David O's Hustlin'

Oh, no, we're starting to overrate David O. Russell!

Don't get me wrong, I think Russell has put together a solid career, especially these past few years. The Fighter is one of my favorite modern sports movies, and while I contend that the mental health topic was just a smokescreen for an otherwise-predictable romantic comedy in Silver Linings Playbook, it was still a well-made, exceptionally-acted motion picture. And so when this man pumps out a movie, it's fairly easy to drum up audiences, even when your trailers reveal none of the plot and thrive on catchy pop tunes. He's gotten to that pedestal that all directors hope to achieve, where their name holds more allure than many of the all-star cast that people are actually going to be staring at for over two hours. And all in all, he's deserved it, getting excellent performances from talented casts and piecing together a strong filmography. So it's a surprise to no-one that American Hustle has gotten so much praise from critics, and that audiences have been solidly filling theaters to see it. There's just one problem... the movie's not really all that great.

If you grew up in the 80's, you knew this guy.

The movie is a fictionalized retelling of the FBI's ABSCAM investigation that saw several US politicians convicted of corruption charges from the late 70's to the early 80's, saying that "Some of this actually happened" but also changing all the names and details involved. So right off the bat we have a problem. Yes, last year we had an historical drama that changed many a detail for the purpose of telling a good story in Argo. But while Ben Affleck might have fudged a few lines in adapting his Best Picture winner, he was still determined to tell stories about real people faced with impossible odds. It didn't matter that not everything in the movie matched up with its real world counterpart, because at the end of the day Affleck was representing these folks as truly as he knew how. Russell meanwhile uses such an important moment in US history as ABSCAM as a mere baseline for his own simple morality play (which he rewrote from a screenplay by The International's Eric Singer), and doesn't really seem care about the event's historical significance, or how it relates to the story he wants to tell.

Okay, guys, you can play patty-cake later.

The film also stutters through an opening act told almost entirely in voice-over monologues. Even if you can accept this clear breach of "show but don't tell" (at which movies of this level are SUPPOSED to excel) as a quick and easy method of introducing our leads, there's no real excuse for not settling on one voice; the narration starts from the perspective of small-time conman Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), which makes sense, because he's the protagonist of the story. But Russell quietly ushers in a change by adding in the disembodied voice of Amy Adams (playing Irving's business partner and mistress Sydney Prosser) for no discernible reason other than to make fun of the main character's comb-over. What's painful is that the scenes are actually so well-shot, and these actors so evocative despite lacking dialogue, that the scenes really do speak for themselves, making the voice-overs completely unnecessary. It's almost as if the director dumbed-down these scenes in an attempt to create a more audience-friendly atmosphere. That's not something you want to see from a man who was never concerned with mainstream success in the past.

Just... wow.

Fortunately, most of the succeeding acts are much better compiled, as they focuses on what makes David O. Russell movies so revered: the interplay between characters. The relationships between each pair of personalities are so well-constructed and believable that they MAKE American Hustle as entertaining as it is. For instance, many sides of Irving can be seen through his interactions with others, from his tempered fury for FBI handler Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to the genuine (and conflicted) friendship he develops with well-meaning corrupt politician Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), to his poisonous relationship with young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). Each character has a litany of such relationships to one another, and one of the film's true pleasures comes from seeing those emotional turmoils move the story forward from scene to scene. The actors have great chemistry, and it ups the payoff that is delivered, even when their actions are quite so noble as to be respected in that way.

There's a fetish for that.

