Movie Review: Black Panther

Black Panther **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ryan Coogler.

Written by: Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Starring: Chadwick Boseman (T'Challa / Black Panther), Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger), Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross), Daniel Kaluuya (W'Kabi), Andy Serkis (Ulysses Klaue / Klaw), Angela Bassett (Ramonda), Forest Whitaker (Zuri), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Winston Duke (M'Baku), Sterling K. Brown (N'Jobu), John Kani (King T'Chaka), Florence Kasumba (Ayo), David S. Lee (Limbani), Atandwa Kani (Young T'Chaka).

 

With Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler doesn’t really re-invent the Marvel movie – but he finds room inside of its structure to create something unique. The film hits the story beats you expect any superhero origin movie to, and yet it does so in new and different ways – basically because Coogler fully embraces what it is about Black Panther than makes the character, and his origins, different from the superheroes that came before. He does a better job than any director before him in this series in building a new, unique world and from making a movie that doesn’t look like all the other films. I have mentioned before that basically directors of Marvel movies act like television directors – they are brought in to make movies off a template. Coogler, more than anyone before him, ignores that template and does his own thing, even while respecting the overall universe his film is in. He doesn’t blow up the Marvel universe, as much as he expands it – and in the process, he’s made arguably the best film in the MCU so far.

 

We were introduced to Black Panther – aka T’Challa, crown Prince of the African nation of Wakanda, in Captain America: Civil War – but we really didn’t learn much about him, other than he was on a mission of vengeance to catch the man who detonated a bomb that killed his father – King T’Chaka. This film takes place in the aftermath of that death, as T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns to Wakanda to officially be crowned King. In order to do that, he has to go through rituals, which include allowing any of the members of the other tribes in Wakanda with Royal Blood, to challenge him in ritual combat – something that will arise again later in the film, with the return of Wakanda’s prodigal son – a kid from Oakland known as Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Killmonger instantly becomes the best villain in the MCU so far, because he’s really the first villain in the 18 films who you can look at and actually think he’s making valid points. He isn’t a power hungry madman hell-bent on world domination – at least not for his own purposes. He, reasonably, thinks that Wakanda could have helped “people who look like you” across the globe who have been oppressed forever, but instead Wakanda has sat back, and stayed out of everything. You can disagree with Killmonger’s methods – which is basically to kill anyone who doesn’t agree with him – and still think he makes a valid point. Smartly, the movie knows this, and doesn’t try to hide that fact.

 

Before the movie gets there though, it does a wonderful job at world building in terms of Wakanda – who we get our first real glimpse of here. Wakanda is a rich country (because of their wealth of Vibranium, the strongest metal on earth, that they have used to become a technological wonder), posing as a poor one, and the film’s art direction is a brilliant mixture of the futuristic and the ancient. Coogler and his collaborators have taken aspects of many African cultures and countries, and combined them to create something both recognizable and unique. This is clearly the best looking film the MCU has had to date – with amazing production design and costumes, to go along with the expected flair of visual effects, and expert cinematography by Rachel Morrison.

 

The movie could have spent its entire runtime simply on the inner workings of Wakanda itself – it certainly has more interesting characters than any other Marvel movie to date. The film has many strong, female characters (strong in multiple ways), like Nakia (Luptia Nyong’o), as T’Challa’s ex (who he is still in love with), who has sentiments similar to Killmonger’s, but a different outlook on how to achieve them. T’Challa’s little sister Shuri (Letita Wright) – my favorite character in the film other than Killmonger – who is essentially a cooler version of James Bond’s Q - and Okoye (Danai Gurira), the General of the all-female elite army, tasked with protecting Wakanda, and its king. That doesn’t even mention some of the rival tribe leaders - M'Baku (Winston Duke), who heads up the mountain tribe, who has kept their distance from Wakanda and its technology, and Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, more open to Killmonger’s ideas than anyone. When Killmonger comes to Wakanda, he gets as far as he does not because he convinces every one of his ideas, but because the seeds of discourse are already there – he’s simply exploiting them.

 

By design, Boseman’s T’Challa/Black Panther is pretty much the dullest character in the film. He is conflicted, of course, because he wants to be a good man and a good king – and it’s difficult to be both. Like in Thor: Ragnorok, the film’s main conflict arises because of the beloved patriarch’s hidden sins and lies, that expose the myths of their country being noble as just that – myths. This is a thread that has run through at least some of the MCU films, and its rather daring – it’s even hinted at in the Captain America movies, that the ultimate symbol of American patriotism, no longer stands for the same things the country does – but it hasn’t gone wholly there (yet).

 

If this sounds like a lot for any one movie to handle, it is – and if I had a complaint about Black Panther, it’s that it rushes a little too much through some of it in order to get to the things that any Marvel movie needs – action scenes, car chases and a CGI generated big battle at the end. Coogler handles this better than most directors – a highlighted is a terrific fight sequence in a casino, followed by an excellent car chase – but even I have to admit that by the time the final battle introduced battle rhinos, it had gone perhaps a touch too far over-the-top.

 

Yet the movie remains satisfying until the end – giving Michael B. Jordan one of the best last lines a movie villain has ever had, which tops off one of the great performances the superhero genre has ever seen. In the span of three films – Fruitvale Station, Creed and now Black Panther, Coogler has become one of the best directors working, and shows everyone who to make huge budget movies, in the biggest franchise around, and still be personal movies. Yes, I hope he escapes franchise mode at some point – but he’s still shown everyone else exactly how this type of film should be done.

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Movie Review: Early Man

Early Man *** / *****

Directed by: Nick Park.

Written by: Mark Burton and James Higginson and John O’Farrell and Nick Park.

Starring: Tom Hiddleston (Lord Nooth), Maisie Williams (Goona), Eddie Redmayne (Dug), Timothy Spall (Chief Bobnar), Miriam Margolyes (Queen Oofeefa), Richard Ayoade (Treebor), Mark Williams (Barry), Rob Brydon (Message Bird), Kayvan Novak (Dino), Johnny Vegas (Asbo), Selina Griffiths (Magma), Simon Greenall (Eemak), Gina Yashere (Gravelle), Luke Walton (Huggelgrabber).

 

For the most part, the films from British animation studio Aardman are a refreshing break from the animated films produced and aimed at kids in America. It helps that their latest, Early Man, is only their 7^th feature and they’ve been making them since 2000’s delightful Chicken Run, meaning that they don’t produce so much that we get sick of them, or that they start to feel like assembly line pieces, like so many of the even good American animated films do.

