REVIEW: The Prestige

MILD SPOILERS possible, secrets of the film will not be revealed.

Here's something to watch for when you go to a movie these days: If the film is ANY kind of mystery and/or thriller, and it opens with a character describing in careful detail a seemingly small point of philosophy or procedural concept, PAY ATTENTION. Chances are this character is actually laying out the structure of the film and the mechanism of it's central twists for you. Often, the dialogue will be repeated in voice-over during a "this is what happened, get it now?" montage at the finale, allowing the film to literally explain itself without seeming hackneyed.

Here, the telltale speech is delivered early on by Michael Caine as Cutter, a builder of complicated mechanical trickery for use by stage magicians near the turn of the century. As the film opens he is mentor and friend to Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman, aka "Wolverine") and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale aka "Batman," how cool is that!!??), a pair of aspiring magicians toiling as asisstants/audience-plants to their more famous counterparts. Cutter's speech describes for us the key points of any great magic act: The Pledge ("look, a bunny!") The Turn ("Poof! The Bunny is gone, and there's nothing up my sleeve!") and The Prestige ("Poof! The Bunny is back!")

The film offers it's Pledge right off the bat: While performing onstage, Angier finds himself snared in a lethally booby-trapped machine, and Borden is dragged before a court and charged with his murder. (Believe it or not, this is not a significant spoiler.)

Director Christopher Nolan's much-beloved temporally-fractured narrative dives into flashbacks to tell us how we got here, letting us mee the Angier is the genial showman, while Borden is a brooding and introverted prodigy, but they are good friends until a tragic stage accident breaks up the act and drives them apart; Angier blaming Borden for the accident, Borden tormented by the possibility that Angier is correct.

The division becomes a festering career rivalry between the two men, who both embark on dual careers as up-and-coming illusionists and eachother's own saboteur; each specializing in busting up the other's trickery onstage to humiliate and/or maim him. They'll fight over everything, including the affections of a Lovely Assistant in the form of Scarlett Johanssen (here reprising her recurring role as Viagra With A Personality,) but things take a Turn (remember?) when Borden gains fame for an amazing trick which seems to defy all logic and turns Angier into a full-on obsessive, fixated on discovering his rival's secrets.

Angier's quest takes him to America and the mountain hideaway of exiled inventor Nikola Tesla (yay!) and it's here that all descriptions of plot must stop, because it's here that "The Prestige" asks you to trust it and come along as it takes an astonishingly brave leap not only into a different realm of mystery but an entirely different GENRE. What Tesla provides both to the magicians and to the film-proper I will leave a mystery, but I will say this: How you react to the coming revelations will determine how you will react to the film, period. Nolan is asking his audience to engage in something they may not have come prepared or especially willing to engage in, and in doing so he shows a tremendous trust both for his audience and in his own skill. I'm in awe.

The film stacks mystery upon mystery, and just because the subject matter and genre make it patently obvious that we're being distracted by cinematic sleight-of-hand, but just which mystery IS the distraction and which ones are "real" is at the heart of the machine. Not only is almost everyone either a professional deciever, a casual liar or both, the film deliberately has fun with our notions of linear structure: At one point, Borden experiences a portion of the story by reading a diary stolen from Angier, in which Angier expounds at length on the reading of a diary he has stolen from Borden... and it's not done with you yet! This is the sort of film fans will still be "chewing on" months from now.

It's also, it must be said, not afraid of going into dark places. Both lead characters are borderline-sociopaths when you get right down to it, and their rivalry draws real blood.. and not only their own. In addition, well... let's just say that I don't think most people will be especially glad to see how certain tricks involving small animals are actually accomplished.

You couldn't ask for a better cast for this story. Jackman, Caine, Bale and Johanssen slip into period roles like second nature; Jackman especially finally gets a chance to retract the Adamantium claws and put his finely-tuned theatrical presence to use on film, while Johanssen speaks and moves as though the mannerisms (and the, ahem, "uplifting" fashions) of the era were invented just for her.

"The Prestige" serves notice on behalf of Christopher Nolan that he is ready and willing to make full use of the clout that "Batman Begins" earned him, and it's a bullseye. This is one of THE films of 2006, one of the ones people will be talking about long after the year is done.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

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REVIEW: Flags of Our Fathers

Lots of famous actors go on to become directors later in life, but have ANY in most of our lifetimes done so with the grand success that Clint Eastwood has? Here is a man who had already become a Hollywood legend twice over when he first began directing, and since that point has delivered a portfolio of work that would easily have made him a titan of his art even if there'd never been a "Dirty Harry" or Spagehtti Westerns.

