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.

Ride Like Hell and Run Like You Stole Something

On my last day off from work, I had so much extra time that I decided to pull a two-fer at the movies. Sometimes I'll do this, especially when my schedule has no overly-burdensome tasks laid out for me and I've got nobody else with whom to share my time. And so today I'm going to talk about two VERY different movies, the bike messenger thriller (yes, you read that right) Premium Rush and the sci-fi drama Robot & Frank.

In Premium Rush, rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, a thrill junkie of a NYC bicycle messenger, one of the many riding through the streets of the city (my own recent jaunt to the United States' most populous city did not witness any cyclists, but maybe it was an off week). Among his peers, Wilee is considered one of the best, and it's his reputation that gets him a premium rush job, transporting one envelope from a friend from one side of the city to the other quickly. But the package turns out to be a hot commodity, as Wilee finds himself dodging Chinese mafia, dirty cops, legit cops, and even rival bike messengers in a bid to get the package delivered on time.

"Why yes, I WAS that kid from 3'rd Rock!"

This is a huge year for Gordon-Levitt. After finally gaining mainstream acceptance with his role in 2010's Inception, he has been steadily raising his status as a Hollywood star, and 2012 looks to be his biggest year yet. He was a huge reason Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises was as good as it was, and he'll be following up Premium Rush with the sci-fi thriller Looper, which is one of my more anticipated sci-fi flicks this year. He also has a role (how large, I'm not sure) in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which is as big as a deal as it sounds. While his Wilee does come off as kind of a jackass at times, it's Gordon-Levitt's charm that ensures that we never get tired of his schtick. He's front and center most of the time, and his casual, take-no-shit attitude and his interactions with others are what makes him such an effective protagonist.

"What do you mean he's 'not Batman'?"

Surprisingly, for a film centering around such an obscure job this movie never feels out of place or far from your comfort zone. Replace the bike chases with car chases, and you've got your standard high-level action film ready for distribution. That might make it seem like Premium Rush is no different than anything else out there (and you'd be right), but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing; the film packs all the excitement of your standard thrill-ride, simply replacing four wheels with two. The supporting cast seems to have been set up with this action pastiche in mind; with Dania Ramirez and Aasif Mandvi doing the best they can with limited character. Michael Shannon especially steps up, as his cliche dirty cop with a gambling problem would be a disaster in anybody else's hands. Director David Koepp's biggest coup was casting the former Academy Award nominee in the role, which benefits from his experience and ability to command a scene effortlessly.

Out-riding all his newfound glory.

Anyone expecting Premium Rush to have more brains than it does is bound to be disappointed. The biggest surprise is that for an action piece with no emotional commitment, it's a lot more fun than it really has any right to be. You might want to overlook this movie (and as it made very little opening weekend, a lot of people did just that), but for a mindless action flick this one is actually clever enough to make the cut. It might not be Top 10 material, but it's still a lot of fun.

The next title required me to head to the oft-cited Coolidge Corner Theater. The story of Robot & Frank definitely struck me as a peculiarly odd, but somehow ingenious concept. Set in the near future, it stars Frank Langella as Frank, a mentally-afflicted father and former cat burglar who has strained relationships with his children. When his son (James Marsden) brings him a robot butler (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) to help keep his life in order and remain healthy, Frank is at first distrustful of having the thing around the house, but slowly begins to accept Robot's help. This comes to a head when he discovers that his new companion has no protocol that says that stealing is wrong, prompting Frank to plan a major heist to strike at the rich folk who he believes don't deserve their vast wealth.

On the surface, Robot & Frank has a lot going for it; a great cast (which also includes Susan Sarandon, Liv Tyler and Jeremy Sisto), an interesting hook, and some clever societal statements made it one of the smarter-looking movies this year. And for the most part, that is the correct assumption. Clever in a completely different way than Premium Rush could ever have hoped, this movie is more of an actor's film, with the characters guiding film in a way you don't see much anymore. The acting is all excellent, especially Langella, who might be Oscar baiting if the film can gather any traction beyond the science fiction crowd. If Sam Rockwell's under-loved role in Moon is any indication however, the Academy won't be giving this sci-fi movie any credit anytime soon. That's a shame for both Langella and Sarsgaard, who once again provides the kind of excellent performance we now expect from him. Together, they create a nice one-two punch and are one of the better pairs I've seen in 2012.