 

That’s still true of Early Man, to a certain extent, and yet something about the film felt a little off for me from Aardman – something a little warmed over. The film is still sweet and funny, delightfully goofy, with a mixture of clever sight gags, and word play that at times can be clever, and at other times so knowing silly that it makes you laugh in spite of how cheesy the joke is. As consistently enjoyable the individual moments of Early Man are however, they never really build to up to anything greater – anything all that special. The film starts off as a cave man film, and ends as a sports film, and seem to be going through the motions in both.

 

The film is about a small, rabbit hunting tribe from the Stone Age – and our hero is Dug (Eddie Redmayne), who thinks that perhaps they should try and hunt something bigger, only to be told (as countless animated heroes before) that he should be happy with things just as they are. He doesn’t get much chance of that however, when his tribes valley is invaded by a new group – led by the nitwit Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) – of the incoming Bronze Age, who wants to mine for Bronze there. Dug ends up in their city, and sees all the wonders of Bronze, but still ants to protect his home. He ends up (in a series of events too complicated to go over) challenging Nooth’s soccer team – Real Bronze – to a match for control over the valley. He teams up with a member of the Bronze city – Goona (Maisie Williams) – never given a chance to play because she’s a girl – to teach his ragtag tribe of misfits to play against the greatest team in the world. They’ll beat them, according to Goona, because they can be a real team – Real Bronze is full of great players, but they play as individuals.

 

There is hardly a sports movie (or caveman movie) cliché the film doesn’t exploit. To be fair, most of the time, they are playing with the conventions of the genres in interesting, fun ways. The voice work is quite good – with the likes of Redmayne and Timothy Spall being delightfully, innocent dim and hilarious, and the like of Hiddleston and his ilk being so goofily arrogant that they’re hilarious. The great Rob Brydon shows up and does multiple voices – the best probably a pair of sports commentators, who deliver play-by-play of things beyond the game.

 

Early Man is consistently fun – but I don’t think it every really finds its footing. The best Aardman movies – Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, even the utterly fun Shaun the Sheep – end up being more than just the sum of its parts, and I don’t think Early Man ever really does. Aardman, of course, got its start in short films (Nick Park, who directed this film, has won four Oscars – three for Short films), and Early Man feels more like a series of ideas for shorts, strung together. The film is still fun and funny – but it’s missing a little bit of that Aardman magic – that usually makes their films something truly special.

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Movie Review: The 15:17 to Paris

The 15:17 to Paris ** / ***** 

Directed by: Clint Eastwood   

Written by: Dorothy Blyskal based on the book by Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern.

Starring: Spencer Stone (Airman Spencer Stone), Anthony Sadler (Anthony Sadler), Alek Skarlatos (Specialist Alek Skarlatos), Jenna Fischer (Heidi Skarlatos), Judy Greer (Joyce Eskel), Cole Eichenberger (Young Spencer Stone), Paul-Mikél Williams (Young Anthony Sadler), Bryce Gheisar (Young Alek Skarlatos), Ray Corasani (Ayoub El-Khazzani), Thomas Lennon (School Principal), Jaleel White (Garrett Walden), Tony Hale (Gym Teacher), P.J. Byrne (Mr. Henry - Hallway Monitor).

 

It’s easy to see what drew 87 year old icon Clint Eastwood to the story of three young Americans, two of them in the armed forces, who happened to be a train from Amsterdam to Paris when a terrorist, armed with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, tried to carry out a deadly attack – only to be foiled by those three men, with the assistance of others on board the train. It is a story of everyday heroism and how violence is sometimes necessary to prevent even worse violence. But Eastwood never really finds his way into the material here, never really figures out what he’s trying to say with the film. Eastwood’s films have always been about violence – its causes and its effects, and while his films often argue violence is necessary, they also usually argue that it comes with some sort of cost. This film never gets that chance, as it climaxes with the violence, and then has a hasty reconstructed ceremony honoring the heroes, and then just ends. The attack itself is handled very well by Eastwood – most of what leads up to it is horribly awkward.

 

Part, but not all, of that awkwardness comes from the fact that Eastwood cast the real life people – Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos – to play themselves. There are directors who excel at working with non-professionals, and drawing great performances out of them – but Eastwood is not one of them (I cannot help but think that Eastwood’s famous quick shooting style of only liking one or two takes cannot help amateurs, who clearly don’t know what they’re doing). All three performances are awkward – although at a certain point, they also become somewhat charming. Perhaps it’s because the dialogue for some the pros is so brutally awful, that they don’t come across any better (poor Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer can do absolutely nothing with their roles). The film spends an absurd amount of time on the three young men in high school (middle school?) as all three of them get into trouble, but find each other as friends – and remain so, even when circumstances force them apart. This segment has a whole lot of wonderful actors – Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, Tony Hale, P.J. Bryne – show up for a scene or two, and then disappear having not done very much.

 

The rest of the movie is about the trio as they travel through Europe – Italy, Berlin, and Amsterdam- on a collision course with that train we know they will eventually get on. Eastwood has many gifts as a director – making a casual, hangout film isn’t one of them (I would love to see behind the scenes footage of Eastwood at that club in Amsterdam though if some exists).

 

What’s most disappointing to me about The 15:17 to Paris though is how simple Eastwood makes this all seem – how straight forward. Eastwood is a conservative filmmaker to be sure, but over the years, his films have taken more pointed shots at violence, patriotism and heroism than most liberal filmmakers have. He has rarely depicted even violence as one sided (the criticism that drove me nuts about American Sniper is that Eastwood had made a career of “white hats” and “black hats” – clearly defined characters of good and evil, which make me wonder if those saying that had seen any of his films at all). His last truly great films – Flags of Our Father and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) were two sides of the same coin – showing both the American and Japanese version of that battle, the American version really questioning how America identifies and celebrate war heroes, and the Japanese side showing honor of America’s enemy. The blind spot for Eastwood here is Islamic extremism – a subject he has now tackled twice in American Sniper and The 15:17 to Paris. I didn’t mind that he didn’t have any Iraqis as real characters in American Sniper – that was a film that honed in on the perspective of a man who experienced the war through a sniper rifle, at a distance, when the enemies would have been faceless. There is no such excuse in The 15:17 to Paris – where the heroes get up close and personal with the terrorist. He is as faceless as the enemies in American Sniper – we have no idea what led him to that train or why. Eastwood, it seems, doesn’t care.

