire biography and everything important needed to care about them as people, not just future cannon fodder. Sure, Ripley runs the show, and why not? Sigourney Weaver is an amazing performer (and as a side note has gotten so much more beautiful with age), able to convey her lines not only through practical dialogue, but subtle shifts in her facial expression and body language. It's easy to understand how she became the face of the franchise, and any film based on the Alien trademark that doesn't have her in a starring role just feels wrong, which of course is why the horrid Alien: Resurrection brought Ripley back from the dead (and of course she was the best part). Still, the strengths of the bit players makes the film feel just right. As I mentioned, it only takes a moment to understand the habits and motivations of the characters: from Sergeant Apone (Al Matthews)'s guttural growl and tendency to follow orders to the letter, to Drake (Mark Rolston) and Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein)'s tight friendship and bulldog attitudes, to the smart-mouthed nervousness of Private Hudson (Bill Paxton), Aliens was populated by smart roles that never felt stuck in first gear. When Bishop (Lance Henriksen) did the knife trick and Hicks (Michael Biehn) fell asleep in his dropship harness, those were moments when you really felt CONNECTED to the film and its occupants, and it's something you rarely get to feel when watching action movies nowadays.

My sister would approve Ripley's liberal use of duct tape to face the Alien horde

Another amazing aspect introduced by Cameron (and consequently ditched by the succeeding sequels) was the role of Ripley as a maternal figure. This was a motivation he sought also in his Terminator franchise with Sarah Connor and her son John, and the question of what a mother will do for her child makes itself known here with Ripley caring for the orphaned Newt (Carrie Henn). It escalates to to such a point that even the final showdown between Ripley and the Alien Queen is practically mom against intergalactic mom. While there is some inherent danger perhaps in overtly defining a woman by her maternal instincts, that aspect is done so well here that it takes the film to a whole other level. Scenes between Ripley and Newt are so compelling that they could easily be made part of a completely dissimilar film and still make perfect sense. Once again it's that attention to getting characters right that makes the film move forward, not the tension of waiting for monsters to strike - although that is still quite good, now that you mention it.

"Get away from her, you BITCH!" The best line in ANY movie

So why is it I love Aliens? Sure, the special effects are amazing for their time and Ellen Ripley is the most kick-ass character I can think of in film. Aliens spouts tons of memorable lines (including the near-famous "Game over, man!") and characters of such strength and motivation they would be leads in lesser titles. It also features one of the scariest movie monsters of all time, a creature that commits atrocities not out of malevolence but out of survival and procreation. The alien even enjoys its best day in the sun as Cameron's interpretation of the alien "hive" is one of the most enduring myths of the franchise. Finish off with a story that tells smoothly and with no wasted bits, and you could say that the ENTIRE FILM is in fact the best part. As complete a film as I have ever seen, and easily the first example you should point out to people who insist that science fiction brings nothing good to the table. My all-time favorite.