Review: The Martian (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor

If you can say nothing else for it, you have to at least give Ridley Scott's The Martian props for not being afraid to go big. It's a movie that properly earns the distinction as a "spectacle," being an epic and visually stunning science fiction tale, but it's also a thematically big picture, one that seeks to portray and affirm the triumph of human ingenuity and determination, and of the human spirit. It's a feel good movie that's exhilarating rather than mushy, a science fiction story that's more about awe than terror, and a character piece that offers a wonderful showcase for the talents of Matt Damon. To my mind, this is the movie that last year's Interstellar wanted to be but wasn't.

Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

* * *
Director: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Cate Blanchett

Had The Monuments Men been released in December as planned I probably would have found myself massively disappointed by it, as the annual year end glut of great and would-be great movies tends to set expectations fairly high. But with the film pushed out of the prestige period and into the cinematic no-man's land that is February, accompanied by reviews that can best be described as "tepid," my expectations were naturally and appropriately lowered, and as a result I found the film rather enjoyable. That's not to say that it's without its flaws - they're there and they're fairly prominent - but I think that The Monuments Men is better than its reputation suggests.

Review: Contagion (2011)

* * *
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion is a frightening film - not because of the virus that sweeps across the planet, seemingly unstoppable, but because of how it portrays society as little more than a thin veneer easily dismantled in a few quick steps. The almost apocalyptic vision of chaos and destruction that ensues when desperation and greed set in as a population becomes increasingly distrustful of the government's ability and desire to help them, is thought-provoking and skillfully rendered. While the film as a whole is not quite as strong as this particular element, it is ultimately an effective thriller, well-crafted and excellently acted by a cast packed with great actors.

Review: We Bought A Zoo (2011)

* * 1/2
Director: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson

"All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage." If ever a single movie line summed up the ethos of its filmmaker, it's that one with respect to writer/director Cameron Crowe. In a realm of dreamers (which film, by its nature, is), his protagonists are the most relentlessly optimistic. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't; often the results are a little bit mixed. But, hey, the soundtrack is always good.

Review: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

* * * 1/2
Director: George Nolfi
Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt

Someone in Hollywood should probably build a statue in honor of Philip K. Dick because I'm hard pressed to think of any other writer who has provided filmmakers with as much material (except, possibly, Shakespeare). Like many adaptations of Dick's work, George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau is only loosely based on the original but it is still defined by that unmistakable sense of paranoia that pervades much of the author's work.

The Best Picture Countdown #79: The Departed (2006)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin

The Departed is the film that finally (finally!) won Martin Scorsese his long overdue Oscar for Best Director. Despite this, the film sometimes gets mentioned as one of his “lesser” projects – an attitude that I find ludicrous. The level of craft on display in this film belies the notion that this is anything less than a masterwork and to my mind The Departed deserves to be considered alongside Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas as one of Scorsese’s very best. To me, this film was a return to form for the director, whose previous two efforts (Gangs of New York and The Aviator) were bloated just a bit by too much self-indulgence. It is also one of the few films of which I can honestly say that the remake is better than the original.

The Departed begins with Jack Nicholson as mobster Frank Costello and if the opening doesn't remind you of Goodfellas then... you've never seen Goodfellas. However, while Goodfellas begins with the still star-struck narration of the protégée, The Departed begins with the weary narration of the mentor. Frank will take Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) under his wing, grooming him to enter the police force and become his spy. Sullivan thrives, rising quickly through the ranks and passing on information to Frank so that he can stay one step ahead of the authorities.

While Colin is a bad guy pretending to be good, there's also a good guy pretending to be bad: Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is rising in a different fashion as a cop tapped to infiltrate the mob. Years pass as this cat-and-mouse game is played with Costigan supplying information to Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) and Sullivan keeping Costello apprised. Both organizations are aware that there's a leak and both Costigan and Sullivan are on edge, under constant threat that the delicate balance of their lives will tip and leave them exposed and in danger. The plot itself is quite delicate insofar as any element revealed too soon would destroy the tension that's been building, but writer William Monahan manages to maintain the balance, keeping the plot from toppling over on itself and also keeping it from growing too heavy. This is a film with a complex plot and a two and a half hour running time, but it clips along at a great pace and that's as much a credit to Monahan as to director Martin Scorsese or editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

DiCaprio and Damon carry the weight of the film and both are able to convey the desperation both men feel. These two characters are in a sense rudderless, their identities so flexible that even they don't always know who they are, but neither actor ever seems lost behind their masks. The performance by DiCaprio is especially moving as Costigan's knowledge that not only is his false identity under constant threat of exposure but that if something were to happen to Queenan and Dignam, he could lose his "real" identity as well, takes a heavy toll on him both physically and mentally. It's a performance which displays a great deal of vulnerability, which you don't often see or expect in this type of movie.