 

I really do hope that Eastwood sticks around for a while longer, and directs some more films. When he goes, he will leave a hole in Hollywood that will be impossible to fill. Having said that, it’s pretty hard to argue that The 15:17 to Paris is one of the worst films Eastwood has ever directed – a misjudged film, made a filmmaker without the skillset to pull it off. You want to admire it for all sorts of reasons, but it just isn’t very good.

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Movie Review: The Ritual

The Ritual ** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Bruckner.

Written by: Joe Barton based on the novel by Adam Nevill.

Starring: Rafe Spall (Luke), Arsher Ali (Phil), Robert James-Collier (Hutch), Sam Troughton (Dom), Paul Reid (Robert).

 

Director David Bruckner is a talented filmmaker. He did my favorite segment of the horror omnibus films V/H/S (Amateur Night, about a group of horny college guys who get way more than they bargained for) and Southbound (The Accident, about a man on a remote highway looking at his cellphone, and runs over a young woman – which ends up being just the beginning of a horrible night). Both of those are stylish mini-horror films that do an expert job at building the tension, and then finally letting it out. His debut feature, The Ritual, shows some of that talent but is mainly undone by a rather lackluster script, that hits every story beat we expect it to and is essentially going through the motions of this type of horror film. Bruckner, mainly, does a fine job at directing, but there is only so much he can do with what he has to work with.

 

The film is about a group of four university friends, now in their 30s, who instead of the usual “man’s trip” to some party city, have decided to go hiking in Northern Sweden instead. In large part, this decision was made to honor a fifth friend – a man he see murdered in the opening sequence in a random convenience store robbery – a place he would not have been in if not for Luke (Rafe Spall) – who was able to hide during the robbery and escaped without a scratch. The four surviving friends are on their way back to the lodge they are staying at, when they decide to go off the defined path, and instead, to walk through the forest instead. After all, the forest is a more direct route, they can relax sooner, and one of the men, Dom (Sam Troughton), has just twisted his knee and won’t shut up about it. What can possibly go wrong in the dark, remote woods of Sweden?

 

Basically, what The Ritual wants to be is a more polished, all male version of The Blair Witch Project. For most of the movie, the horror comes from noises in the night, things hanging from or carved into trees, and a house in complete disrepair that has some weird stuff in it. As a director, Bruckner doesn’t go with the hand held camera on The Blair Witch Project, but a more polished look. He makes great use of darkness and the house, and all the trees – perhaps that’s easy, but he does a great job regardless.

 

What Bruckner cannot help is the basic plot of the movie, which builds and builds and builds towards a climax with an actual monster (which, to be honest, looks more strange than scary, and was clearly created on a budget). He can also not help the fact that other than Rafe Spall’s Luke, the other three men are ill defined and interchangeable. I do wish someone along the way questioned the need for all the flashbacks to “that night” that litter the film, since it doesn’t actually seem like it has anything to do with the plot at all.

 

I still do think that Bruckner is a talented horror film director. He got a chance to make a full feature after three omnibus segments (I have not seen The Signal – although several people have said that, like the others, his segment was the best) – and decided to take it. I think he does what he can with a script that doesn’t really work.

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Movie Review: Seeing Allred

Seeing Allred ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain.

 

I firmly believe that a great documentary could – and should – be made about Gloria Allred – the famed feminist lawyer, who has spent her career fighting for Women’s rights, as well as gay rights and civil rights of all kinds. She has many detractors – on all sides – who see her as opportunistic and shrill – in it for herself, her won celebrity and money. A truly great documentary would take on those criticisms head on, allow people with all sorts of views on Allred to come forward and say what they have to say. Unfortunately, it seems like the filmmakers behind Seeing Allred – Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain – are more interested in presenting a purely positive portrayal of Allred. It doesn’t allow the criticisms levelled against Allred over the years (most of which is misogynistic, some of it not) to really be explored. The criticism when it does come out is either in the form of old clips and sound bites that don’t run more than a few seconds, or stated by Allred allies (who make up all the interviews in the film that aren’t of Allred herself) just so they can swat them aside the next second. I’d be more interested in seeing a documentary that faced those criticisms head on – and allowed Allred to do the same. After all, as the movie makes clear, Allred is at her best when she is fighting back, and having to make her points to people who don’t necessarily want to hear them – and she doesn’t care what you think of her. I don’t think this documentary captures her at her best.

 

What the documentary does do a decent job of is going over the highlights of Allred’s more than 40 year legal career, and a few select moments from her difficult personal life (two marriages that ended badly, a rape in Mexico, which required her to get an illegal, back alley abortion that almost killed her). The film quickly goes over some of the big – and not so big – cases in her career. She was among the first to sue the Catholic Church for sex abuse – decades before the scandal broke big. Or suing a toy store for having “Boy” and “Girl” Toy aisles. Or representing the Brown family during the O.J. Simpson trial, in order to get their side of the story out. The framing device of the movie – the one it returns to again and again – is a series of press conferences Allred holds with various women who have accused Bill Cosby of drugging and raping them.

 

The film essentially lets Allred tell her own story. Her interviews make up the backbone of the film. As in the various clips of her throughout the film, she comes across as intelligent, confident and strong. Yes, she likes the attention and the money, and knows how to get both – but if she were a man, she’d be celebrated for that, not condemned.

 

In short, I think Seeing Allred is worth seeing for those who know nothing about her, and just want a quick primer on who she is, and why she is famous. I wish the film dug in deeper, challenged Allred, her supporters and her critics with something more. What the filmmakers have essentially done is made a dull film about a woman who is anything but.

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Movie Review: Blame

Blame *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Quinn Shephard.

Written by: Laurie Shephard & Quinn Shephard.

Starring: Quinn Shephard (Abigail Grey), Nadia Alexander (Melissa Bowman), Chris Messina (Jeremy Woods), Trieste Kelly Dunn (Jennifer), Tate Donovan (Robert McCarthy), Owen Campbell (TJ), Geneva Carr (Mrs. Howell), Tessa Albertson (Ellie Redgrave), Luke Slattery (Eric), Sarah Mezzanotte (Sophie Grant).

