Crimson Peak review

Guillermo del Toro’s “Crimson Peak” was released in October to attract an audience looking for some chills on their way out of the mall, and given that there are fewer and fewer scary-movie options, outside of the realms of direct-to-second-run shlock and/or “Paranormal Activity” clones, it’s nice to a see a large-budget, effects-driven period-horror that’s trying to compete in the mainstream. In fact, del Toro treats this project just as he would any of his other features, combining the gloss and bombast of his 2013 giant-robot spectacle “Pacific Rim” and the gothic elegance of his Spanish-language fantasy-thrillers” and “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Visually and conceptually “Crimson Peak” is a dense genre-hybrid that marries the traditional narrative structure of nineteenth century, Victorian romantic literature with a blockbuster update of a Hammer-Studio styled haunted house ride—it bares mentioning del Toro was once attached to direct a “Haunted Mansion” reboot for Disney. What results is an uneven and some-what rigid film that, while ambitious and handsome in terms of its production, is rather empty and tepid as a story.

Mia Wasikowska plays Edith, the daughter of a wealthy American industrialist. Though she wishes to one day be a successful writer, after meeting a fledgling British inventor named Thomas Sharpe played by Tom Hiddleston, and his disapproving sister played by Jessica Chastain, Edith decides, against her father’s wishes, to marry the struggling aristocrat and follow him to his decaying mansion in England. the newly-wed Edith begins to feel less and less welcomed by the creaking house as the months goes by, and her marriage begins to strain under the constant supervision of her overbearing sister in law.

To the movie’s detriment, the most interesting character here is the mansion itself. As the plot slogs from scene to scene it’s clear to see that this living, breathing set seems to be the only thing in the film that del Toro bothered to give any real dimension. The production of this multi-segmented mansion is fully realized and designed with many swirling arches, ornate moldings, and antique trinkets filling every consciously arranged shot. This decorative flair is then brought to life though many practical and CGI effects, including walls that bleed crimson clay and moving shadows that cast down long hallways. And yet, the production is so costumed and ornamental that it often overwhelms the performances and constipates the drama. 

Many of the special effects are unsupported by the weak and conventional script and thus left with a surprising lack of tension within the traditionally set-up sequences of horror. CGI ghosts are rarely scary and even less so when, by the end of the film, you realize their inclusion in the plot is mostly superfluous. This might also have to do with the overall tonal problems the film suffers by wanting to appeal to the masses as too many things at once, a Victorian costume drama, a gothic fairy-tale, and a perverse murder mystery—all of which are wrapped up in a slick, over-lit production that’s far more concerned with its surfaces than it is with its emotional or psychological connection with the audience.

Struggling to find a balance between chaste and polite and guarded and mysterious, Wasikowska and Hiddleston’s performances come off somewhat bland and stagey. The same or worse could be said about “Sons of Anarchy” actor Charlie Hunnam who conveniently drifts in and out of the movie as a plot device.  Chastain, on the hand, revels in her character’s complete lack of subtext and subtlety and instead leans into a knowing sense of camp as the film escalates into face-stabbing hysteria, mixing into her performance two parts Mrs. Danvers from Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” and one part “Mommy Dearest.”

Despite mostly failing as an involving story or as an effective thriller, nobody can fault the film for its lack of trying. Del Toro deserves to be commended for his creativity and his willingness to take risks, even when working from a script as predictable and tired as this one. His love for the genre is undeniably contagious and like a familiar theme-park adventure, there’s always something interesting to look at and admire as you pass through the plodding set-pieces.

Grade: C

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2015

Sicario review

There’s been a long tradition of southwest, boarder-town noirs that reach as far back as Anthony Mann’s 1949 film “Boarder Incident” and as recent as the Coen brother’s “No Country For Old Men,” as well as television’s “Breaking Bad.” Surprisingly, as worn as this genre may be, Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario” still manages to find new life underneath old tropes and effectively tightens the screws with tense, Hitchcockian set-ups.

Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a moral FBI agent who’s hired by a government special operations unit to take down a powerful cartel leader who’s responsible for a number of indiscriminate killings and mutilations. In hopes of doing the right thing to get to the worst evils of society, she realizes that the deeper she gets involved the less her convictions and her morals will help her with the job at hand.