There are many other reasons to see this movie, from the inter-play between Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin (Wahlberg and anyone, actually), to the performance by Nicholson, to the almost comical way that cops keep turning out to be criminals and criminals keep turning out to be cops. It's a great movie, a genre film in the best sense: one that embraces the conventions of the genre but rises above the cliches.

Review: True Grit (2010)

* * * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon

True grit. They say that's what Rooster Cogburn's got and that's why Mattie Ross wants to hire him. Not that she really needs him, since she's got grit enough for two. I went into True Grit (not having read the book or seen the John Wayne version) thinking it would be all about Cogburn and was pleasantly surprised to find that it has a lot more to do Mattie herself, a spirited and thoroughly engaging heroine. A lot of great characters graced the big screen in 2010 and Mattie is definitely one of my favourites (and reminds me quite a bit of another 2010 favourite, Winter's Bone's Ree Dolly).

True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), who is determined to bring the man who murdered her father to justice. The man she's after is Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and the man she hires to track him down is Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a US Marshal. Cogburn is reluctant to take the assignment, especially once he learns that Mattie intends to accompany him, but ultimately agrees (though he does attempt to leave her behind). The two are joined by Taxas Ranger LeBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is after Chaney for the murder of senator, but it's an uneasy partnership in all respects. Cogburn and LeBoeuf don't get along and both assume that Mattie will be more of a nuissance than a help. Eventually LeBoeuf splits, but since he's still intent on finding Chaney (and getting a handsome reward for bringing him back to Texas), the three will cross paths again later.

Cogburn and Mattie proceed further into Choctaw territory without the Ranger, eventually coming to an isolated shack where they find a pair of outlaws who have information on Chaney, specifically that he's fallen in with "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper). Shortly after this revelation, both the outlaws end up dead (one stabs the other, prompting Cogburn to shoot him) and Cogburn and Mattie lay in wait for Pepper to return. Unfortunately, LeBoeuf shows up first and almost ends up dead after entering into an ill-advised stand off with the gang. Cogburn comes to his rescue but Pepper and Chaney get away and soon the still unstable alliance between Cogburn, Mattie and LeBoeuf disintegrates. Things just get worse from there as Mattie falls into Chaney's hands, making it necessary for the frequently drunk Cogburn to pull it together enough to get her back to safety.

I had pretty high hopes for True Grit simply because of the Coens and the cast they'd assembled and, I have to say, this film totally exceeded my expectations. In many ways it's very unlike the Coens' other outings (which leads me to believe that it's a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel) and yet it still retains that certain Coen charm. This is a very lovingly rendered film and gorgeously photographed by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins. It's hard to believe that despite several nominations Deakins has never won a Oscar, but maybe this is his year. That opening shot of snow falling on the body of Mattie's father, the scene illuminated by the light from an open door, is particularly, achingly beautiful and so are the series of shots that make up Cogburn's desperate attempt to save Mattie's life. The setting may be the rough and tumble wild west, but True Grit is definitely one of the prettiest looking movies of the season.

The acting, of course, is also stellar. Bridges is pitch perfect as Cogburn, his surliness a nice balance to Steinfeld's pluckiness, and Damon makes for a nice third to round out the core group as the loquacious and too earnest by half LeBoeuf. Brolin's role is fairly small but his performance is memorable as the outlaw who turns out to be more goofy than terrifying (early in the film LeBoeuf insists that Chaney is a wiley one, prompting Mattie to declare that she always found him rather dumb. Gotta give it to Mattie on this one). However, the film well and truly belongs to Steinfeld, who demonstrates a skill well beyond her years. Her performance is absolutely delightful (I especially enjoyed Mattie's naive but frequent belief that outlaws can be swayed by her promise help them get good legal advice) and makes Mattie a force to be reckoned with. True grit? She's got it.

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Review: Green Zone (2010)

* * *
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon

Since its theatrical release a few months ago, I've heard Green Zone characterized as both anti-American and as pro-American propaganda. Truth be told, while the film's premise is rooted in important questions about U.S. foreign policy, the political takes a backseat to more standard genre preoccupations. Honestly, you might as well just call it "Bourne Goes To Iraq."