"Flags of Our Fathers" has been called, incorrectly, a work of "de-mythologizing" WWII and Iwo Jima. In fact, it's more simply a work of examination: The legend of WWII as recalled by movies, photos, etc. and the reality as remembered but seldom spoken about by the men who fought it. The subject matter at hand just about writes itself: The famous flag-raising over Iwo Jima re-galvanized the homefront and turned it's surviving raisers into bond-rally celebrities... but the psychological whiplash of having endured horrible combat and then being asked to pitch a hopeful, sanitized version of it to the public drains them emotionally and (the film and history would argue) ultimately destroys at least one of them.

The film is structured, at first disconcertingly-so, as a time-skipping stream of consciousness narrative; leaping back and forth in chronology between the wartime events before, during and after the battle, the homefront tour AND the present, where the son of one of the three unwitting icons researches the history of the famous photo as part of a book (the film is based on the resulting text.) As such, there really isn't much in the way of a beginning, middle and end through-line to follow which, eventually, has the effect of letting us experience the strained psyches of the men we follow. Adam Beach, late of "Windtalkers," has the "showiest" part as Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who takes the tour the hardest, while Ryan Philippe gives a performance of powerful restraint in the nominal lead.

The scenes of combat on Iwo Jima itself are excellently-mounted but sparse, here used primarily as flashbacks. Those hoping for a full-on battle film, though, will get their wish: While shooting this film, Eastwood and company shot a second feature covering the battle from the perspective of the dug-in Japanese troops. Titled "Letters from Iwo Jima," this parallel film to "Flags" is due out in February.

Like much of Eastwood's recent output, the film is both quietly powerful and free of heavy-handedness in terms of message. There's been some controversy over the film's supposed function as an anti-war film, but it's not as simple as all that. Those looking for a condemnation of war will find it, as will those looking for a celebration of the Greatest Generation. Those looking for a good movie... ditto.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

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REVIEW: The Marine (2006)

I'm of the mind that we can't really have too many movies celebrating the various heroics of our men in uniform, don't The Marines deserve to be represented onscreen by something a little better than "The Marine"? The film's trailer ("Meet a one man strike force... Who NEVER SURRENDERS!!!!") has been the funniest thing playing in theaters for weeks now, and the final film actually lives up: If this was sold as a parody, it'd be winning comedy awards right now.

Here's a deliberate throwback to low-budget American hyper-action prior to the late-1990s Asian Invasion, pitched hard at fans who're convinced that modern action heroes are too sleek, too refined and know their way around an English sentence entirely too well. The lead is given to John Cena, a star of WWE wrestling (who also produced the film.) It would be wrong to critique Cena's acting, as the film doesn't ask him to do any as John Triton, an ex-Marine forced into civilian life after.. wait for it.. disobeying a direct order while rescuing POWs from and Al Qaeda Compound (!) in Iraq.

The baddies are a gang of jewel thieves (roll call: Evil Hot Bitch! Angry Black Guy! Crazy Guy! Vaugely-Ethnic Swarthy Guy!) on the run after using something like half a munitions depot to steal a bagful of diamonds. Their led by Robert Patrick, late of "Terminator 2," doing the best interpretation on this part since Lance Henricksen in "Stone Cold." The two story-points meet at a South Carolina (the state is identified by name nearly ten times in the first half, hoping to distract people from how suspiciously the locales look like Australia) gas station, where the crooks hijack Triton's car and hot blonde wife.

Triton, fortunately, manages to happen upon The Most Indestructible Police Car On The Planet Earth and gives chase. He rest of the film follows Triton as he stalks his prey through the swamps, stopping occasionall to punch people to death or jump away from massive explosions.

There's fun to be had with the film's "Renegade"-like unnapologetic doltishness, but it can't sustain the whole film. Certain parts are dopey enough to be worth the ticket price on their own, like the eye-poppingly bad taste of the payoff to a running gag about Angry Black Guy's hatred of rock candy, or the obscenely silly reaction-shot of Patrick when his henchmen shout of Triton "This guy's like the Terminator!!" This stuff is cotton candy for action afficionados who feel Jet Li and Keanu Reeves are too "gheeeey," the rest of you may want to chew some Orbit gum afterwards.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

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Jesus Camp 2

Sequels come out so fast now...