 

Blame was written and directed by, as well as starring, Quinn Shephard, who was only 22 when she made the film, and younger than that when she wrote it. It does suffer from some of the same flaws as many debut filmmakers do – in that Shephard tries to cram everything she ever wanted to say about high school and teenagers into one movie – and yet it’s still a fairly remarkable debut. Whatever problems the screenplay has, Shephard’s direction more than makes up for – the film get more dreamlike as it goes along, and yet Shephard is able to get a mounting sense of dread throughout. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending, but given the various ways things could have gone, its better than it could have been.

 

In the film, Shephard plays Abigail Grey – a young woman entering her senior year in high school. During her junior year, she had some mental issues, and was institutionalized for them – but her parents are convinced she is ready to come back to class. She is, of course, mocked and made fun of – called Sybil by her peers, after the book and TV show from the 1970s (this may be stretching credibility here – I’m not sure people in my high school 20 years ago would have gotten that reference). She makes a one connection in her school – with the new drama teacher, Jeremy Woods (Chris Messina). Woods, a failed actor, loves the theater, and looks forward to putting on play. He puts aside what he’s supposed to be working on – The Glass Menagerie (another touchstone for the Abigail character) and instead decides to do The Crucible – casting Abigail as her namesake, and eventually taking on the role of John Proctor himself (this is a horrible idea, for many reasons that should have been apparent to everyone). Their relationship becomes much too close.

 

The other major character is Melissa (Nadia Alexander), the head of the popular cheerleader crowd (although she’s kind of a goth cheerleader, which seems like a contradiction, but some works). She leads the torment against Abigail, and steps it up more than a little bit when Abigail gets the role she wanted. She’s also drinking, partying, betraying her friends, and fighting with her father (Tate Donovan). She is clearly messed up, and spiraling out of control.

 

As you can tell, Shephard’s film is jammed packed with the issues she’s trying to tackle – mental illness, bullying, peer pressure, teacher-student relationships, pedophilia, etc, etc. A better, more confident film may have just focused on a few of these aspects. In particular, I was struck by how Shephard is able to show the competition between teen girls, how they put each other down, how they compete for the same boys, and look to them to get a sense of self-worth, that can easily be destroyed. It’s a sad, destructive cycle, and it’s one Shephard gets right. The relationship between Jeremy and Abigail is strong as well – what she doesn’t know about him is that he is a weak, somewhat pathetic guy, who cannot resist the admiration she stares at him with. Messina still makes him real though – and although I think the film finds him too sympathetic, it’s a fascinating performance.

 

The screenplay for the film is too obvious – it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and draws its lines a little too neatly. Yet the direction really does shine here – Shephard isn’t showing off in her more stylistic moments, but she is showing just how what an eye she has for capturing interesting moments, and visuals. She is also able to get strong performances out of her whole cast – including herself. In short, while I don’t think Blame is a great movie – it is a great debut. The fact that Shephard did it all when was just 22 shows her skill, and potential, to make something truly great one day.

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Movie Review: Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Will Gluck.

Written by: Will Gluck & Rob Lieber based on the book by Beatrix Potter.

Starring: James Corden (Peter Rabbit), Domhnall Gleeson (Mr. McGregor), Rose Byrne (Bea), Margot Robbie (Flopsy), Daisy Ridley (Cotton-tail), Elizabeth Debicki (Mopsy), Sam Neill (Older Mr. McGregor), Sia (Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle), Colin Moody (Benji), Vauxhall Jermaine (Jackson), Terenia Edwards (Siobhan).

 

It’s very easy to be cynical about children’s entertainment – and Hollywood normally gives you no reason not to be. They are basically stuck in a cycle now of taking a property that people will recognize the name of, and then making the same kind of crass, crude entertainment they always do, just with a few recognizable names. Once in a while, you get something as magical as Paddington (or it’s even better sequel – and why haven’t you people made that wonderful film the biggest hit of 2018 so far), but more often than not, you get something like Peter Rabbit. It isn’t a horrible movie by any means – and in general, my kids and the other kids in the audience, seemed to enjoy it. But it’s busy and loud, and have far too many jokes that will be dated by the time the film comes out on home video. There is a reason why Beatrix Potter’s books are still being read more than 100 years later – and a reason why this film is likely to be forgotten very soon.

 

To be fair to the film, I don’t think it’s as bad as the initial previews led many to believe. Yes, there is some hip hop birds and singing, but the film has at least some respect for Potter’s original story in its opening sequence, when Peter (voiced by James Corden), his triplet sisters (Margot Robbie, Daisy Ridley, Elizabeth Debicki – three very talented actresses who I cannot tell apart in this film) and their cousin Benji (Colin Moody) as they raid Old McGregor’s (Sam Neil) farm. From there, of course, the film has to spin out a larger tale to fill the time, so they end up bringing in a younger Mr. McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson) – who wants to sell the place, and needs to fix it up first, even as he falls for the neighbor, Bea (Rose Bryne) – who loves the rabbits that he despises.

 

If there is a reason to see Peter Rabbit, it is Gleeson, who throws himself into the role with a lot more glee and commitment than most actors do in this sort of film. He is doing expert level physical comedy – pratfalls and mugging to the camera, and makes you believe he would have been an excellent comedian in the silent era. Bryne is sweet as Bea, but I wish they gave her something – anything – else to play other than sweet.

 

Corden, I think, is the wrong choice for Peter Rabbit. He comes across as too brash, too obnoxious, too modern. He takes over in a weird way, and isn’t very likable. I know this is part of the point – strangely, I think the film takes Wes Anderson’s Rushmore as an example, of two males warring over a woman – one who can never get her, and one who is lying to her – but that also ends up going against Bea’s initial point about the rabbits – which is that they are animals, just their following animal instincts. Strangely, this is the second children’s film of 2018 – after Paddington 2 – that made me think of both Wes Anderson, and silent comedians. Paddington 2 did so in a much, much better way (seriously, why didn’t more of you go see Paddington 2).

 

Overall, Peter Rabbit isn’t a painful experience. It’s kind of fun at times, and Gleeson and Neil seem to be having a blast, which helps a great deal. Is it cynical, disposable entertainment? Yes. But not everything can be Paddington.

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Movie Review: The Cloverfield Paradox

The Cloverfield Paradox ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Julius Onah.

Written by: Oren Uziel and Doug Jung.

Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Hamilton), David Oyelowo (Kiel), Daniel Brühl (Schmidt), John Ortiz (Monk), Chris O'Dowd (Mundy), Aksel Hennie (Volkov), Ziyi Zhang (Tam), Elizabeth Debicki (Jensen), Roger Davies (Michael), Clover Nee (Molly), Donal Logue (Mark Stambler).

 

Netflix’s release of The Cloverfield Paradox was a stroke of genius. We’ve known for a while that they had a Cloverfield movie as part of their upcoming slate, but no one knew when the film was going to be released, or even what it was called. Then, during the Superbowl, they had an ad for the film announcing it was “Coming Very Soon”, which meant it was going to available right after the game. The streaming giant has done a great job getting their television shows watched and talked about, but has struggled to do the same with their movie slate (for instance, I’ve seen nothing on the film On Body and Soul – an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film, which they released last Friday – major outlets didn’t even review it). This was Netflix announcing, in the biggest, boldest possible terms that they were going BIG with this one. This movie was going to be an event. And if any franchise could support this kind of blitz attack, the Cloverfield franchise is it – they tried to keep the 2008 original film under wraps before releasing it in theaters, and didn’t even announce 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) until a few months before its release.

 

If only the movie lived up to that hype. The movie is competently made and acted, and certainly isn’t horrible. But it’s also far too derivative of other space films, among them the Alien franchise and Event Horizon, and hell, last year’s already forgotten (but fun) Life. Like 10 Cloverfield Lane it didn’t begin its existence as a Cloverfield film at all – but got that grafted on later. It worked brilliantly in the previous sequel (side-quel, whatever) as an intense, Hitchcock-ian thriller became an action/sci-fi film in its final moments. Here, not so much.

 

The basic premise is that there is a crew on The Cloverfield Space station, trying their best to solve the world’s energy crisis (which in the world of the film, has reached emergency proportions, with constant black outs, and threats of war). On board is the Shepherd Particle Accelerator, which is too dangerous to test on earth, but if they can get it working, would solve all the energy problems. The multi-national, multi-ethnic crew have been working on it for two years, and nothing to show for it, and only enough fuel for a few more attempts. Of course, they get it to work, and of course, it causes all sorts of problem – they type laid out early in the film by a paranoid maniac ranting on TV (Donal Logue) about alternate dimensions, etc.

 

The film is anchored by a strong cast. The main character is Hamilton (Gugu-Mbatha Raw), who left her husband on earth (but we keep returning to throughout the movie, which makes no sense, until we get to the underwhelming final scene when we finally realize his purpose) – who is grieving for her dead children, but goes up anyway. There is also Daniel Bruhl as a brilliant German scientist, who is trying to get the accelerator to work, David Oyelowo as the Captain, Zhang Ziyi (speaking only in Mandarin) who also works on the accelerator, Chris O’Dowd, there for comic relief (and, it must be said, doing a great job at that), John Ortiz as the doctor and Aksel Hennie, as an angry Russian. After all the stuff goes done, they are joined by the mysterious Jensen (Elizabeth Debicki), although no one knows who she got there. That may be a cast lacking in major star power, but certainly not one lacking in ability. They do what they can with the mostly functional dialogue – the film doesn’t give anyone other than Hamilton anything resembling an inner life.

 

The film is directed by Julius Onah – who like Matt Reeves and Dan Trachtenberg before him – is making his big budget debut here. He does mostly fine work. He takes his time with the film, and does a lot with the environment on board the ship. I think with a better screenplay, he could probably do good work.

 

But alas, the film never really has much chance of working, because everything about feels so familiar, so rehashed from other, better films. You keep thinking that something is going to happen to bring it to another level – and it never really does. I’m still exciting for future Cloverfield films – when a franchise is as diverse as this one, a single failure doesn’t mean much – but unfortunately, this time it is a failure.

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Movie Review: On Body and Soul

On Body and Soul *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Written by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Starring: Géza Morcsányi (Endre), Alexandra Borbély (Mária), Zoltán Schneider (Jenö), Ervin Nagy (Sanyi), Tamás Jordán (Mária's doctor), Zsuzsa Járó (Zsuzsa), Réka Tenki (Klára), Júlia Nyakó (Rózsi).

 

On Body and Soul is a strange film – certainly one of the strangest to be nominated for a Foreign Language Film Oscar in the last few years. The Academy often appreciates foreign films that feel like Hollywood films, just in another language (this year’s The Insult is very much like that) – but On Body and Soul, from Hungary’s Ildikó Enyedi is one of the odder films you’ll see this. The film takes some weird tonal and narrative shifts as it shifts gears through its nearly two hour run time – not all of them work, admittedly – but you admire the effort that went into them anyway.

 

The film takes place at a Budapest slaughterhouse. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the de facto boss, although he’s really just an equivalent to a CFO for the place. When they hire a new quality control supervisor, Maria (Alexandra Borbély), he is drawn to her – she is a beautiful blonde woman after all – but so is so painfully shy and introverted that their conversations don’t go anywhere. But when some drugs are stolen, and it’s clear an inside job, the cops suggest they hire a psychologist to interview all the employees. The psychologist (Reka Tenki) discovers that both Endre and Maria are having the same dreams – that they are the pair of deers we’ve been seeing throughout – and thinks the two are mocking her. They aren’t however – they are somehow sharing their strange dreams.

 

I won’t go on more about the plot – it does some odd twists and turns throughout the runtime, not all of them convincing. In particular, I wish that Maria was a little bit more well-rounded than she turns out being – she gets off to an interesting start here, but in the last act in particular, the film tries to “explain” her issues more than it needs to, and makes her less interesting as a result.

 

But even if I wasn’t always sold on the narrative, you have to admire the filmmaking through, which is exceptional. This is Ildikó Enyedi’s return to feature filmmaking after an 18-year absence, but she has lost none of her chops in that time. The camera is slow moving, or stationary throughout the film, but doesn’t look away at anything that happens. The film does take place in a slaughterhouse, and if you don’t want to see cows being killed there, then this isn’t your movie (the end credits say that while animals were harmed during filming, none of them were harmed because of the film – meaning essentially, they were just allowed to film cows that were already going to be killed anyway. I’m not quite sure these scenes were necessary – they are there to shock after all, but it’s been nearly 70 years since Georges Franju’s infamous documentary short Le sang des betes (1949), and many other films in that time have showed basically the same thing. It’s still disturbing to watch sure, and it offers a contrast to the more subdued story, but still.

