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.

Friday's Top 5... Sword and Sandal Films

#5: Clash of the Titans (1981)
I caught this once on TV and it was so gloriously cheesy that I simply could not look away. I haven't seen the 2010 version but, based on the trailers, I feel confident in assuming that it's not nearly as much fun as this version.


#4: Gladiator
Confession: I don't particularly like Gladiator. However, recognizing its popularity with plenty of other people I feel compelled to include it in this list. In the interest of giving the film its due, the action sequences are pretty great.


#3: Jason and the Argonauts
There's something very charming about old school special effects (when done right, of course). If you're ever looking for an example of what I mean by that, definitely check out Jason and the Argonauts.


#2: Spartacus
An epic in every way. Kirk Douglas made a lot of great films and this one certainly deserves to be ranked as one of his very best.


#1: Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur pulls off the strange feat of being an over the top spectacle while also being utterly and disarmingly sincere. A number of marvelous action set pieces keep this one moving so swiftly along that you barely notice its grand running time.

Canadian Film Review: Whale Music (1994)

* * *
Director: Richard J. Lewis
Starring: Maury Chaykin, Cynthia Preston

Sometimes a performance is so great that everything around it becomes secondary. That's not necessarily a bad thing as Whale Music and Maury Chaykin's epic performance demonstrates. The film surrounding the performance is pretty good, though flawed, but it's Chaykin that you remember afterwards.

Chaykin stars as Desmond Howl, a thinly veiled stand-in for Brian Wilson. A great musician who has spent the decade since his brother's death living as a recluse in an increasingly delapidated house, Des becomes further divorced from reality with each passing day. He no longer bothers to get dressed and he continues to swim in a pool that appears as if it hasn't been cleaned in years, his contact with the outside world is kept to a minimum, and much of his time is spent composing music for whales. When asked later in the film what he likes about whales, he describes them in terms that could also be applied to himself.

His isolation is broken by the sudden arrival of Claire (Cynthia Preston), who simply invites herself into his mansion and makes herself at home. At first he thinks she's a drug induced hallucination but he ultimately has no qualms about her presence even after he realizes that she's a flesh and blood person. With a little intervention from Claire (who cleans up the house and, mercifully, the pool) Des begins to take small steps back into the world and a relationship develops between these two damaged people who work at protecting each other (not always successfully) from the outside forces which threaten them. Claire is running from troubles in her past and Des is haunted by the ghost of his brother (Paul Gross) whose suicide, in a way, killed them both.

Chaykin's performance alternates easily between cheeky irreverence and intense vulnerability. At times he carries himself as if he doesn't quite know what it is to be human; he's withdrawn and cautious like a wild animal (the film, obviously, draws parallels between Des and whales but a bear is an equally apt comparison), a wildness that is underscored in a scene where Des literally roars at the record company executive pressuring him to write more profitable music. On the flip side, he has a great way with words and barbs just roll off his tongue, dismantling his opponents. However, it's not through conversation but through music that he really connects to the world around him. It's only when he's working on a song that he seems to truly come alive and be fully present within himself. Chaykin handles the complexities of the character well and manages to keep the performance reigned in even during scenes of exceptionally high emotion when it things threaten to go over the top.

Playing opposite him, Preston is a bit out of her depth. She nails Claire's attitude but her line readings tend to be a bit stiff and she never seems fully comfortable in the character. The chemistry she has with Chaykin is fine but the woodenness of her performance is more pronounced when compared to his seemingly effortless portrayal of Des.

Made in 1994, Whale Music has not aged especially well. It looks quite dated and to compound matters, I found it hard to get a sense of when it was supposed to take place. The novel on which the film is based came out in 1989, so I assume that it takes place in the late 80s (though some of the fashions seem more early 90s) but the music (specifically the song "Torque") has a distinctly early Beach Boys sound and is discussed as if it's all the rage on the charts so... I dunno. Maybe it doesn't really matter since the film is nevertheless fairly enjoyable and I would still recommend it on the basis of Chaykin's performance.

Maythew #6: Wonder Boys (2000)

* * * *
Director: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Michael Douglas, Toby Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Frances McDormand

As someone who loves books and films in more or less equal measure, I've long had a special affection for Wonder Boys, a movie based on a novel in which the characters love both books and films. A curiously underrated film when it was released, it has aged very well and is definitely a film worth returning to.

Wonder Boys follows a weekend in the life of Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas), who has not been having a very good time of it lately. His wife has left him, his mistress and boss Sara (Frances McDormand) is pregnant, the novel he has been writing for years is still not finished and his agent is breathing down his neck, one student (Katie Holmes) has a thing for him, and another (Toby Maguire) proves to be nothing but trouble at each and every turn, particularly when he shoots Sara's husband's dog and steals a piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabelia from him. Oh, did I mention that Sara's husband is also chair of Grady's department? Yeah. It's a shit storm.