It's a shame that the individual performances couldn't have been more consistent. Now, Bale is absolutely great, carrying the movie with an unusual combination of charm, honesty and a little bit of sleaziness to sell the con man angle. He's obviously deeply invested in this character, and it shows, as he proves once again to be among the best actors in Hollywood today. But even he is upstaged by his ladies, American Hustle's true stars. Adams has a rich, meaty role that she wholeheartedly throws herself into. Her sensual performance and easy chemistry with her costars makes for a lot of fun to watch, and she steals about half the scenes in the flick. Most of the others are stolen by Lawrence, who puts on one of the year's best performances despite being given material similar to Kat Dennings in Thor: The Dark World. Despite a role that feels largely written for laughs, Lawrence handily floors the audience with excellent comedic timing, an intense, believable on-screen presence, and more sheer talent than most career artists achieve in their lifetime. Both of these women deserve Oscar nods this year, despite the crowded Supporting Actress field; there might be a riot if even one of them fails to garner a nomination.

These scenes - and these ladies - are out of this world.

I just wish more of the cast had stepped up as those three. Cooper's FBI agent is so over the top, though to be fair he certainly was written that way, what with the completely forced love triangle and the prototypical interfering mother and a feud with his boss that in the real world would never be tolerated. But even then Cooper goes way over the top, over-exaggerating every syllable and becoming even more of a caricature. Worse off is Renner, whose script choices have not allowed him to approach the potential he showed in The Hurt Locker and The Town. Here he's barely used, and when he is the dialogue is so rote as to work against him. And yes, I know many of the scenes were ad-libbed, but those moments were infinitely better than those that were plainly scripted. Beyond the big five are a cavalcade of side characters, one-note parts given WAY too much material to justify their collective presence while wasting the considerable talents of the actors brought in to play them. It's this kind of lazy character development that sabotages much of the good the actors try to bring to the screen, and keeps the movie from ultimately reaching the zenith it ought to have.

Obligatory cast shot.

I feel like I've been saying this a lot in 2013 (and as I write this, it still IS 2013... Happy New Year!), but American Hustle just isn't as good as we expect it to be. It's still GOOD, but you have to navigate a messy story, hit-or-miss character development, and - perhaps its worst sin - a poor, heavy handed ending that comes out of left field and negates many of the "true story" ideas. Here, David O. Russell is a director not at his best, though he at least still has some of the year's best performances under his guidance. Maybe this is part of an inevitable decline from greatness, or perhaps it's simply a slight downturn and his next picture turns into one of the best of all time. But while there's an interesting ABSCAM story out there begging to be told, it's not this one; because it's not really ABOUT the event. There was another director this year who took a "true" story, created a fictionalized narrative around it, changed everything that didn't work or might be controversial, threw in a solid cast and tried to take a humorous approach to it. Who was that again... oh, right, it was Michael Bay. And when your movie can find more apples-to-apples comparisons to Pain & Gain than it can to Argo, you've definitely got some problems.

'Out of the Furnace' Burns Brightly

I didn't know this, but apparently the weekend after Thanksgiving is not particularly productive for the North American box office. Since it's usually such a slow weekend, movies released at this time tend to be few, with maybe one new release opening up and often failing to garner an audience when it does. Two years ago, it was the terrible The Warriors Way that was sacrificed to an early grave, while last year saw the critically praised but commercially panned Killing Them Softly (which I also consummately hated) diffuse all potential Oscar talk for Brad Pitt in 2012. This year, the sole national release for this weekend is Out of the Furnace, Scott Cooper's directorial followup to 2009's well-received country-singing Crazy Heart, a title many considered a decent pick for Academy Award potential. Does this mediocre release date (which guaranteed an early box office finish behind Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) mean that the studios and their celebrity producers (Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio, who had originally been labeled as director and actor) believe their film doesn't deserve that much faith?

A bit of fun before all the drama begins.

Out of the Furnace is a revenge thriller that pits Russell Baze (Academy Award-winner Christian Bale) - a normal, factory-working good man in Braddock, PA - against lowlife criminal and overall scumbag Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), an Appalachian hustler who is suspected of being responsible for the disappearance of Russell's brother Rodney (Casey Affleck). With there being only so much the law can do, Russell feels he is the only man who can find and punish the man responsible for separating him from his brother.

Gladiator gets a sequel 2000 years in the making.