Two of the best performances you'll see this year.

Unfortunately, the film's slow and inconsistent pacing make many a scene less interesting than the film as a whole. While we get to experience the budding friendship between our two leads, director Jake Schreier does so at the expense of many of the other characters, most notably Sarandon's librarian who befriends Frank only to be cut from most of the main story. While the story as a whole is solid, and at times a ton of fun, there is a lot of evidence that Schreier is - for good or bad -  the first-time director that he is.

Guess who wishes Liv Tyler was elsewhere right now?

Still, Robot & Frank has a lot of charisma in its bones, and the story and characters combine for a fun if not perfect time at the movies. If it comes to a theater near you, it's a solid option as a smart, funny, and clever film. Langella and Sarsgaard are well worth the effort, and even if you somehow miss this small gem, definitely take the time to see it on DVD when it's available.

Taken into the Unknown

In 2008, Liam Neeson made an interesting career move when he starred in the thriller Taken. In that film, he played the vengeful father of a teen kidnapped by human traffickers while on a trip through Europe. It was considered a dark and startling film (no, I'm afraid I missed it), and the Irish-born actor really made an impact with his gritty, physical role that was unlike so much of his career to date. On top of that, it was a box office success, confirming that Neeson made an excellent choice moving to the thriller genre despite enjoying much success in more traditional dramas... and Star Wars. Typically when thinking of Neeson's career you imagine his romantic comedies, period pieces, and strictly serious fare. You think of Schindler's List. Taken probably shouldn't have worked. Instead, it put new life and a nice twist on Neeson's resume. Well, three years later he's trying to repeat history by doing the exact same thing. The film he's attempting to accomplish this with is Unknown, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, based on the novel by French author Didier van Cauwelaert. In this new release, Neeson's character is faced with the loss of more than a mere daughter, and the film was the main reason people made their way to the theaters this past weekend.

"You're going to be Taken... no wait, wrong script"

Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a scientist who arrives in Berlin to make a presentation at a biotechnology summit held in the city. Arriving with his wife Liz (Mad Men's January Jones), Martin suffers a head wound in a traffic accident involving his taxi and wakes up after several days in the hospital with no knowledge of how he got there. Worse, when he finally finds his wife, she doesn't seem to recognize him, along what we are led to believe is an impostor Martin Harris (Aiden Quinn) who has ample proof that he's who he says he is, while Neeson's Martin has none. Is the man who thinks his name is Martin Harris suffering from brain damage? Or is he somehow being replaced, for some nefarious purpose?

Still better than The Phantom Menace

While Taken seems to have had some basis in plausible real-world scenarios (the trailer came complete with basic statistics on human trafficking and sex slavery), the same cannot really be said for Unknown. While identity theft is certainly a major problem in the world, even moreso thanks to the wonder that is everybody's personal information online, the story presented here takes it to such a ridiculous degree as to be both unlikely and unbelievable. What comes of this is a film that doesn't make much sense from scene to scene, which actually works since we as the audience aren't meant to understand what's happening until nearly the final credits. We're constantly wondering whether Martin Prime is the real deal or somehow just very knowledgeable of the real thing; we really wonder whether the main character is simply suffering from serious brain damage or is really having his life stripped from him unceremoniously. This is helped by taut pacing that varies between supporting either side of the argument, while never dropping us into a situation where we have no interest.