 

The film, is many ways, a rather subtle, subdued love story. Like Phantom Thread, it is about two damaged people, who make not make sense without anyone except each other – but adds in an interesting question if these two are right for each other only in their dreams. Ultimately, I’m not quite sure where all this ends up in the film – it almost feels like Enyedi writes herself into a corner, and can’t quite figure a way out. Still, the film is beautifully film, and very well-acted – and one of the stranger films of the year. Movies don’t need to answer all the questions they raised – they’re often better that way.

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Movie Review: A Futile and Stupid Gesture

A Futile and Stupid Gesture ** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Wain.

Written by: Michael Colton & John Aboud based on the book by Josh Karp.

Starring: Will Forte (Doug Kenney), Martin Mull (Modern Doug, the Narrator), Domhnall Gleeson (Henry Beard), Thomas Lennon (Michael O'Donoghue), Joel McHale (Chevy Chase), John Gemberling (John Belushi), Matt Walsh (Matty Simmons), Rick Glassman (Harold Ramis), Jon Daly (Bill Murray), Seth Green (Christopher Guest), Matt Lucas (Tony Hendra), Paul Scheer (Paul Shaffer), Lonny Ross (Ivan Reitman), Neil Casey (Brian McConnachie), Armen Weitzman (Lorne Michaels), Jackie Tohn (Gilda Radner), Natasha Lyonne (Anne Beatts), Emmy Rossum (Kathryn Walker), Camille Guaty (Alex Garcia-Mata), Joe Lo Truglio (Brad), Erv Dahl (Rodney Dangerfield), Annette O'Toole (Doug’s mother), Elvy Yost (Mary Marshmallow).

 

If you’re going to make a film about National Lampoon in general, and one its founders Doug Kenney specifically, than director David Wain would seem like a good choice. While I’m not as big of a Wain film as many (sorry, I though Wet Hot American Summer was pretty bad, and other than Role Models, I haven’t much liked his other movies either) – but his films have the irreverent spirit that I think you may well need to make film about this group of people work. Yet, it ends up not working at all – because the screenplay takes such a conventional approach to Kenney’s life, rushing through his time in college right up until his death in his mid-30s – in about 100 minutes, essentially doing what all, conventional, boring biopics do and play like an assembly of greatest hits. Worse, the film takes some dark twists and turns, and Wain seems incapable of going there – the tone remains light and superficial throughout, even during bouts of depression, drug use and (maybe) a suicide. For a subject that is clearly a passion for all involved, you would think they would treat unconventional subjects in an unconventional way – not here.

 

The film follows Doug (Will Forte) from his time at Harvard, where he and best friend Henry Beard (Domhnall Gleason) do the Harvard Lampoon, and take to great heights, to the pair of them founding the National Lampoon magazine in the early 1970s, through its various incarnations and journeys, through Animal House and Caddyshack, drug abuse, marriages and friendships collapsing, etc. It’s less than a 20 year stretch, but it moves so quickly that we never get much of a handle on anything. In a weird, narrative device, the film casts Martin Mull as an older version of Doug Kenney to narrate the film, and comment on the action (it’s even stranger if you don’t know Kenney’s fate before watching the movie, as it comes out nowhere).

 

To be fair, I don’t think the movie is ever boring. Forte is good as Kenney, and Gleeson is even better as Beard – he has a dry wit about him that works here. The film casts a lot of well-known stars of today as well-known comedy stars involved in National Lampoon – and while none of them really look like the people they’re playing (with the exception of Lonny Ross as Ivan Reitman) or even sound much like them, the movie makes an amusing joke about this and moves on. The best of these performances is probably Joel McHale playing his Community co-star Chevy Chase. They didn’t much like each other on that TV show apparently, but McHale isn’t doing a hit job here (the film, I don’t think, is particularly nice to Chase either). No, he doesn’t try to look or sound like Chase, but he nails his physical movements in an amusing way.

 

What the movie really lacks is focus. The film introduces us to multiple characters, and then basically drops them without allowing them to do anything. We meet Kenney’s first wife – who is introduced as if she’s going to be his great love, and a major part of the story, and then she’s basically just gone. A second woman, who enters his life later (Emmy Rossum) isn’t given much to do either. Wain is never able to figure out how the handle the darker turns in the movie either. While there has always been a debate about whether Kenney’s death was an accident or a suicide, I think the movie makes its opinion clear it was a suicide – and yet, it pretty much comes out nowhere.

 

In short, I think there is enough about A Futile and Stupid Gesture that I liked that I wish it was better at just about everything it does. A film like this should work a lot better than it does – instead, this film is amusing in fits and starts, but doesn’t really go anywhere.

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Movie Review: Den of Thieves

Den of Thieves ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Christian Gudegast.

Written by: Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring.

Starring: Gerard Butler (Nick Flanagan), Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson (Levi Enson), Pablo Schreiber (Ray Merrimen), O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Donnie), Evan Jones (Bosco), Cooper Andrews (Mack), Maurice Compte (Benny 'Borracho' Megalob), Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau (Tony Z Zapata), Dawn Olivieri (Debbie O'Brien), Lewis Tan (Actor), Mo McRae (Gus Henderson), Meadow Williams (Holly), Brian Van Holt (Murph), Max Holloway (Bas).

 

If you’re going to steal, you may as well steal from the best. Den of Thieves is a L.A. set bank robbery film that desperately wants to be Michael Mann’s Heat, but of course cannot be, because nothing can be that great. It’s a film that flashes back and forth between the crooks and the cops, drawing parallels between the two of them, wanting to put them all on the same, morally dubious footing. The problem is that writer/director Christian Gudegast is no Michael Mann (no shame in that, no one is) –and he isn’t a William Friedkin either (To Live and Die in L.A. is another key influence here). Unlike those two directors, Gudegast cannot pull off the tricky balancing act between cops and criminals like they did, and he gets bogged down in a twisty, turny plot that wants to (and admittedly does) succeed in pulling the rug out from under us. Mann and Friedkin didn’t need to do that, because their films had some much else going for it. You almost wish that Gudegast had abandoned some of his delusions of grandeur here, and made what he clearly really wanted to – a pure heist movie. That’s where the movie is at its best. It’s when it strains to be serious, that the film feels like the 140 minute film that it is.