This movie has two major strengths going for it: Cooper, and his amazing cast. As a sophomore director, Cooper has a lot to live up to, especially with praise for Crazy Heart being as great as it was. He has a natural aptitude for storytelling, and that's especially good when the story he actually tells differs in respects to what the trailers had brought a potential audience to expect. Now, it's not that the trailers lied, per se, but they do diverge quite widely from the tale Cooper actually brings to us. Considering how many trailers essentially give away the story of their respective titles, that Out of the Furnace surprises us with its twists and turns is just as much a key to victory as Cooper's overall talent. The director has a talent for capturing the perfect shot, and the imagery he evokes is that of a big-budget Winter's Bone due to its Appalachian, Rust Belt locale and depressed economic setting. He makes great use of his locale to establish his story (which he re-wrote from a script by Brad Ingelsby), and despite the dangers of a slow-burning plot (Killing Them Softly was terribly slow, to the point of boredom), the movie is never dull, keeping you entranced as you anxiously wait to see what happens next.

He's really going for that Oscar this year.

And as I mentioned, Cooper gets a huge boost from his all-star cast, especially concerning the (surprisingly limited) interplay between Bale and Harrelson. Harrelson's Harlan is a monster from the word go, and the film more than establishes him as a dangerous, evil human being (and setting the foundations for Best Supporting Actor nods, perhaps), more than worthy for a movie of this style. Meanwhile, Bale's Russell takes a lot longer to set up, while never losing sight of the idea that he is the epitome of good. That building of his character was necessary to keep Russell from stagnating, and despite some threats of cliche, Bale reminds everybody of the monumental talent he really is. Affleck meanwhile quietly puts forth one of his best performances, that of a youth troubled by war and falling into the trappings of debt and depression. Affleck has always been a good (sometimes better than big brother Ben) actor, but his turn in Furnace easily takes the top prize. Zoe Saldana also excels, though I found myself wishing they'd used her a bit more. After all, there's no doubt in my mind that one day this young talent will earn Academy Award nominations, and perhaps walk away with one as well. This was an excellent display of her skills (the scene with Bale on the footbridge is emotionally devastating) and she's absolutely destined for bigger things than Star Trek and Colombiana. Forest Whitaker, Sam Shepard and Willem Dafoe round out a fully engaging cast, one that really makes the best of their given material.

Spoiler: this is the best scene in the movie.

And that's a good thing, because the material they have to work with is... "meh". Cooper supposedly had his own upbringing in Appalachia in mind when he was retooling Ingelsby's screenplay, but the result is a LOT of universally cliched ideas. The major and minor themes - poverty, frontier justice, social treatment of combat veterans, legal jurisdiction battles, loneliness, emotional trauma, brotherhood - have been done before, in essentially this same format. No matter how good the actors are (and they are spectacular!), Cooper can't quite compel his movie to be more unique than it actually is. There were also some questionable decisions made for the final cut, as some scenes ran a little over-long and contained some questionably redundant material (I mean seriously, how many times to we need to be reminded that Russell is a good man?). But while the director really should have let someone else come in and tinker with his relatively disappointing script, he's a talented-enough artist to somewhat overcome those hurdles, while trusting his cast to do the heavy lifting in a tale that doesn't lack for suspense and authentic emotional toil.

Now, who's up for playing Old Yeller?

There's a surprisingly long setup, as the audience soon becomes fully accustomed to the slow burn that takes up the first 90 minutes of Out of the Furnace. That makes the swift final act a complete surprise, as Cooper had perfectly positioned his pawns for a quick checkmate. But despite feeling a little rushed, the movie actually benefits from this change of pace, and it actually makes for quite the exciting and appropriate conclusion to the tale. Still, it (and his minor, newbie-level mistakes) keeps his final product from becoming the awards juggernaut it ABSOLUTELY had the potential to be. Out of the Furnace is still tons better than the fare that usually comes out the weekend after Thanksgiving, and if you find yourself with a couple of hours to spend before the year's end, you can do a whole lot worse than giving Scott Cooper's latest effort a shot. Great actors, an up-and-coming director and not one boring moment make for a couple hours of sheer quality entertainment.

