The Purge: Anarchy review

               It’s difficult to enjoy a genre movie about government-sanctioned annual murder sprees when every three weeks or so our news is treated to another mass shooting or a real-life tragedy, but horror films and thrillers have occasionally been able to make poetic sense from of a senseless time.  In this regard, writer/director James DeMonaco’s  “The Purge: Anarchy”  at least tries to contextualize his brand of schlock alongside easy metaphors and well-worn, occupy-era allegory.

                While last summer’s surprise horror-hit “The Purge” only hinted at its dystopian sci-fi conceits, settling closer within the intimate, home-invader sub-genre, this sequel opens up DeMonaco’s futuristic setting. Rather than being locked into one location, we travel through the murderous streets, following a handful of frightened survivors as they look for temporary refuge from the bloody holiday. Pair number one consists of an inner-city mother and teenage daughter (Eva Sanchez and Zoe Soul) whose apartment door is kicked in by their sexually frustrated slumlord. After barely escaping his attack, they run into pair number two, a young disgruntled couple (Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez) whose car dies in the wrong side of town just before a city-wide alarm sets off the lawless free-for-all. The only thing keeping these four alive is a stoic police Sergeant (Frank Grillo) who’s on a path of vengeance, as he stalks the roads in his armored car.

                It’s clear that DeMonaco grew up on movies like John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York” and Walter Hill’s “The Warriors” and tries to bring the same sense of unflinching bleakness alongside a broad satire of our current social landscape. But like other throwbacky horror directors such as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie, DeMonaco’s films live and die within the borders of their pastiche. As a fan, he can come up with an exploitation premise that sounds great as a one paragraph synopsis on the back of a DVD. As a director, he seems to struggle when it comes to telling an engaging story with characters you might care about.

                Neither Purge is particular memorable or entertaining, given their anarchic concepts, and unlike the Carpenter film’s they endlessly reference, their dower tone makes it uncomfortable to revel in the mindless popcorn violence. Likewise, the ripped-from-the-headlines soapboxing about class wars and wealth disparity lacks the depth or insight for the film to really work as a think-piece. Instead, we are treated to a competent TV-level cast wandering around an aimless plot as they jump from one scenario to another—some of which are mildly rousing, most of which are poorly staged and severely devoid of the necessary filmic discipline to garner adequate thrills.

                At best, “The Purge:  Anarchy” is a fanboy wish fulfillment that will make you nostalgic for Regan-era paranoia, at worst, it’s a philosophically muddy piece of trash-cinema that juxtaposes awkwardly and flippantly against the kinds of real-world terror and random acts of violence reported nightly on CNN. Perhaps only time and distance can illuminate the appropriate perspective to really understand what these movies are trying to say and what they might be doing effectively. Regardless, in a contextual vacuum, they tease more than they satisfy.

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review

                Nobody thought that 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” would actually be pretty darn good. Despite a notable lack of charisma from its human performers and an unrefined tonal execution by director Rupert Wyatt, the movie’s central story about a super-smart chimp named Caesar losing faith in his human masters and rising to become an ape revolutionary, was surprisingly nuanced and engaging in a way that its pulpy source material didn’t initially suggest. Though light on the social satire originally in the forefront of the classic Apes series, ‘Rise’ was a delicate character study that argued for the artistic validity of animated motion capture performances, giving actor Andy Sirkis the opportunity to turn in a mo-cap tour-de-force.

                This summer’s sequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, directed by J.J. Abrams protégé Matt Reeves, chronicles Caesar’s tumultuous reign as the leader of the ape rebellion. After the world’s human population has been devastated by a virus sprung from the same concoction that gave the primates their intelligence, a small group of survivors trek into the woods to activate a local dam, hoping to restore power to their near-vacant city. On the way, the group stumbles upon an ape village, accidentally inciting a diplomatic scuffle when a clumsy human nervously shoots one of their guards. Luckily for them, group leader Malcolm (played by “Zero Dark Thirty” actor Jason Clarke) is able to calm the storm long enough to allow the excavators to enter the ape’s territory while they work on the broken dam.

                Caesar’s lingering hope for human civility allows for him to carry out the hesitant truce, particularly as his ape queen becomes ill after childbirth and Malcolm’s partner Ellie (Kerry Russell) has the medical background to aid in her recovery.  However, Caesar’s war general, a spiteful chimp named Koba, still psychologically and physically scared by human experimentation, reveals less trust in the union and begins to enact a counter agenda of his own.