 

The film opens with a robbery by a professional crew, basically wearing paramilitary gear, as the rob an armored truck making an early morning donut stop. They don’t want the money inside the truck – they hadn’t picked any up yet, it’s empty – they want to truck itself. Things don’t go precisely as planned, and they end up killing a half dozen cops or so, but they get out. The crew is led by Merriman (Pablo Schreiber), along with Lieutenant Levi (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and his driver, Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) – among others. Because of all the dead cops, the crime draws the attention of the Major Crimes unit, led by Nick (Gerard Butler), whose crew of cops is basically a criminal gang itself – they seemingly operate with no barriers at all, have lots of money, and if they feel like it, will kidnap and beat-up suspects. Eventually it becomes clear that Nick knows Merriman is planning something, and Merriman knows he knows, and the two basically engage in a dick measuring context to see who will back down first.

 

There is a lot I liked about Den of Thieves. The robbery sequences are well handled, and the various shootouts work better than most of their kind. The performances are, for the most part, quite good. Pablo Schreiber is particular is excellent as Merriman, and with this alongside Straight Outta Compton and Ingrid Goes West, I’m willing to say now that O’Shea Jackson Jr. is a better actor than his father. Even Gerard Butler, an actor I don’t normally like, and 50 Cent – who can come across as emotionless – basically work here. While the film is way too long, it’s never boring.

 

I do think the film strains too much for seriousness, that doesn’t make much sense. You could jettison everything involving Butler’s wife and kids (which plays like Butler and company doing a juvenile version of the scenes in Heat, where Pacino and his wife’s marriage collapses, and he takes his TV) and not lose a thing. Likewise, you could lose a scene involving 50 Cent taking his daughter’s prom date to the garage for a taking to (you don’t see that daughter before than scene, or after) which is Gudegast basically trying to outdo a similar scene in Bad Boys II. Whenever the film strays too far from its main narrative it becomes more than a little awkward and stilted.

There is much to like about Den of Thieves, but I don’t think the film ever completely comes together. It’s trying too hard to do too much, and as a result, it doesn’t do any of it particularly well. This is Gudegast’s debut film, and if nothing else, it proves he has good taste in influences. Now, he needs to do something more with them, other than simply try and copy them.

 

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Movie Review: The Commuter

The Commuter ** / *****

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra.

Written by: Byron Willinger & Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle. 

Starring: Liam Neeson (Michael MacCauley), Vera Farmiga (Joanna), Patrick Wilson (Alex Murphy), Jonathan Banks (Walt), Sam Neill (Captain Hawthorne), Elizabeth McGovern (Karen MacCauley),  Killian Scott (Dylan), Shazad Latif (Vince), Andy Nyman (Tony), Clara Lago (Eva), Roland Møller (Jackson), Florence Pugh (Gwen), Dean-Charles Chapman (Danny MacCauley), Ella-Rae Smith (Sofia).

 

The Commuter is the latest entry in the Liam Neeson punches people genre – a genre that hasn’t really produced any good movies, but have basically been decent time wasters. He is teamed up with director Jaume Collet-Serra for the fourth time, but although I know I have seen the previous three – Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night – I also couldn’t give you a detailed breakdown of anything that happens in any of them (I don’t even remember the premise of Unknown if I’m being completely honest). So, walking into The Commuter, I really didn’t expect all that much – I was basically going because I commute every day on the train myself, so I kind of wanted to see how they made by every day life into an action movie. The film is a somewhat entertaining time waster for the first 70-80 minutes or so, but really does fly off the rails (literally) in the last act. It’s also got a somewhat downbeat, depressing tone to it, which it makes it harder for it to operate as a guilty pleasure than any movie involving Liam Neeson punching people on a train should be.

 

In the film, Neeson plays Michael MacCauley, a one-time cop, who gave that up to sell insurance – presumably because it was a safer and more lucrative job that being a cop was after his savings were wiped out in the 2008 Financial Crisis. Things finally seem to be close to be back on track again – his son is about to go to college, his marriage is basically okay, and while they aren’t rich, they are getting by. And then, one day, he gets fired – and his severance package isn’t even a payout, but rather an insurance policy (which, to an insurance company, is probably cheaper to get). He doesn’t know how he’s going to pay for anything, he doesn’t know how he’s going to tell his wife he’s out of a job – and someone just stole his cell phone. He’s trying to piece this altogether as he gets on his regular commuter train, from New York to somewhere outside the city – when an attractive woman (Vera Farmiga) sits down across from him. She tells him that if he can find someone on this train – someone who doesn’t belong – and places a tracking chip on their bag, he will get $100K. To prove she’s serious, she tells him to go to the bathroom, and find $25K hidden there. He does, and by doing so, essentially agrees to the terms of the deal. All he knows is that the person goes by the name of Prynne, and is getting off at Cold Springs – the last stop on the train.

 

The films opening scenes are filled with information we are sure will be relevant later – a news story about a city planner who recently killed himself, a train car with malfunctioning A/C, recognizable actors (Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill) in apparently meaningless roles, etc. And, of course, those all do become relevant along the commute – as Michael is able to piece together more and more of the story, and realizes just how in over his head he has gotten.

 

The film starts with an intriguing premise – and its best scene is the one between Neeson and Farmiga. It’s basically a premise like out of Richard Matheson’s The Box – do something, and you’ll get money, and someone you don’t know will get hurt. But the film really isn’t interested in that moral question – rather it just wants to get Neeson unravelling the mystery, and punching people. Like Non-Stop, it places him in an enclosed space – and sets him up to be the fall guy should something go wrong.

 

I enjoyed much of the movie, on its very limited level. Neeson is good at this type of film – he should be, he’s done enough of them – and its kind of fun to see him unravel the mystery, and get an applause moment by giving someone who works at Goldman Sachs the finger (the film knows it audience is basically working class white people, who whether they Trump or Sanders, hates Goldman Sachs). The film though feels the need to go from implausible and fun, to downright ridiculous in its last act – somehow even more so AFTER Neeson decouples a car from the train.

 

These movies are designed to be cheap, disposable counter programming in the cold winter months – something for adults to go to once they’ve seen the Oscar contenders, or for those who don’t give a crap about those Oscar contenders. You probably already know if you’ll like the movie or not, based on your feelings on the Liam Neeson punches people genre. There are no surprises here.