Seriously... She's German... playing a Bosnian... IN BERLIN

There can be little doubt that this film wouldn't make a dent on the American psyche without the stellar acting of Neeson. Much of the movie has him playing the every-man, and his believable distrust of his own memory pretty much makes the film as inviting as it is. Of course, he also gets to play the bad-ass, but that comes slowly, with Neeson playing the reactor much of the time, not the instigator. As that builds, we get to see his whole world fall apart, until he gets the gumption to do something about it. Diane Kruger plays an illegal Bosnian immigrant who helps Martin try to figure out what has happened. While it's odd to see a German actress play a Bosnian immigrant IN GERMANY, Kruger does a decent job with the role. Like Neeson, she also plays an everyday person, like so many trying to get out of the rut in which they find themselves. January Jones is one of those actresses who seems so out of place in this era. She would have been a natural in the days of Marilyn Monroe, but in this era there's only one role she seems to play, the seemingly innocent and frustrated housewife. There are few actresses I would accuse of being merely a pretty face, but unless Jones shows some more variety in her acting talents, I really don't want to see her play anything other than Betty Draper. Aiden Quinn is great as the "impostor" Martin, with some of the film's better scenes involving the two Dr. Harris' dialogues. Sebastian Koch has a small and unimportant role, and is only notable for his earlier performance in the excellent Lives of Others. Frank Langella has an uninteresting role that is nonetheless important to the film's plot. Since being nominated for that Oscar, Langella has certainly enjoyed his career resurgence. It's a shame not all his roles he's carried since then are worth watching. The best of this cast (besides Neeson, of course) might be Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as a former Stasi agent who agrees to help Martin learn who he really is. Ganz's character Jurgen reflects on how the German people are so good at forgetting, citing their ignorance of Nazi rule and forty years of communism, and prides himself on never forgetting and being proud of his history, making him easily the film's most original and interesting role.

You REALLY don't want to know what they're seeing right now...

Unknown's story is almost completely unbelievable, lacking any restraint to bring the narrative down to a reasonable level. This at times results in the film being unintentionally funny. When Neeson and Quinn try to convince Dr. Bressler (Koch) that they alone are the real Martin Harris, they deliver the same lines at the same time and with the same tremors in their voices, resulting in roaring laughter from the audience in what is supposed to be a serious moment. I wouldn't be surprised if the scene had the same effect on the players during filming, either. The dark moods of the film also have the effect of making even small one liners much funnier than they actually are. Of course, then someone gets knocked off and you're back in first gear, but the sad thing is that these scenes aren't even the film at its silliest. Yes, the plot is THAT flimsy.

"It's okay, it's almost over"

It might be time to stop taking things from Liam Neeson. Seriously, I can only wonder what revenge he would seek upon those who switch his coffee for Folger's Crystals. Still, he's the one thing that made Unknown as enjoyable as it was, and good for #2 right now on the year's Top 10. Still, you know where this is headed. Every few years someone takes something special from Neeson, and he goes on a rampage trying to get it back. Eventually it has to stop. Don't get me wrong, I mostly enjoyed Unknown; I just think that after moonlighting the thriller genre for a few years, it's high time he went back to films that have the ability to use him at his full potential, not ones that use his many talents just getting closer to that glass ceiling. And no, I'm not talking about Star Wars.

The Ballad of Rich People

Oliver Stone is arguably well past his career peak. His films haven't received any major award nominations in over fifteen years. Many of his recent titles have barely made back the money spent in making them. W was the presidential film nobody who lived through Dubya's two terms really wanted to see. Alexander was on the same historical fiction plateau as Kingdom of Heaven that filmmakers wanted to create despite nobody filled audience chairs to see them. Any Given Sunday and World Trade Center were successful, but harbor no hopes of being remembered decades from now. No, Oliver Stone will be remembered not for his recent releases, but those released twenty years ago that we still talk about today: titles like JFK, Platoon, and Wall Street. Having not had ample opportunity to make it to the theaters this week (and with few exceptions any reason to go anyway), I dropped by the Redbox and grabbed the sequel to one of Stone's classics Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, taking the chance to catch a film I'd missed last year in the theaters. Though I've never seen the original, this seemed ample opportunity to catch up on the role that won Michael Douglas his Academy Award, and the trailer had been appealing enough to me that I was sure I didn't need to see the original to understand what was going on.

Didn't I see this the same street on Sex and the City?