                Like the previous film, the strength of this feature is in its deep-digging character work.  Though some of the apes are able to string together words to create broken sentences, the majority of their actions and emotions are expressed physically through detailed computer animation. Said animation and other special effects have been significantly improved since the last installment, and the motion capture body-work by Andy Sirkis and other members of the ape-cast are especially fluid and believable.

                The action is ramped for genre-fulfilling summer movie thrills but it is the quiet moments between the storms that keep the audience invested in the plight of both sides of the futuristic cold-war. In our current socio-political climate it’s difficult to not draw parallels to America’s divided views on gun violence, as well as global tensions between hostile nations and their ever- intensifying saber-rattling. Of course the Apes series has always aimed to discuss these sorts of ideas and Reeves’ sensitive direction allows for intellectual discourse, just under the surface of the blockbuster’s bombast.

                While some of the characters are noticeably underwritten—particularly Kerry Russell, Gary Oldman as a trigger-happy Donald Rumsfeld type,  and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jason Clarke’s teenage son—the emotional foundation of this story is solid enough to keep you glued to every interaction on the screen, particularly by the titular simians. Those grievances aside, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is a substantial achievement that raises the bar for genre filmmaking in 2014 by being intimate, epic and distinctly human at the same time.

Grade: A-

  

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014

Jersey Boys review

                Both as an actor and as a filmmaker, director Clint Eastwood has become synonymous with working class, blue collar American romanticism. His best movies are no-nonsense genre staples that give actors enough room to breathe and explore their characters, in stories that vibrate in the margins between Speilbergian optimism and the darker shades of the types of 70s films in which he once stared.  It’s a tricky balance to strike every time and as he grows older, struggling to differentiate a chair from a responsive human being, he also seems to have a harder time distinguishing the good cinematic ideas from the bad.

                In his most recent offering, “Jersey Boys”, based on a Tony award winning Broadway production, Eastwood curiously tries to ape Scorsese’s greatest hits, as he portrays the popular soda-shop pop-rock band Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons as self-made wise guys, struggling to keep their egos in check long enough to make the money and get the respect they never had growing up on the streets. And in attempting to bridge the tone of a Broadway musical with the grit of something like a “Mean Streets” or “Goodfellas”, the movie never finds a comfortable identity of its own. Instead, the whole thing wobbles around like a confused drunk prostitute, trying on styles she can’t afford in stores she doesn’t belong in.

                With that said, Clint likes his actors and his movies always accommodate their needs and talents, and even here newcomers like John Lloyd Young, as the passive Frankie Valli, fills the role with earnest desire and interior complexity while his character is passed around and forced into crime and/or fame by his frienemy Tommy DeVito, played by “Boardwalk Empire” actor Vincent Piazza. Piazza channels a youthful De Niro as the selfish but charismatic guitar player and lights up every scene he’s in with familiar, yet effortless energy.  Other characters, such as Christopher Walken as the mobster kingpin Gyp DeCarlo and Mike Doyle as the band’s flamboyant producer Bob Crewe, keep things light, even as the messy screenplay attaches more and more narrative weight.

                Unfortunately, performances alone couldn’t save this movie from its inherent problems. The plot skims the specifics of the band’s rock and roll history during the 50s and 60, instead focusing on the “Behind the Music” gossip of interpersonal tensions, affairs and legal scuffles, before eventually downing in 20 unearned minutes of drama between a washed up Vali and his teenage daughter that we never got to know as a character up to that point. Stylistically, Eastwood oscillates between stagey camera set pieces and blocking that resembles edited close ups on the proscenium and distractingly unoriginal tracking shots where the characters break the fourth wall by addressing the camera directly.

                The one thing that could have saved this Broadway adaptation--the music-- is far too understated and sometimes just avoided to make room for the multi-stranded plot and the shifts in character perspective. When we finally do get barely contextualized performances of Four Seasons’ standards such as Sherry and Big Girls Don’t Cry, it only underlines the movie’s missed opportunity. There’s no lack of ambition in “Jersey Boys” but it what it does lack is the discipline and finesse required to keep a biopic of this scope from tripping allover itself.

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014