Review: Trouble with the Curve (2012)

* * *Director: Robert Lorenz
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake

When a film is described as a "feel good movie," that's usually shorthand for a blandly entertaining piece of work that goes so far out of its way to be inoffensive and unchallenging that it is consumed and then instantly forgotten. This isn't necessarily fair, which is why I'm loath to use the term to describe Trouble with the Curve, even though I can't think of a term that's more appropriate. The film, the debut feature of Clint Eastwood's long time Assistant Director Robert Lorenz, is certainly far from a masterpiece, but it's the kind of solidly crafted, smoothly moving film that doesn't often get its due these days. It may not aim very high, but it hits every target it aims for, and does so in a charming and effective way.

Review: J. Edgar (2011)

* * 1/2
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench

Stately and handsomely mounted but ultimately a bit empty, Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar is less a story than a survey course on a segment of American history (and enduring political gossip). It is stacked with fine performances - led by Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover - but performances alone can only get you so far when the film itself succumbs to the worst habits of the biopic genre.

The Best Picture Countdown #77: Million Dollar Baby (2004)

This post was contributed by CS who writes the blog Big Thoughts From A Small Mind. Get over there and check it out!

Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman

Directed by Clint Eastwood, and written by Paul Haggis, Million Dollar Baby is a tale of a waitress, Maggie (Hilary Swank), who decides to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional boxer at age 31. In order to fulfil her dream, Maggie knows she needs a trainer so she turns to former trainer, and current gym owner, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood). Frankie was one of the best trainers in his time, but now spends most of his time filled with regret about how things turned out between him and his estranged daughter. Frankie’s only friend is Scrap (Morgan Freeman), a former boxer who fell on hard times and is now working as a janitor in Frankie’s gym. With the assistance of Scrap, Maggie eventually gets Frankie to break his “I don’t train girls” policy and become her trainer. As the unlikely pair start to make their way around the boxing circuit, Maggie’s star begins to rise. This forces the normally overcautious Frankie, to take a risk and get Maggie that a shot against Billie “The Blue Bear”(Lucia Riker). Billie is one of the dirtiest fighters on the circuit and will do anything to protect her title. With momentum in their favour, Frankie and Maggie know that this fight could possibly change their lives.

It has been five years since I last watched my DVD copy of Million Dollar Baby. I was both excited and a little hesitant to revisit it as sometimes our memories of the experience are greater than the film themselves. One element that was prominent this time around was how annoying Freeman’s constant narration is. Rarely do scenes play out on their own without the narrator chiming in to express the significance of the moment. It is almost as if Haggis and Eastwood are afraid to let the dialogue and images speak for themselves. This inadvertently results in the film underestimating the overall intelligence of its audience. While the last few scenes are designed to show the importance of Freeman’s narration, it is hard to believe that the person the narrator is actually speaking to would be interested in the side story at the gym involving Danger Bach (Jay Baruchel), Shawrelle Berry (Antony Mackie), and Omar (Michael Pena). While I think their side story, and the one involving Maggie’s family, are needed in the film; they would have the same impact without the assistance of the narrator.

My issues with the narrator aside, I found myself still falling for the film despite knowing what was going to happen. Million Dollar Baby is in reality two films in one. The first half is a rags-to-riches style boxing tale in which a self-proclaimed white trash girl and her crotchety trainer learn defy the odds. Like many other odd couple films, they have their ups and downs on the way to gaining mutual respect for one another. The second half is where the true heart of the film is. It is here where the film moves from a simple boxing film to a tale about morality, and family. The film looks at issues regarding euthanasia, atoning for past sins, and spirituality. It is hard to think of Million Dollar Baby without immediately focusing on the latter part of the film.

Clint Eastwood does a good job of juggling both the heavier moments with the comedic ones. He never ventures into the realm of slapstick despite coming close on a few occasions with the character Danger. The boxing scenes are well done and they never feel false. I liked how Eastwood slowly gives Maggie a cocky swagger as her wins increase. This offers a nice build up to her match with the menacing beast that is Billie. Overall Eastwood’s direction is sound and I would argue far better than his performance in the film. This is not to say that Eastwood is bad, in fact he is quite good, but after seeing his grumpy old man act in Gran Torino, it does not have the same humorous effect in Million Dollar Baby as it did when I first saw the film. Hilary Swank is brilliant in the film and well deserving of her Academy Award win for Best Actress. Swank shows both Maggie’s tough side and her fragile side, she has the audience laughing one minute and crying the next. While Maggie and Frankie are supposed to be the odd couple of the film, it is actually Frankie and Scrap who perfect this. Eastwood and Freeman carry over the great chemistry they had in Unforgiven into this film. Freeman is especially good as the man who, though blind in one eye, can see what is truly occurring far better than anyone else in the film.