Loosely based on the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the film follows Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon), who is tasked with finding WMDs. The situation on the ground is total chaos as Miller and his team show up to investigate a possible WMD site and have to contend not only with insurgents firing at them, but also with people looting the site. There just aren't enough troops to secure the area and when Miller and his team finally get inside, they find nothing. Given that this has happened multiple times before, a frustrated Miller begins questioning the intelligence that they've been given, which gains him no friends in the army, but gets him an ally in the form of Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), the CIA's Baghdad bureau chief.

Together, Brown and Miller work to find the identity of "Magellan," the source who provided the information that served as the justification for invasion. This is no easy feat and they're working against the clock, as a special forces team lead by Major Briggs (Jason Isaacs) is also working to find the source and eliminate him so that he can't reveal the truth about the fabricated information regarding Iraq's WMD program.

Green Zone is a bit of a mixed bag, but for the most part the film works well. The characterization of the political situation as a mess of competing interests and narratives is interesting and, I think, probably more accurate most of us would be comfortable believing. Everyone is on the same "side," yes, but there are warring sides within that side that pretty much ensures that a series of smaller scale power struggles will get in the way of efforts to stabilize the social/political powder keg of post-Saddam Iraq. Everyone wants to be in control of "the story" of Iraq's liberation, regardless of whether or not that story has any real connection to reality. In one of the more telling scenes, Miller attends a meeting to discuss military progress and openly questions the Magellan source, only to be informed by his superior that his job is to find WMDs, not question military intelligence. Given that Miller and his team put their lives on the line every time they go to one of the alleged sites (and, as he points out, have suffered casualties in the process), you would think that the quality of the intelligence sending them there would very much be his concern. The film shows an emphasis at every level on not asking questions but simply moving forward on the assumption that information is true. Again, this is probably a lot more true to life than many of us are comfortable believing.

Though the film obviously has very strong political views, I would be hard pressed to describe it as a political film. By the end Green Zone becomes a fairly routine action thriller which casts Miller as a one man army determined to expose the truth. The action sequences are well done but making them the centrepiece to the story cheapens the aspirations the film seems to have to make a strong political statement. The ending, which is meant to be triumphant even if only in a minor sense, falls flat, in part because though the film is critical of the spread of misinformation through a blind acceptance of it, it's a lot softer on journalists than it could be. Still, for all that, it's a pretty solid genre film, even if it could have been more.

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.

Oscarstravaganza: Good Will Hunting

* * * *

Winner: Best Original Screenplay, 1997
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Minnie Driver, Ben Affleck

I love Good Will Hunting. I know that its diamond in the rough type story isn’t exactly groundbreaking and that there’s always been some controversy regarding how much Matt Damon and Ben Affleck actually did versus how much they were credited with for the sake of crafting a great off-screen story, but I still love it. A friend and I even invented a drinking game for it: drink every time Affleck shows up in a different track suit. You might not make it to the end of the film that way.

Will Hunting (Damon) is a genius, a man whose uncommon intelligence is hindered only by his circumstances. An orphan who has spent most of his life being shuffled between foster homes and in and out of state custody, he’s the kind of person society tends to just give up on. By day he hangs out with his friends Chuckie (Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser), and Morgan (Casey Affleck), getting into various forms of trouble, and by night he works as a janitor at MIT. Taking advantage of the seemingly empty building that he’s cleaning, he takes a crack at the problem written on the board of math professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard). Lambeau, shocked by the fact that the janitor found the solution that none of his students could decipher, takes Will on as a project, determined to mentor him to bigger and better things.

Lambeau soon enlists the help of Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), a psychiatrist with whom he was once friends, and Sean is slowly able to break through Will’s defences in order to give him actual help for his issues. In the process, Will also helps Sean deal with the death of his wife and break the stasis of his mourning. Meanwhile, Will also finds himself navigating a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver), whom he likes but who also makes him very self-conscious about his rough upbringing and his current economic situation. Between them, Sean, Skylar and Will's posse of friends will help him break free of the trappings that Will is afraid to challenge.

Embraced when it was first released, Good Will Hunting experienced an inevitable backlash later on (Premiere Magazine once named it as one of the 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time), but seems to have regained its original good standing in recent years. It is, in fact, a very strong effort on all sides, particularly in terms of writing. There are three key scenes that make up the heart and soul of this story: Will's park bench conversation with Sean, in which Sean exposes and effectively dismantles Will's greatest defence mechanism (the vast knowledge he tries to pass off as experience/wisdom) and dares him to get real; the scene in which Lambeau falls to his knees, acknowledging that while he can recognize Will's genius, he himself can never attain it; and the scene between Will and Chuckie during which Chuckie lambasts Will for wasting his abilities by not taking a chance at getting more. Williams won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance, but I've always thought that Affleck's was the strongest of the supporting performances and his speech during this last scene (my favourite of the whole movie) demonstrates why, capturing both Chuckie's jealousy and admiration of his friend, his dissatisfaction with his own lot in life and the pride he would feel to see someone from the neighborhood succeed. The speech is a bit cliche, but Affleck sells it and Damon sells Will's reaction to it. The two play off each other so well and so easily that it's hard to believe they haven't worked together onscreen since Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Seriously, someone team them up again!

