Veronica Mars

Rating: ***1/2

The story is rather timeless: a cult series beloved by a rabid fanbase is cancelled before its time. What happened next though is not. The every-record-breaking achievement of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter was a wonder to behold, the ultimate fan expression of love and appreciation mixed in with those sticky issues of closure and inability to let go. The idea of a Veronica Mars movie kicked around the backlot of Warner Bros. for a while, but it’s only when the fans took over that it actually happened. Now two questions remain: will it satisfying the eager beavers who forked over $5.7 million for it, and will non-fans see the appeal?

The answer to the first question is a resounding and enthusiastic yes. The Veronica Mars movie is a colourful cavalcade of beloved characters, tenderly picking up the threads left behind from the series’ three seasons and weaving a new mystery that somehow, inexplicably, brings it all together. Love a good P.I. story with shifty characters, corrupt cops, and a million who-coulda-done-its? I’m sure you’ll be able to like Veronica Mars, but the love belongs to the fans.

TIFF – Keyhole

Rating: ****

So far as Guy Maddin movies go, Keyhole is almost comprehendible, which despite the artistry and skill of the film is still kind of a disappointment because if there’s one thing you never want to be able to do in a Guy Maddin movie, it’s follow along. You see, a Maddin movie is one of those experiences where you want to leave the theatre and ask somebody what they thought and nod knowingly as if what he’s describing is exactly the same thing you think you saw and you don’t want to look like an idiot.

Keyhole is a stream on consciousness movie. It’s about life and death, and secrets and lies, and regrets and reconsiderations. Taking place entirely in an ethereal plain made up to look like your typical North American home. The various players appear to be an assortment of characters from the 1930s, gangsters mostly, hold up in a house during a police siege. It’s the end of the line, but the boss Ulysses does not want to fight his way out, rather there’s something he needs to accomplish in the house before the eventual raid.

Of course, that’s the straight-ahead, almost myopic perception of what the film’s all about. Being how this is a Guy Maddin film there’s layer upon layer of subtext, but there’s still this nagging bit about how I could follow along with the story. Where was the confusion? The bewilderment? The befuddlement? You know, all the staples of a Maddin classic. There was the black and white film, and odd moments of ghost falacio that remind you what world you’re playing in. And then there’s the treatment of Winnipeg as a Wonderland of an acid trip, which are all positive steps in the right direction.

This also might be Maddin’s most star-studded cast. Jason Patric plays Ulysses and throws himself into the world of Maddin with tremendous gusto. Isabella Rossellini, a veteran of the worlds of Maddin since The Saddest Music in the World, plays Ulysses’ wife Hyacinth, who fills the film with emotion and mystery. The always reliably creepy Udo Kier goes for daffy comedic, while former Kid in the Hall Kevin McDonald puts in a brief but memorable role as the loose link in Ulysses’ chain.

But like past Maddin films, Keyhole is a marvel of economy. Almost performed exclusively on the single, though complex, set of Ulysses’ house, Maddin makes the whole thing come alive thanks to the energetic performance of the cast, light camera work, and Spartan art direction. In other words, the house comes alive with both ghosts and memories; feeling that’s both nostalgic and visceral.

Walking out of the theatre, you realize that your head doesn’t have that usual ringing that a Guy Maddin film leaves you with, but that’s not to say that there wasn’t a lot to think about. There’s a surprisingly haunted quality that washes over you, and that’s despite the fact that there’s little on the surface to tie your personal experiences to the narrative and the tremendous comedy Maddin infuses the film with. Still, it’s a little nag, and that’s Maddin’s great gift, to smack you in the face with so much emotion, and so many visuals you don’t know what to believe anymore. Bravo sir.

Hobo with a Shotgun

Rating: ***

The effect of GRINDHOUSE, the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino experiment in resurrecting extinct forms of cinema, still reverberates. Most people agree that the best part of the whole GRINDHOUSE experiment were the fake trailers in-between the feature programs. Rodriguez already took his shot when he turned MACHETE into a full-fledged movie of its own, but now, inexplicably, it’s Jason Eisener’s turn. Eisener lucked out to begin with by winning a contest to have his original faux grindhouse trailer, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN.

Expanded into a full feature, Eisener captures the grindhouse aesthetic with ease, and the streets of Dartmouth are an easy pass for the dirty, dingy avenues of Anywhere, American urban decay. Rutger Hauer steps into the roll as the nameless Hobo, who rides the rails and arrives at Hope Town. He’s immediately confronted with all the corruption and violence of a city run by the wicked, in this case crime boss Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sociopathic sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). When the Hobo saves a young prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth), he tries to report the criminals to the police, only to find that the police are all but owned by the crooks.