All of the issues in Grady's life are really just a manifestation of his own personal stasis; he's stuck both in terms of his work and his life. Sara is pressuring him to make a choice about their relationship so that it's either over or evolving into more. He wants it to be more but, given his track record, that's also a prospect that scares him - the more that the relationship is, the more that he stands to lose. Likewise, his editor (Robert Downey Jr.) is pressuring him to hand over his manuscript which Grady insists isn't yet finished at over 2,000 pages. He can't stop writing even though he's lost sight of what the story is about because the idea of handing it over and then finding out that he's lost whatever it is that made his previous novel such a success is terrifying. To Grady it's better to be left out than to participate and fail and what he learns through the film is that that supposed safety is false because while you don't lose anything by not playing, you can't win anything either.

To my mind, Wonder Boys is Michael Douglas' best performance to date. The character type is really nothing new but Douglas' subdued performance hits all the right notes. The supporting cast, particularly Downey, McDormand and Maguire, are also excellent and leave me wondering how it is that this film didn't get a single acting nomination. Too much of a good thing, perhaps? Certainly, no other explanation makes sense.

Matt's Thoughts: For the most part, I liked this movie, but I took issue with a few of the characters. As usual, I think Katie Holmes could be excised from the film and it would make no difference to the plot. Also, Oola was an extremely minor character, basically a walk-on role, that was later thrust into the main spotlight for a pivotal task that could have been performed without her and her boyfriend.

The events surrounding the dean's dog were passed off as basically nothing, and I think they really could have been avoided entirely since the jacket was stolen as well. It just seemed like a way to spit in the dean's face twice to ensure that Grady would lose his job. If they wanted him to lose his job so badly, maybe they should have exposed his romantic relationship with Hannah to give Katie Holmes something to do.

That being said, I would recommend this to people if they asked about it specifically, but it probably wouldn't be the first movie to come to mind if they didn't bring it up in conversation first.

Maythew #5: Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

* 1/2
Director: Goran Dukic
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon

There is a moment - exactly one - when Wristcutters: A Love Story becomes totally awesome. That moment occurs when it is revealed that "the Messiah" who has been talked about since the beginning of the film but whose identity has been kept secret by shots that obscure or hide his face, is played by Will Arnett. If only the Messiah's miracle had been performed to the tune of "The Final Countdown." I guess I'll just have to wait for the Arrested Development movie.

For the most part Wristcutters: A Love Story takes place after the deaths of its characters. Zia (Patrick Fugit), distraught over his relationship with Desiree (Leslie Bibb), takes his life by cutting his wrists and wakes in a place that is not heaven but not quite hell, just a worse version of life. He finds that he still needs to have a job and a place to live, still needs to eat and drink, and that a lot of things are pretty much exactly as they were before. He's so bored that he considers committing suicide again, but thinks better of it when he considers that committing suicide in suiciders' purgatory might cause him to end up in an even worse place.

He becomes friends with Eugene (Shea Whigham), a Russian rock star whose entire family committed suicide and thus are all together in the afterlife. When Zia learns that his suicide prompted Desiree's suicide, he decides to go off to find her and reunite and talks Eugene into going with him on a road trip. Although he has no idea where Desiree would have ended up, he's somehow able to intuit what direction they should be going and along the way they pick up a hitchhiker named Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who insists that she's been sent there by accident since she didn't actually commit suicide. Eventually the trio ends up at the camp run by Kneller (Tom Waits), where Mikal's desire to see the people in charge and Zia's need to be reunited with Desiree converge.

Written and directed by Goran Dukic, Wristcutters occassionally displays a sharp, dark humor but the story itself is really lacking. It pretty much meanders from beginning to end and takes a long time to say very little. Although I think the cinematography by Vanja Cernjul is great, giving everything in the afterlife a washed out look that quickly and effectively establishes the atmosphere, that dullness ultimately permeates all other aspects of the film as well. There's no real spark here and as a result Wristcutters starts to fall flat almost as soon as it begins.

Matt's Thoughts: What I really want to know is, how does a turkey commit suicide? Or is its death also a mistake? Because seeing your thanksgiving dinner overdose would make for an incredible movie, in my humble opinion.

I understand that this film is a dark comedy, but part of the reason that the tone of the movie didn't quite hit the mark for me is the rule about smiling. Not only did they just introduce it at random, as though it were a well-known fact throughout the first half of the movie, but it kind of brought the story down for me. I knew going in that a movie wherein every character committed suicide wouldn't be happy-go-lucky, but I just sort of figured that they would be able to smile at some point. And after he had established that they were incapable of smiling in purgatory, he then finds his girlfriend and...they smile. Genuinely. Don't introduce me to an irritating rule and then break it.

I did enjoy it, even though I saw the ending coming from the get-go. And how pissed is his ex-girlfriend that, not only did his death lead to hers, but he then negated his own and replaced her with someone else? That's a spit in the face. But we're all okay with it.