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Movie Review: Paddington 2

Paddington 2 **** 1/2 / *****

Directed by: Paul King.

Written by: Paul King and Simon Farnaby based on Paddington Bear created by Michael Bond.

Starring: Ben Whishaw (Paddington), Sally Hawkins (Mary Brown), Hugh Bonneville (Henry Brown), Julie Walters (Mrs. Bird), Hugh Grant (Phoenix Buchanan), Brendan Gleeson (Knuckles McGinty), Michael Gambon (Uncle Pastuzo), Imelda Staunton (Aunt Lucy), Madeleine Harris (Judy Brown), Samuel Joslin (Jonathan Brown), Jim Broadbent (Mr. Gruber), Tom Conti (Judge Gerald Biggleswade), Peter Capaldi (Mr. Curry), Richard Ayoade (Forensic Investigator), Noah Taylor (Phibs), Dame Eileen Atkins (Madame Kozlova).

 

In terms of family movies, nothing in recent years came as much as a pleasant surprise as 2014’s Paddington – an endlessly sweet, charming and funny film about the famous bear, from darkest Peru, who comes to London and finds a family and happiness. That film remains one of the best of its kind in recent years – and its sequel, Paddington 2, beats it in every conceivable way. Paddington 2 may just be the film we need right now – with its endless optimism, and the title character mantra “If you’re kind and polite, the world will be alright”. The film itself isn’t overtly political, and yet it becomes impossible to watch it, and not see it as a rejection of Brexit and Donald Trump. The film is a reminder that not everything in this world is dark and horrible – as much as it sometimes seems like it is.

 

In the film, Paddington is determined to get the perfect birthday present for his Aunt Lucy – because it’s not every day a bear turns 100 after all – and when he sees a one of a kind pop-up book in an antique store, he knows he has found the perfect gift. It costs a lot of money though – so Paddington sets about trying to make it. His plan is foiled though because he tells Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), a once famous actor, about the book – and he wants it for himself, for nefarious purposes. Through a series of events too complicated to mention, Paddington ends up arrested, and thrown into prison for stealing the book – but Paddington being Paddington, he quickly makes friends with all the inmates, as the Brown family sets about trying to prove his innocence.

 

There are few films I have ever seen that are as sweet as Paddington 2. The film is pure goofy fun pretty much from beginning to end. Director Paul King really outdoes his work from the previous film here. Much of the film’s visual look feels like a nod to Wes Anderson – the love of miniatures and pop-up books, the design of the prison (and the prison uniforms) – but there’s lot of other influences filtered in here as well – from Chaplin’s Modern Times to Keaton’s The General, and a whole lot else. Hugh Grant gives perhaps the best performance of his career as Phoenix – he’s in full Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets mode here, and he is an utter delight from beginning to end. Ben Whishaw, who often plays creepy characters, turned out to be the most utterly perfect choice to play Paddington imaginable.

 

The film is, simply put, a joy to behold from beginning to end. It’s not often I rave this much about a movie about a talking bear, and still think I’ve undersold it – but that very well may be the case here. The first highlight of the 2018 movie year is clearly this film, which I loved unashamedly.

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Movie Review: A Polka King

The Polka King *** / *****

Directed by: Maya Forbes.

Written by: Maya Forbes & Wallace Wolodarsky.

Starring: Jack Black (Jan Lewan), Jenny Slate (Marla Lewan), Jason Schwartzman (Mickey Pizzazz), Jacki Weaver (Barb), Vanessa Bayer (Binki Bear), J. B. Smoove (Ron Edwards), Robert Capron (David Lewan).

 

The story The Polka King tells won’t be surprising to anyone who has seen as many episodes of American Greed as I have (whether they did one on this story or not, I don’t know – but its right up their ally). A seemingly nice guy starts taking donations from elderly people he knows, promising high interest returns on their money. Then, of course, he has to start taking in more and more money from more and more investors in order to keep the scheme going. It’s a classic Ponzi scheme, and those all come crashing down eventually, because they must. A few things make the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Jan Lewan different – first, he was a Polish immigrant, second he seems like a legitimately nice guy, third he didn’t spend money on a lavish lifestyle for himself, and fourth, he was a well-known figure in Pennsylvania because of his Polka music. He really wanted the American dream – he just couldn’t get it the legal way.

 

The movie detailing his story is more than a little bit of a tonal free-for-all, and seems to be lacking in some very basic details about what Lewan did, and how (the biggest may well how he really did get his tour group to meet the Pope). It is buoyed by a number of energetic performances however, that keep the film from ever getting boring. Front and center is Jack Black as Jan Lewan himself – a big goofy smile plastered on his face, as he fronts his Polka band, and basically while he does everything else in his life. He is a devoted husband to Marla (Jenny Slate), who loves him, and has delusions of grandeur to match him, and father to their son David. Everyone it seems like Jan, except his mother-in-law Barb (Jacki Weaver) – going even more over-the-top than anyone else in the film (which is saying something) – who doesn’t trust him for a minute. Even the government agent who shuts down Lewan’s initial scheme (JB Smoove), likes the guy – and basically forgets about for years, after Jan convinces him he shut down his illegal investing business. Jan has that effect on people – you really be a criminal.

 

The film is directed by Maya Forbes, who struggles a little bit with the tone of the film, which is more often than not as big and broad as Black’s Jan Lewan himself. Mostly, that works, but the film takes some darker twists as it moves along – as it must – and Forbes struggles to find the right notes there. The last act of the movie is a mess in many ways – not least because it doesn’t feel like anyone is all that concerned with the details of what Lewan did.

 

Still, the film is mostly an interesting watch for the performances alone. Black is capable of doing this type of character in his sleep – Lewan fits in nicely alongside a performance like the one he gave in Richard Linklater’s Bernie (his career best work) – but he goes all in, as does Slate, especially as she tries to become a beauty queen, and Weaver. Jason Schwartzman is a nice counterbalancing performance – everyone else goes big, so he goes small – even as he explains how he wants to change his name to Mickey Pizzazz.

 

The Polka King does succeed in telling an odd story that you probably wouldn’t believe if someone made it up. It’s weird and strange, and while I don’t think it’s altogether successful, it’s an entertaining attempt at making a Polka version of The Wolf of Wall Street – and you probably aren’t getting that anywhere else.

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