From the opening sequence when we see Blunt and her fellow agents break into a remotely located drug-house, with gunmen behind every corner and dead-bodies shrink-wrapped behind the dry-wall, Villeneuve establishes a Dante-like hell that increasingly challenges our hero as she descends deeper into each circle of its depravity. Josh Brolin plays her duplicitous guide into this journey named Matt Graver, a man who smugly wears flip-flops to office meetings and hides his elusive motives behind a casual smile. Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro is an even tougher nut to crack, as he seems to be able to brutally operate outside of the strict confines of the law with complete immunity. Blunt serves as the audience’s surrogate but also as the movie’s moral center and its heart. To her credit, given the mechanical function of her character, she manages to breath in sync with the camera and effectively embodies Villeneuve’s tone of paranoia.

As with the director’s last film “Prisoners,” this feature was shot by the much-celebrated cinematographer Roger Deakins, and like his past work—including “No Country for Old Men”—every shot is precisely considered and milks each frame for ominous drama. Deakins’ artful approach to photography, along with the film’s doom-laden score by Jóhann Jóhannsson perfectly accents the movie’s many apocalyptic establishing shots and creates a malevolent sense of dread within the world these characters inhabit.

Luckily “Sicario” understands that aesthetics alone doesn’t make a movie without an assured story to tell and a confident director at the helm. Taylor Sheridan’s hard-boiled screenplay examines the war on drugs as a complicated parable with a “Chinatown” sense of pessimism. Villeneuve perfectly captures this with his nightmarish vision of violence as the last form of communication between the law and lawless.


This certainly isn’t a happy film and if you’re not inclined to watch a crime story that stares deep into the abyss without any tangible hope to keep from falling directly into it, then this might not be your ideal Saturday night. I, however, can’t recommend this movie highly enough. The performances across the board are fantastic—perhaps the best I’ve seen from all the leads in years—and it’s great to see a mainstream movie that’s isn’t satisfied with simply fulfilling its genre conventions.  Instead “Sicario” digs its familiar premise deeper for existential conflict and a darker tonal ambiance. 

Grade: A

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2015

Black Mass review

“Black Mass” is essentially a traditional rise and fall gangster drama within the aesthetic of the American gothic experience. Director Scott Cooper tries to subvert the film’s familiar trappings by setting in place a tension within the story where I we know the two main characters are damned to failure from the first scene.  Considering the clever set-up and the movie’s all-star cast, the fact that the story almost broods to a complete stop by the second act is as befuddling as it is a jaw-dropping disappointment.  

Johnny Depp plays James “Whitey” Bulger, the Boston crime-lord who inspired Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello character from Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar-winning film “The Departed.” And while Depp is every bit as unhinged and deranged here, the portrayal is decidedly less animated. Joel Edgerton plays opposite as John Connolly, a shady FBI agent who lets Bulger does as he pleases, so long as he continues to sell out the Italian Mafioso that’s moving in to the Boston streets. With his brother Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) in a position of local political power, Whitey is given a legal hall-pass by both the state and federal authorities to become one of the most powerful and dangerous east-coast gangsters of 70s and 80s.  Nevertheless, Bulger’s paranoia gets the best of him and both his criminal brethren and the cooperating agents of the FBI are in constant fear of triggering his scorn.

Cooper’s vision of this story is interested in investigating the interiority of the characters and exploring how they click within their world of broken rules and the hypocrisy of their familial street-code. This means on a genre-level things tend to skew more towards “The Godfather” side of the gangster spectrum than it does “Goodfellas.” Given this approach, there are far too many story and production choices that orient things toward the broad surfaces. The all-star ensemble and the constant walk-ons by known character-actors like Corey Stoll, Adam Scott, Rory Cochrane, Peter Sarsgaard and Juno Temple spread the story too thin to effectively delve into the tense relationship between Depp and Edgerton as the leads. With a timeline that spans decades and multiple character perspectives to shift to and from, the movie never becomes the deep character study it thinks it is.

Despite this structural flaw, Depp’s performance is nuanced and appropriately pitched to the tone of the film, and in many sequences he is quite engaging without defaulting to his usual post-Pirates affections, but his Dracula-esq make-up design becomes so distracting that it often blocks whatever subtly there is to appreciate in his delivery.  Off and on the rest of the cast have their moments to shine and individual scenes of conversation work well on their own when Cooper is afforded to do what he does best - zeroing in on performance and dialogue. When it comes to the overall big-picture and the execution of the screenplay, the movie unfortunately fails to drum up enough drama to fuel the narrative.

Emotionally “Black Mass” doesn’t work like it should, but the movie isn’t a total wash either. It was nice to see Depp given something juicy to bite into as an actor and to play to his actual age, but Cooper seems out of step with many elements of the film as a director and often conflicts with the base genre elements of the story.

Grade: C-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2015