Darkness Falls

I've been on more or less a hiatus the past two  weeks. A busy work schedule, not to mention plain old fatigue, has been gnawing on me, and between that and the string of blah releases recently the result I'm afraid has been me been neglecting Hello Mr. Anderson and my readers. Still, I couldn't imagine a better return to the site than reviewing possibly the most anticipated movie of the summer, The Dark Knight Rises. The finale to Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader has certainly earned it's "epic" label: at 165 minutes, it is the longest of his Batman trilogy, and borrows extensively from the comic book character's mythology in the formation of its story. In this third installment, the director took pages from one of the Batman's all-time great stories, 'Knightfall', which chronicled a hero driven to the point of both physical and mental exhaustion before being broken entirely. With Marvel having dominated the comic book film wars the past few years - Iron Man, Thor and of course The Avengers performing more impressively than DC's Superman Returns, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern - Nolan's films have been a light of hope for the company to somehow find their way back to the quality of storytelling for which they were once known. We're a long way from the "Bat-Nipple" sham that was Batman & Robin, and I was certainly of a mood to see this movie after spending this last weekend in the REAL inspiration for Gotham City, good old NYC.

You guessed it: he's Batman.

Set eight years after accepting the blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, Batman has retired his cape and cowl. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has lived in seclusion, avoiding any public appearances both due to the physical trauma his body endured in his battle with Two Face and the Joker and his emotional instability following the death of childhood friend and former romantic interest Rachel Dawes. Gotham has enjoyed a modern Renaissance, with Dent's legacy ensuring that the city is free of the organized crime that had crippled its peace and prosperity in the previous decades. That all begins to change with the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), a brilliant, mysterious and deadly mercenary who has Gotham set in his sights, to bring chaos in his wake. What is Bane after? Why has cat burgler Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) targeted Bruce Wayne? And how are Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows involved? It's no wonder the thing stretches out to nearly three hours, as Nolan definitely needed that time to tell the whole story.

You'll wake up to an empty apartment... but it will be worth it.

This was to be the big one. The Dark Knight Rises was going to be bigger, more explosive and exciting than Marvel's The Avengers, being the end of Nolan and Bale's involvement with the storied franchise. It was far and away the most anticipated movie of the year for most people. Naturally this is where you start to pick up that The Dark Knight fails to live up to those impossibly high standards you have set. It's not so much that Nolan does anything particularly WRONG, not really. But there were several curious decisions made that - while not making TDKR as disappointing as Prometheus - seriously hinder the film's narrative flow. The movie starts off exciting with the introductions of Hardy's Bane and Hathaway's Catwoman, two major characters in the Batman universe who benefit from the amazingly talented actors who portray them. Hardy, nearly unrecognizable, has turned himself into a force of nature, and Hathaway masters all the angles of Selina Kyle, from her natural seductiveness to her brilliant strategic mind to her physical prowess. We even get to see a different side of Bruce Wayne, one that has been seriously affected by the battles and losses in his life. For Bale, it might not be as impressive as his turn in The Fighter, but his ability to invest himself fully into a role is nothing if not impeccable. And Nolan has always had a talent for drawing a lot of emotion out of his audiences with stellar visuals and explosive action.

Sure, he's not quite like the comic character, but Hardy's Bane is one of the best villains this year.