Good Will Hunting is an interesting film to revisit 13 years after the fact. You see Damon rendering a confident, charismatic performance, still fresh but so close to stardom that you can already see it in him; Affleck in a loose, relaxed performance that would seem impossible just a few years later when he was mired in the dual disasters of Pearl Harbor and Bennifer 1.0; Williams in a relatively sedate, dialed back performance; and Van Sant crossing over to the mainstream for that brief period before returning to the offbeat indies that are his bread and butter. The evolutions of these careers since this film have been interesting, to say the least, but the film is much more than a snapshot of people coming together to capture lightning in a bottle. Good Will Hunting remains an excellent film, entertaining, energetic and ultimately moving.

Review: The Informant! (2009)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon

The Informant! tells a story so ludicrous that it has to be true because no one would make up something so absurd. In it an executive at a Fortune 500 company becomes an FBI informant, gathering evidence of a global price fixing scheme, and is rewarded by ending up with a prison sentence 6 years longer than the superiors he exposed. Of course, there is the small fact that while he was helping the FBI, he was also embezzling from the company to the tune about $9 million dollars. Like I said, you’d never believe it if it wasn’t true.

It’s all about corn. Corn makes the economy go round and Mark Whitacre’s (Matt Damon) company, ADM, is in the corn business. When the company starts losing somewhere in the neighbourhood of $7 million a month due to a virus affecting the product, Whitacre is tasked with fixing it, which becomes considerably difficult when he starts receiving phone calls from a Japanese competitor who knows all about the problem and demands $10 million to keep quiet about it. ADM decides to bring the FBI in to investigate this extortion only to abruptly pull the plug when they learn that the agency has tapped Whitacre’s private phone – which he uses to arrange the price fixing scheme – in addition to his business line. What the executives couldn’t have anticipated was that Whitacre would have a crisis of conscience and decide to confess about the price fixing anyway.

For two and a half years Whitacre records conversations and meetings, helping the FBI build a case against the company. When the raid finally goes down, however, the Feds realize that Whitacre may not be the best person to have on their side. He’d tipped a few people off about the raid beforehand, for one thing – important allies, he insists – and then there’s the small matter of some money he’s taken in the form of kickbacks – a figure which starts out as $2.5 million and steadily grows to $9 million... and may actually have been as much as $11.5 million. Suddenly the federal investigation shifts away from ADM and towards Whitacker who is, as his wife points out, much easier to take down than an entire corporation. He’s done a bad thing but should he really be considered the bad guy?

Damon plays Whitacre as a veritable Jeckyll and Hyde, a man who both is and is not what he seems to be. He’s a narcissist who buys completely into his own lies and flounders whenever he’s called out, partly because he’s managed to divorce himself from his own actions. At one point he forges a letter from his psychiatrist to back up his claims that the FBI investigation has deeply damaged his psyche. We watch him cut and paste the letterhead and the doctor’s signature to a letter he’s written himself and yet we believe that he’s shocked at the news that it’s a forgery. Damon is able to sell the idea that Whitacre is so fully invested in his lies that he believes them to be the truth even as he’s constructing them. He should not be a likeable person and yet he kind of is because Damon gives him an affable, everyman kind of quality. Of course it also helps that the film makes him out to be a bit of a buffoon, which has the effect of making him seem relatively harmless.

I think it’s a gamble in the current economic climate to take story of capitalistic greed and turn it into a comedy, but Steven Soderbergh makes it work. Given the general absurdity of Whitacre's situation, I suppose that making this into a straight drama would be somewhat difficult. Certainly this could have been an angry film about how the little guy (relatively speaking) becomes the fall guy while the giant corporation carries on unscathed, but that would have necessitated toning down Whitacre by large degrees. He calls himself 0014 because he's "twice as smart as 007" but this spy story has less in common with James Bond than Austin Powers - an allusion I think Soderbergh is deliberately drawing through his use of 60s style bubble lettering in the titles that indicate time and place. This is ultimately a joyful film and very funny even when it starts to take on increasingly dark undertones. It's a great time at the movies.


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