Although six years has passed since its original release, Million Dollar Baby is aging very well. With the exception of the narration, the story still delivers an emotionally charged tale. The performances from the ensemble cast are great and the mixture of drama and humour help this film to retain its high re-watch value.

The Best Picture Countdown #65: Unforgiven (1992)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman

“I ain’t like that no more,” Bill Munny insists, though every turn takes him closer and closer to that man he used to be. Unforgiven is, indeed, an unforgiving film, dark and brutal, unromanticized and demystifying. It tells the story of a man who was once bad but has since tried to be good, of women fighting against their status as property, and of the “Wild West” making its final transition from reality to legend.

In a small outpost a man attacks a prostitute, cutting her face up to bits. The law in town is unofficial but absolute, headed up by Little Bill (Gene Hackman), who rules with an iron fist. The prostitutes, led by Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), want the attacker and his friend hanged, but their wishes aren't exactly taken into consideration. When the brothel's owner suggests that he’s willing to settle for monetary reimbursement, Bill tells the men that they can walk away without so much as a whipping provided that they give the brothel owner six horses. Strawberry Alice is furious. “We may be whores, but we ain’t horses,” she says before proceeding to rally the other women to pool their money and hire a bounty hunter to exact revenge on the two men.

A young gunslinger who calls himself the Schofield Kid (Jamiz Woolvett) gets word of the bounty and goes out in search of Munny, hoping to form a partnership. The Munny he finds, however, is not the man of legend, but a widower living with his two children on a pig farm. He declines the offer, insisting that he’s out of the outlaw life, the love of his late wife having changed him and set him on the right path. After the Kid leaves, however, Munny begins to think it over and decides that the promise of money is too strong to keep him away. He seeks out his former partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman) and they set off after the Kid, whom they quickly realize isn’t quite as adept a gunslinger as he’d like to suggest – but, of course, Munny himself isn’t so adept anymore either. Before setting off, he practices his shooting, setting up a tin can on a post and missing every time until he swaps in a shotgun that couldn’t possibly miss. His first attempt at riding a horse after so many years is similarly pathetic and for a while it seems as if the film will be more comedy than drama. That all changes as soon as they arrive at the outpost and Munny has his first run-in with Little Bill, who beats him and tells him to get out of town.

Earlier in the film Little Bill had done the same to English Bob (Richard Harris) and, in beating and exiling him, inherited his biographer (Saul Rubinek), who dutifully records all his thoughts and stories and actions for posterity. The biographer character is, in certain respects, the film’s comic relief but he’s also an integral part to the larger story because he’s symbolic of the change that’s taking place as the West becomes civilized and the people within it become mythologized. The film is bookended by a prologue and an epilogue which suggests this storytelling element and implies that everything in between is just another exaggerated tale woven by writers who want to sell books. The screenplay is very strong, weaving together ideas about mythology, criticism of celebrity-making culture, and a dash of hard nosed feminism (though, interestingly, it hardly touches on racism), while also creating finely etched characters who exist simultaneously as two people: the larger than life character and the real person living in its shadow.

I've always been pretty indifferent to Eastwood as a director. As a craftsman I’ve always found him solid but not extraordinary, though I think he consistently draws good performances out of his actors. With Unforgiven I finally see Eastwood’s directorial greatness, his skill at setting the tone and, in particular, his eye for composition. My favourite sequence of shots comes at the end, when Munny is riding out of town in the rain, a bad man once again, issuing warnings to everyone in his vicinity. There’s a shot of Strawberry Alice holding a light as she and others watch him ride away, back into the folklore from which he came. It’s a great and evocative sequence and makes for a fantastic ending.

Invictus (2009)

* * *
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon

Clint Eastwood’s Invictus is a very important movie. You can tell because it announces itself as such at every turn. It’s the kind of film that makes for an excellent trailer but in its long form sinks under the weightiness of its own material. It's not a bad movie but it doesn't really measure up to its own pretenses.

Starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Invictus follows the first year of his career as President of South Africa. With apartheid still an all too recent memory and the makeup of South Africa society in flux, tensions between black and white South Africans is particularly high. In his own words, Mandela must find a way to balance "black aspirations with white fears" and create one unified nation. With the country set to host the World Rugby Cup the following year, Mandela sets about using South Africa's rugby team, the Springboks, to bring the people of the nation together in the pursuit of a common goal. This is no easy feat as black South Africans are accustomed to rooting for anyone but the Springboks, whose existence is one of many reminders of the old, oppressive system.

Mandela enlists the help of Springboks' Captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to make the team more accessible to those who aren't currently fans. Though he faces a lot of resistance from his teammates, who feel that they have enough work to do just to get to the championship and don't have the time or energy to devote to reaching out to the community, Pienaar displays the same persistance as Mandela and is able to successfully push his agenda. Though the Springboks have been underperforming and few people think they have a legitimate shot at the finals, the team exceeds expectations to face off against New Zealand for the cup.

The big draw for this film is Freeman as Mandela, a role he seems to have been born to play. It's a good performance and the story of a black politician trying to lead a country that has experienced centries of conflict and tension between blacks and whites is, of course, topical. That being said, however, Mandela emerges as one of the least interesting characters, in part because he's portrayed as being so saintly. There is a cursory attempt to display Mandela as perhaps less than perfect in a few scenes which show or comment on his fractured family relationships, but all in all the only thing that keeps Mandela from being a cardboard good guy is Freeman's performance. Similarly, the only thing that breathes any life into Pienaar is Damon's performance. Neither character is really allowed to have much in the way of dimension.

More interesting to me, particularly in light of what the film wants to achieve, is the subplot involving Mandela's security team. The team is made up of both ANC activists and the Afrikaner cops who once would have made their lives hell. The two factions distrust each other and there is a lot of simmering tension between them, but because Mandela is determined to work with members of the old order to create a new and more just system, they have to find a way to work together. The subplot unfolds gradually and is used as a means of demonstrating the relieving of tensions within the rest of the nation, and it works because the film doesn't approach it with a heavy hand. I actually think the subplot is the strongest part of the story, whereas the sports aspect is the weakest.

The story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup is, of course, based on real events but that doesn't make the film less predictable. Much of it unfolds according to the dictates of sports film conventions and the action on the field is put together in a way that seems muddled. If you go into this not knowing much about rugby, you're unlikely to come away from it with a better understanding of the game. It's a disappointing aspect of the film given how skilled Eastwood is as a director, but overall Invictus is a perfectly decent film. It's not groundbreaking in any way, but it's worth a look.

Countdown To Oscar: Unforgiven

* * * *
Best Picture, 1992
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman

“I ain’t like that no more,” Bill Munny insists, though every turn takes him closer and closer to that man he used to be. Unforgiven is, indeed, an unforgiving film, dark and brutal, unromanticized and demystifying. It tells the story of a man who was once bad but has since tried to be good, of women fighting against their status as property, and of the “Wild West” making its final transition from reality to legend.

In a small outpost a man attacks a prostitute, cutting her face up to bits. The law in town is unofficial but absolute, headed up by Little Bill (Gene Hackman), who rules with an iron fist. The prostitutes, led by Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), want the attacker and his friend hanged, but their wishes aren't exactly taken into consideration. When the brothel's owner suggests that he’s willing to settle for monetary reimbursement, Bill tells the men that they can walk away without so much as a whipping provided that they give the brothel owner six horses. Strawberry Alice is furious. “We may be whores, but we ain’t horses,” she says before proceeding to rally the other women to pool their money and hire a bounty hunter to exact revenge on the two men.

A young gunslinger who calls himself the Schofield Kid (Jamiz Woolvett) gets word of the bounty and goes out in search of Munny, hoping to form a partnership. The Munny he finds, however, is not the man of legend, but a widower living with his two children on a pig farm. He declines the offer, insisting that he’s out of the outlaw life, the love of his late wife having changed him and set him on the right path. After the Kid leaves, however, Munny begins to think it over and decides that the promise of money is too strong to keep him away. He seeks out his former partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman) and they set off after the Kid, whom they quickly realize isn’t quite as adept a gunslinger as he’d like to suggest – but, of course, Munny himself isn’t so adept anymore either. Before setting off, he practices his shooting, setting up a tin can on a post and missing every time until he swaps in a shotgun that couldn’t possibly miss. His first attempt at riding a horse after so many years is similarly pathetic and for a while it seems as if the film will be more comedy than drama. That all changes as soon as they arrive at the outpost and Munny has his first run-in with Little Bill, who beats him and tells him to get out of town.