Unfortunately, even Nolan can't keep it up in a three-hour film, and when the film inevitably slows down for excessive plot exposition, you start to notice all the things that are wrong with The Dark Knight Rises. Like how Catwoman, despite her and Hathaway's many talents, still turns out to be kind of a one-dimensional character. Or Bane's ending, which is about as anti-climactic as one can get. Or Alfred's (Michael Caine) actions, which would never have happened in the comics. Or how Nolan ceases to focus on Batman for stretches at a time, turning the movie into the John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) show. They're great actors and do wonderful jobs, but the last time I checked the protagonist was supposed to be Bruce Wayne, not some orphan cop. Or hey, remember when the villain conspired to use a Waynetech invention to actually destroy Gotham City in Batman Begins? Well, expect to see that again! Or Batman's steadfast refusal to use guns, while having no qualms about using the machine guns and missiles on his new "Bat" flyer late in the film. Or how there's no reference to the Joker, who contrary to the first law of Batman movies did NOT die at the end of The Dark Knight? I understand that nobody can replace Heath Ledger's Joker at this point but I don't need an actor in makeup, just some sort of sign that he was loose in Gotham as all the craziness was going down. Or the film's surprising predictability. Don't even get me STARTED on Marion Cotillard's character. And that ENDING...!

This guy gets more attention than Batman...

One of the biggest complaints you will hear about films based on comic book characters is that you can't fully get into the story unless you already know all about the character in question. That has at least been partially true of Marvel's recent efforts, especially for The Avengers, which did have some moments that might have been confusing if you hadn't seen any of its predecessors. The irony of The Dark Knight Rises is that newcomers to the franchise will handily be able to follow along whether or not they've read the comic, so long as they've at least seen Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Even marginal Batman fans, however, may find themselves frothing at the mouth with all the liberties Christopher Nolan has taken with Gotham's favored son. At it's best, The Dark Knight Rises is a fun, exciting and entertaining thrill-ride with enough action, character development and intrigue to overcome its most glaring faults. It's the little things that will dig into your fun at the theater however, and there is no moment like that one Avengers scene of the collected heroes preparing for battle that will make you cheer and clap your hands in pure joy and exhilaration. TDKR is not that kind of movie, and doesn't try to be. Nolan's Batman is a character mired in darkness, ultimately alone in the battle against injustice. It's unquestionably his creation, and I'll say it's good enough to be the #9 film of 2012. That it could have - and perhaps SHOULD HAVE - been so much better is a shame, but Nolan's successes far outweigh his failures. His Batman epic, though now over, will be remembered as one of the best superhero series of all time, if not THE best. It's too bad it didn't finish better, but perhaps this was the ending Nolan's trilogy needed, if not necessarily the one it deserved.

Dancing lessons have since been cancelled.

I Love a Good Fight

When I first saw the trailer for The Fighter, the latest collaboration between principal actor and Boston native Mark Wahlberg and director David O. Russell, my first thought was that it didn't seem like a traditional Rocky retread. While certainly hailing from the same genre of "based on a true story" that has littered Wahlberg's career - films such as Perfect Storm, Invincible, and Rock Star - it felt different than what you might expect from those similar titles. This was thanks in part to the local (Lowell, Massachusetts) scenery and gritty, generally dark atmosphere. But the film's biggest coup was probably the performers that flanked Wahlberg in the credits, namely excellent performers Christian Bale and Amy Adams. Lending their talents to Wahlberg's strong showing made the film look like one that could be contending for awards at year's end, and made for one of this year's most anticipated releases.

Yes, let's take boxing lessons from the lightest weight in the room

The Fighter is the story of real-life boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Wahlberg), who grew up in Lowell in the shadow of his older brother Dicky. Dicky Eklund (Bale) was once a boxer known as "The Pride of Lowell" and whose crowning achievement - and the family's glory - was facing Sugar Ray Robinson and knocking him down in the ring, though he actually lost the match. These days Dicky has degenerated into a crack addict, though he does care about his brother and has trained Micky as a boxer, using everything he has learned. Managed by his hard-nosed mother Alice (Melissa Leo) and supported by his bartender girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams), Micky rebounds from early disappointments, both in his sport and his family relations, to become a respected boxer and eventually en route to an epic championship match.

Okay, so I put extra caffeine in Four Loko... so what?

