Review: Battle of the Sexes (2017)

* * *
Director: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
Starring: Emma Stone, Steve Carell

In the words of the film: "Times change. You should know. You just changed them." In the words of Hemingway: "Isn't it pretty to think so?" In 1973 Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs played a match dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes" that was aired on television in prime time. It was a ratings success for ABC. I'm not sure how much of an effect it had on anything else, at least directly, but symbolism can be a powerful thing and sometimes what something means matters less than what it feels like it means. Battle of the Sexes, written by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) and directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine), presents an awfully rose-colored view of things, but that presentation is nevertheless awfully entertaining.

Review: The Big Short (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling

Writer/director Adam McKay is best known for his broad comedies, having now made several with Will Farrell (both Anchorman movies, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys), so on the surface he might not seem like the obvious choice to tell a story about the 2008 financial crisis which resulted in the collapse and subsequent bailout of the United States' major banks. However, if The Big Short wasn't a comedy, its story would be too damn depressing to watch. McKay, who adapted the screenplay with Charles Randolph from the book of the same title by Michael Lewis, takes a self-referential, aside-heavy approach to the story that, in its way, seeks to be educational in addition to entertaining and largely succeeds. It's just sort of a shame that the inescapable fact of the story is that, in the end, the joke isn't on any of the characters in the film (or the real people some of them are based on) but on all of us.

Review: Foxcatcher (2014)

* * *
Director: Bennett Miller
Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo

Many "true crime" stories attempt to provide some sort of answer to the question of why the crime took place. Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher takes a different approach, merely observing that the crime took place without trying to make it part of a neat, clean narrative. Context does not make it any less senseless, which of course makes it all the more bizarre and intriguing. There are no easy answers in Foxcatcher, just a story of how a confluence of disparate issues - from how neither wealth nor success can necessarily prevent someone from becoming alienated from everyone around them, to how wealth can inspire society to indulge behavior that would otherwise be unacceptable, and how the easily commodifiable patriotism of international sport ends up leaving the actual athletes behind - created an atmosphere where tragedy seems almost inescapable.

Review: Hope Springs (2012)

* * *
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell

There are a few things which, as a rule, Hollywood movies don't do. One is to centre a narrative on older characters and another is to deal frankly with issues of sex. Hope Springs does both and, while it isn't in any way a "risky" or groundbreaking movie, there is a kind of unflinching honesty to it that is rarely found in mainstream fare. It's far from perfect (and maybe wraps things up just a touch too easily) but there is a lot of value to the piece, including but not limited to the great performances by its two leads.

Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

* * 1/2
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

If nothing else, watching Seeking a Friend for the End of the World gave me a renewed appreciation for Last Night, the low key "end of the world" film from 1999 which covers some of the same ground. Making an even remotely funny movie out of such relentlessly depressing subject matter isn't easy. Lorene Scarfaria's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World comes close to making it work, but ultimately just can't find the right balance of tones. Of course, it doesn't help that the relationship that acts as the story's focal point is at times sweet but mostly just weird and unbelievable.

Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

* * *
Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone

Not many movies combine sweetness and cynicism as well or as winningly as Crazy, Stupid, Love. This is a movie that knows the score when it comes to relationships and their complications, that doesn't count on romantic illusions, but still has the audacity to hope for them. With a strong screenplay by Dan Fogelman and a fantastic cast of actors, Crazy, Stupid, Love is one of the rare delights of the post-summer blockbuster, pre-autumn Oscar bait part of the movie season.

Review: Date Night (2010)

* * * 1/2
Director: Shawn Levy
Starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey

What's not to like about Date Night? It stars two thoroughly likeable actors, features funny supporting turns from Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and Mila Kunis, it has a genuinely funny script, and is helmed by the director of - actually, having just glanced at Shawn Levy's IMDB page, never mind what else he's directed. The point is, Date Night is really good.

Steve Carell and Tina Fey star as Phil and Claire Foster, a nice suburban couple in a bit of a rut. Sure, they make a point of having a date night every week, but the spark has definitely started to fade. After discovering that friends who seemed happy are set to get a divorce, both Claire and Phil realize that they need to make a little more effort in their relationship to avoid the same fate. As part of this effort they get dressed up and head into the city to try a new restaurant, but when getting a table proves to be next to impossible, Phil claims that they're the Tripplehorns, a couple who actually do have a reservation but are nowhere to be seen.