Earlier in the film Little Bill had done the same to English Bob (Richard Harris) and, in beating and exiling him, inherited his biographer (Saul Rubinek), who dutifully records all his thoughts and stories and actions for posterity. The biographer character is, in certain respects, the film’s comic relief but he’s also an integral part to the larger story because he’s symbolic of the change that’s taking place as the West becomes civilized and the people within it become mythologized. The film is bookmarked by a prologue and an epilogue which suggests this storytelling element and implies that everything in between is just another exaggerated tale woven by writers who want to sell books. The screenplay is very strong, weaving together ideas about mythology, criticism of celebrity-making culture, and a dash of hardnosed feminism (though, interestingly, it hardly touches on racism), while also creating finely etched characters who exist simultaneously as two people: the larger than life character and the real person living in its shadow.

I've always been pretty indifferent to Eastwood as a director. As a craftsman I’ve always found him solid but not extraordinary, though I think he consistently draws good performances out of his actors. With Unforgiven I finally see Eastwood’s directorial greatness, his skill at setting the tone and, in particular, his eye for composition. My favourite sequence of shots comes at the end, when Munny is riding out of town in the rain, a bad man once again, issuing warnings to everyone in his vicinity. There’s a shot of Strawberry Alice holding a light as she and others watch him ride away, back into the folklore from which he came. It’s a great and evocative sequence and makes for a fantastic ending.

Review: Changeling (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich

Changeling is an effective drama from director Clint Eastwood and, like much of his work, it is a very dark film with a resolution that rests heavily on the heart. This tale of massive police corruption is, chillingly, based on a true story and one with which the filmmakers have taken relatively few liberties. At the centre of the storm is Angelina Jolie who renders a performance that mostly works but occasionally falters.

The film begins with Christine Collins (Jolie), a single mother with a 9-year-old son named Walter, whom she adores. In March of 1928 Walter disappears and for five months Christine waits on pins and needles, praying for his return and doing her own legwork, calling around to surrounding police precincts to find out if any children have turned up who match Walter’s description. When police finally locate the boy, the reunion is not a happy one. “That’s not my son,” she tells Capt. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who replies that she’s just in shock and ought to take the boy home and “try him out” for a few weeks. But the more time Christine spends with him, the more obvious it becomes that he isn’t Walter. He’s three inches shorter for one thing, circumcised for another. But the police have people on hand who can explain these things away and they begin planting stories in the paper to discredit Christine and make it seem as if she’s trying to rid herself of her son, whose absence gave her the opportunity to lead a party lifestyle.

At first Christine is just a minor irritation, but when she joins forces with Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a preacher with a radio show who has made it his goal in life to expose the corruption of the Los Angeles police department, drastic measures must be taken. Capt. Jones arranges for Christine to be committed to a mental hospital, where she meets other women who have found themselves on the losing end of a battle with the LAPD. Meanwhile, another investigation is taking place in which several missing boys are identified as the victims of a serial murderer, one of those boys being Walter Collins. This development makes things sticky for Capt. Jones, as well as the Chief of Police (played by the always welcome Colm Feore) and the Mayor, both of whom want the story to disappear as quickly as possible to avoid further embarrassment and public outrage. Christine, however, is unwilling to let it go and is unconvinced that Walter is really dead.

All told, I found Jolie’s performance a little uneven. She’s very good in the film’s many quiet scenes but there are a couple of moments when she degenerates to hysterics and the performance starts to feel overly stylized. Furthermore, I didn’t really feel like she fit the role. As played by Jolie, Christine seems a little too... glamorous, even in the asylum scenes (I couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact that when she’s admitted she’s is given a bath with a firehouse, Christine’s eye makeup somehow remains intact). When Amy Ryan shows up about half-way through the film, I started to think that she would have been a better choice for the lead role, possessing as she does the “average Jane” quality that Jolie lacks.

The film itself has a few problems as well. While I found it quite effective overall, I do think that the story ends up running itself into the ground. A great deal of tension is built up during the film’s first two or so hours, but during the last half hour the story seems to wind itself out, as if it doesn’t quite know where to end. The result is a film that looks beautiful (the costumes and cinematography are especially noteworthy) but bleeds itself dry of intensity.