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REVIEW: Man of The Year

Spoiler Warning.

"Man of The Year" is being pitched on the lines of a movie that may otherwise have been called "President Doubtfire", the ads promising an inoccuous one-joke comedy about Robin Williams as a wacky TV comedian who runs for President... and wins! With "Wag The Dog's" Barry Levinson at the helm, that the actual film is something entirely different shouldn't really be a surprise. But then Levinson goes and does something fairly devious... he builds a second surprise into the first, so that what at first appears to be a dark political satire hiding inside a "zany" comedy premise unfolds further to reveal itself as... a quaint 40s-style morality play.

The foundation could've originated as the pitch for a feature-length spinoff of "The Daily Show" (or "Colbert Report" for that matter): Cable TV political-satirist Tom Dobbs runs for president as a barnstorming, fun-poking independent candidate... and actually WINS! Robin Williams plays Dobbs, and at first his broad, scattershot brand of humor seems an ill-fitting substitute for John Stewart's politically-charged sarcasm; until one realizes that Levinson and Williams are playing Dobbs in another direction - that of the Capraesque everyman do-gooder.

And while Capra's era was mercifully spared the amuck technology that drives the film's primary plot twist, he would doubtlessly have found common ground with the tough nut of right and wrong it brings about. The election has been conducted using an upstart company's electronic voting kiosks, and a vote-counting program which a low-level employee (Laura Linney) had discovered is fundamentally buggy. It's this bug that causes Dobbs' surprise electoral win, and gives way to the central quandry of the film: Dobbs is a good man, in this for the right reasons, who could very likely make a good president. But his victory isn't legitimate, and soon enough he knows it. What's the right thing to do? Tell the truth and lose the chance or live the lie and use it for good? Complicating matters are Linney's former employers, who will be ruined if the truth comes out and are willing to go to dark extremes to cover up the bug.

The best intentions are on display here, but it doesn't entirely "work." Folksy charm goes a long way, but doing a political satire thats almost entirely apolitical is a difficult wire to walk. Also, the "thriller" storyline focusing on Linney's persecution goes WAY dark WAY too early on, and the effect is whiplash-inducing. Most of these flaws are polished away by a fine cast and a likable atmosphere, but they leave issues that'll nag you later on.

Imperfect, but worthy and worth seeing.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

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MINI-REVIEW: "The Departed"

I've now seen "The Departed" twice since it came out last Friday, and I've been struggling to figure out how to approach reviewing it. Or, rather, how to review it in greater depth than simply telling you the basic truth: That's it's one of the best, if not THE best, major movie of the year and that you should absolutely go right out and see it.

Outside of that, I find that the film defies my ability to construct a useful review by way of it's stripped-down, unpretentious edge: It doesn't aim to turn it's story or character arcs into larger symbols, it attaches no "greater" issues or themes to it's central plot other than eternal quandries of loyalty, honor, etc. And while, as usual, one could write a dozen reviews just relating director Martin Scorsese's skill at building tension and constructing a scene... here the best examples would only be spoiled by description.

Briefly: The film is a loose remake of Hong Kong's "Infernal Affairs," here relocated to Boston. Leonardo DiCaprio is a state trooper drafted as a deep-cover mole into the local Irish mafia, while Matt Damon is another trooper who's been drafted as the Irish mafia's mole into the police department. At the center of both men's lives, to varying degrees, are Vera Farmiga as a psychiatrist unknowingly treating both men, Martin Sheen, Mark Whalberg and Alec Baldwin as the police superiors and Jack Nicholson as Luciferian mobster Frank Costello.

The cast is, across the board, excellent. Scorsese finally wrings the excellent performance out of DiCaprio that he's been promising us for two movies now, Damon is fine as a self-satisfied heel, Sheen and Baldwin serve notice that they do remember how act with greatness after all, Farmiga holds her own in the difficult position of being the film's lone strong female voice, and Whalberg has probably never been better in a role that at first seems extraneous and soon proves anything but simply because the character is so enjoyable to watch.

Anything more... honestly, I can't and shouldn't say. Let it be enough that you need to see this, even if your not a fan of the genre, the maker or anyone in it. It's a good movie, simple as that.

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(not really) Friday the 13th part XI

Attention: Rights-holders to the "Friday the 13th" franchise.

Make THIS movie:




It will make you piles of money.

You're welcome.

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