Taking the reservation proves to be a fatal mistake as soon afterwards Phil and Claire are confronted by a couple of goons (Jimmi Simpson and Common), who reveal that the Tripplehorns have been using a stolen flash drive to blackmail Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta). After escaping from Miletto's men, Phil and Claire track down her former client, Grant Holbrooke (Wahlberg), a security expert with an aversion to shirts who helps them locate the real Tripplehorns. I won't spoil the turns the plot takes from there but, needless to say, the Fosters' very eventful night is far from over.

Carell and Fey are obviously very skilled comedic performers but a large part of what makes Date Night so successful is that they can be funny on a small scale. Yes, there are moments when their characters break down into hysterics, but for the most part both Carell and Fey underplay and simply react to all the crazy people who are suddenly all around them. Phil and Claire are so funny because they don't know that they're being funny and the film itself works because they're believable as an ordinary couple in an extraordinary set of circumstances.

Generally speaking, comedies don't have to dig very deep in order to achieve their goals. They just have to succeed at making you laugh, they don't necessarily have to have characters who are believable and relatable - though the best ones, of course, do. I wouldn't rank Date Night amongst the very best comedies ever, but I do think that it's better than average and that in Claire and Phil it portrays a realistically happy but bored modern couple. What happens to them isn't very realistic, but the issues at play between their characters and they way that they relate to each other is. Carell and Fey make for a great team and hopefully they will work together again in the future (with Date Night's domestic gross coming in at just under $100 million, I suspect that they will).

Review: Get Smart (2008)

* * *
Director: Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway

The TV version of Get Smart was before my time, but it’s one of my dad’s favourite shows so I’m familiar enough with the premise without being attached to the “purity” of the original. Although I enjoyed the film version, I think it falls prey to the same problem found in a lot of TV to movie adaptations, which is that it can’t seem to make up its mind about how to engage the source material. This inherent unevenness is a drag on the film, giving it an uneasy mix of action and comedy.

At the beginning of the film Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is an analyst whose reports run hundreds of pages, detailing seemingly mundane facts that the field agents mock but that the Chief (Alan Arkin) appreciates because it reminds him of old school spy work. Smart wants desperately to be promoted to field agent, but the Chief thinks he’s too valuable as an analyst until a break in at CONTROL headquarters means that the identities of all the field agents have been compromised. In order to stop the latest plot by KAOS, the Chief has no other option but to promote Max to Agent 86 and send him out with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), whose recent plastic surgery means that she’s still viable in the field.

Max and 99 are sent to the Ukraine where agents from KAOS, led by Siegfried (Terrence Stamp), are assembling nuclear weapons that they intend to sell to dictatorships which are hostile towards the US. The plot is set-up well enough, but it’s really the film’s secondary concern. First and foremost the film is about letting Max find new and interesting ways to injure himself, from a mishap with a mini-crossbow to his attempt to slip through a room secured with laser beams. Carell takes these moments in stride, as able at physical as verbal comedy.

When the film is focused on the comedic aspect of the story it’s quite good, but in when it tries to be an action movie it looses its way a little bit. Maybe I’m just difficult to please, but I found myself a little bored by the explosions, high speed chases, and cartoony violence peppered throughout the story. It’s not that it isn’t all well done, it’s just that it’s nothing that I haven’t seen before and I found myself thinking, “Get back to the funny stuff.” Another problem is the romantic storyline between Max and 99. While I know that their relationship is canon as far as the TV series is concerned and formula as far as film construction is concerned, I just didn’t feel any sexual tension between the two which made me believe that they could make the transition from friendly antagonism to love. I think that Carell and Hathaway have good “buddy” chemistry, they just don’t have romantic/sexual chemistry.

Get Smart isn’t an entirely successful movie, but I ultimately feel compelled to give it a pass. I laughed a lot and I think Carell is well cast even if the material sometimes lets him down. If there’s a sequel (and I’m assuming that there will be given the $100 million plus gross), I hope the filmmakers learn from the mistakes of this one and are able to work out some of the kinks.