Though the film took a long time to put together, it seems to have benefited from the extended production time. Since 2003, the film has seen such names as Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon identified with it, but the film doesn't suffer for not having them in the final product. Russell does a great job of establishing locations and shots that can be recognized by the audience at a glance, and manages to get the proper mood of the working class Lowell neighborhood. There's not a lot that's pretty about Lowell, not in it's streets or it's people, and the beauty that Russell manages to convey is in all things subjective to its surroundings. The well-crafted storyline that the film possesses weaves its tale through the people portrayed and their personalities, and not just in the film's major events.

Marky Mark's family scared Adams juuuust a little...

That those people are also such great artists is no small feat either. As the film's lead, Wahlberg does a tremendous job playing the film's blue collar boxer, though truth be told it's hardly a stretch for him. He does immerse himself in the role, however, going so far as to not use a stunt double for his boxing scenes and working out for almost four years leading up to the role to achieve the proper body type. He probably won't win an Oscar for his work (Colin Firth and Ryan Gosling and perhaps even Stephen Dorff will be the likely front-runners in that race) but he certainly has earned at least a dark horse run at the prize, as his commitment to the role cannot be overstated. Bale's addition to the cast is an even bigger reason the film works so perfectly. As the drug-addicted older brother, Bale had to lose a lot of weight for the role, which he's done before, but that's not the reason he's amazing. He effortlessly takes on a Boston accent, but not the standard "pahk ya cah" that so many people initially think of for the region. He comes off as a veteran boxer who knows what he's talking about, and a drug-addled punk who doesn't commit a lot of time to his family or his problems. The reason Bale is so great is that he doesn't merely play the part well. For the purposes of the film he BECOMES Dicky, through and through. It's the kind of performance that makes careers.

Huh, what?? WOAH!!

It's great that in a Hollywood where strong female roles are few and far between you can see two great such roles in this film. Amy Adams, best known for happy, carefree characters plays amazingly against type here as Charlene, a bartender and Wahlberg's romantic interest. Charlene made mistakes early in her life and is trying to make up for them by supporting Micky in his rise to stardom. And Oscar-nominated Melissa Leo is amazing as Micky's churlish mother and manager Alice, who has a cruel tongue but holds family as most important. Both have already been nominated for Golden Globes thanks to their accurate, amazing characters and if either are left out at the Academy Awards it will be well and truly a snub, as the pair are the heart of this film.

Okay, look. It's called "shampoo." Use it once in a while!

The film has a few small issues, mainly pertaining to its boxing scenes. While comparisons to Rocky aren't unjustified, there are no fewer than five different boxing matches referenced in the film, and while a few are focused on, many of those bits are truncated to the point that the viewer would be unable to differentiate between them were it not for the interjecting story scenes. Also, the fights that Ward are best known for, those with Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti, don't take place until after the film's conclusion.  Still, the boxing scenes are well choreographed and researched, and with the exception of the silly close-up camera angles that muddy up some of the shots, are well done. Again, Wahlberg's decision not to use a stunt double makes the scenes more realistic when you can clearly see it's him hitting and getting hit. The film is helped by the fact that there is no true "bad guy" in the film. Sure, Dicky's addiction and Alice's crassness don't help matters, but the villains in this film are much more ingrained in the culture and biases within which the characters exist. Again, a great choice by the director to not artificially install a bad guy to make things more interesting.

Remember, when he hits you in the head, just fall down and curl up. We'll be home by dinner.

Though in the end it does get to be a little schmaltzy and not a little predictable, The Fighter doesn't disappoint as it was easily one of the best films I've seen this year. All the performers deserve credit for their accomplishment, as they were the ones that made it the amazing experience that it was. I was sure The Town was going to be the best locally based film of the year, but The Fighter made me change my mind, placing as the new #4 on my Top Ten. This was a love letter from Wahlberg not only to Micky and Dicky but also the city of Lowell, and if the film gets some awards this season, they will be wholly deserved.