WSMNS is a revenge tale set astride a backdrop of the current global recession. After eight years of imprisonment for insider trading and securities fraud, Gordon Gekko (Douglas) is released from prison in 2001. Fast forward seven years, and Gekko has become a best-selling author and celebrity lecturer, his face all over CNN and any major network that will have him. Meanwhile, Jake Moore (Shia LaBoeuf) is doing well as an investment banker with Keller Zabel (KZI), a major Wall Street bank. He may be relatively wealthy, but he has good influences in his life, like his girlfriend (and Gekko's estranged daughter) Winnie (Carrie Mulligan), a successful blogger and social activist. He is also raising money for his pet project, a green energy company. All in all, he's a good kid. That changes when  That changes overnight when KZI, which had apparently been just treading water, finally goes under. A bailout to get the company back on track fails thanks to rival banker (Josh Brolin) and with the company in ruins, Jake teams up with Gekko to try and strike back at the man who destroyed Jake's company.

In an attempt to make them more sympathetic, Stone put them on a train. Genius!

If it all seems overly simplistic, that's because I haven't explained everything. There's a LOT going on in the plot, mostly involving character development over moving the actual story forward. This is a positive turn, as far too often character development can be strewn along the wayside in making a concise story, easily followed by the audience. Unfortunately, the story itself is not as good as the characters portrayed, and while the backdrop especially is relevant to the issues we face today, the fact that this story is told from the perspective of which collar rich folk dulls the impact for the average viewer somewhat. Even the poorest characters in the film are a Blogger who racks up fifty times more hits daily than I've had for the entire run on my blog and an author whose media attention is more than that of Steven Levitt and Ben Mezrich COMBINED. Even though some of their causes are noble, not one character's motivation isn't to be wealthier than they currently are.

Brolin still has the occasional Jonah Hex flashback

The acting is pretty amazing here. Of course most of the attention (and rightfully so) has fallen on the shoulders of Douglas, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for his reprisal of the inimitable Gekko. Though it's been more than twenty years since he played this role, Douglas took to it like a second skin, adding bits of new to the comfortable layers of greed and manipulation that he's famous for. Most notable is his desire to reconnect with his daughter. LaBoeuf is surprisingly good as the story's protagonist, Jake. I say "surprisingly" even though he's been good in the few things I've actually seen him in. I guess it's more his choice of movies that puts me off, from Disturbia to Eagle Eye to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. These are NOT good movies, but LaBoeuf is a good performer, and as a good-hearted conniver who sees everything spiral out of control around him, It's easy to forget how privileged he is when you see how hard he works and his faith in good will. I didn't see An Education, so this was the first film I've seen Carrie Mulligan in, and she's also quite good. Torn between her social ethics, the man she loves and the father she can't forgive, she's probably the most sympathetic character in this tale. Brolin once again rides high on his late-career surge, this time as the film's main antagonist. While Brolin does a good job overall, his role is perhaps a tad oversimplified and while still a serious threat, not one you can't imagine being overcome. Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon appear in the film also, and though Langella's role is somewhat on the smallish side as Jake's boss and mentor, he does a good job early on setting the table for the rest of the film. Sadly, Sarandon is a cipher as Jake's real estate investor mother and hence cannot add a lot to the small role she has been assigned.

Obviously never told not to sit with his eyes that close to the screen

For what the original film represents, it's almost too bad this sequel wasn't better reviewed upon release. Then again, since the original existed in Stone's "golden age", it simply simply be that this new film is nowhere near the quality of the first. That wouldn't be surprising, especially given Stone's propensity for visual elements, such as the NYC skyline overlaid with a stock price chart. Stunts like that alone wouldn't be bad, but Stone seems to enjoy doing things like this a bit too much, since every time there's a break in the story, he fills the void with endless similar visual trickery as a bridge. At best, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a timely, relevant look at the market crash through the eyes of those directly involved, a great exercise in character development, and hosts at least good performances from all involved, and a great one from Michael Douglas. At its worst you have largely useless characters, meandering plot threads and unnecessary twists that make the finale predictable and anti-climactic. In the end, I liked this film, though I feel my appreciation for it would dwindle were I to revisit the original. Stone might no longer be at his peak, but if this is the standard fare he introduces these days, I certainly won't reject any future films of his out of hand.