So what is a Hobo to do? Well, in this instance he performs in a bum fight to get the $50 he needs to buy his precious lawnmower from a pawn shop and get the heck out of dodge. Too bad then that this is a Hobo with a conscience, and when the hoodlums of Hope Town finally push him too far, the Hobo puts his $50 on a shotgun instead, and begins to clean up the lawless town, becoming a folk hero in the process. Of course, Drake isn’t going to take that lying down, and the whole affair escalates in one bloody mess after the other.

Oh yes, there will be blood. The movie no sooner gets started when the Hobo comes across a man who ends up getting his head squash under the tires of Slick’s car, all for the apparent amusement of Drake and his gang, and done in the style of the ancient gladiator arenas. If one thing saves the scene from complete gruesomeness, it’s the fact that the victim is Robb Wells, Ricky of THE TRAILER PARK BOYS fame. But fans of blood and guts will definitely not be disappointed. There are more than a few disembowelments and dismemberments, and the Hobos shotgun never seems to need reloading.

Fortunately, the acting is appropriately over the top and well-suited to the tone of the film. Downey is especially a stand-out as the villainous Drake, who is as dastardly a villain as one can expect from something like this. Smith, made famous as the clean cut, troubled teen from the old WB show EVERWOOD, is unrecognizable underneath big sunglasses and greasy, slicked up hair as Slick. Dunsworth, meanwhile, adds at least one touch of adorableness in a morass of ugliness. She wears the worn mantle of hooker with a heart of gold well, and would stand comfortable alongside Rose McGowan’s Cherry Darling in the modern grindhouse heroine hall of fame.

The one weak link, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, is Hauer. Now Hauer’s a class act, no question, and there’s nothing wrong with his performance per se, but it’s just a little hard to shake the knowledge that you’re watching Rutger Hauer play the Hobo with a Shotgun. He’s like a sanitized version of what the character should be, with perfect teeth and a kind of Hoboish sunny disposition. In the original trailer, the Hobo was as borderline as the crooks and criminals he was blasting away with his shotgun, and looked a little deranged while doing it. Hauer never quite gets to that level, but in exchange there’s more gravitas and seriousness. The trick is I’m not sure how well that does in tone with the rest of the movie.

But by and large, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN is B-movie goodness; gritty, dirty and filled with high energy and enough blood and guts for three normal slasher films. It should be enormously satisfying for people with fondness for vintage grindhouse, and it manages to achieve it with very little in the way of winking at the camera, or making self-referential nods. So it can be done, but the question is can it be done again? Can the new wave of grindhouse be maintained? I guess that depends on, as always, the box office numbers.

The Town

Rating: ****

Since abandoning his supposed career as an action star, Ben Affleck has enjoyed a tremendous creative rejuvenation and critical response where lesser actors might have been taken out with the tide following the type of tabloid scrutiny he received. As a filmmaker, Affleck has shown an affinity for the type of characterization and plot-driven storytelling that is sorely lacking in films like Surviving Christmas, or Paycheck, or Pearl Harbor. Even his acting has gotten better with really good performances in Hollywoodland and State of Play.

But really, Affleck the writer/director is where it’s at these days. His latest, The Town, which is now available in Blu-ray and DVD, isn’t quite as compelling as his last film Gone Baby Gone, but it is a thoroughly involving and well-made heist film. Back in his native Boston, Affleck’s adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves is about the villains, dreamers, wise guys, and good guys that populate Boston’s Charleston neighbourhood. A title card at the beginning of the film says that Charlestown churns out a disproportionate number of armed robbers, but that’s only the beginning of the story.

Affleck plays Doug, a Southie criminal that’s not so vaguely dissatisfied with his criminal life, but he finds himself rather indentured to Fergie (Pete Postlethwaite), the local crime boss who Doug’s father worked for before getting sent to prison. While robbing a bank, Doug and his crew take the bank manager hostage and then release her near the shore after they’re sure that they’ve made a clean getaway. The job nearly went south because of Doug’s increasingly impulsive right hand man and best friend James (Jeremy Renner), so Doug begins to interact with the manager, a woman named Claire (Rebecca Hall), initially to find out what she knows, but he soon begins a romantic relationship with her.

Naturally, the local FBI, led by Special Agent Adam Frawley (played with the All-American good looks and square jaw of Jon Hamm), is closing in on Doug and his gang, which only quickens Doug’s desire to abandon his life of crime, and perhaps seek a new life somewhere with Claire. It’s this kind of character drama, rather than action-packed heist theatrics that carries The Town through to an emotionally-charged and intense finale where the outcome is far from certain.

If anything, the action seems almost mitigated and secondary with the focus on Doug’s struggle between his new love with Claire and his desire to get out of South Boston while struggling with loyalty to his crew and the life he’s used to, no matter how dreary, in Charlestown. Affleck is compelling low-key and is convincing as man beaten down by his circumstances. He also gives himself some very good veteran actors to play of off. The proverbial ghost of Doug’s jailed father, as embodied by the great Chris Cooper, throws a long shadow on Doug’s actions through the rest of the film. Postlethwaite is also fantastic, balancing a cold shrewdness and menace as Fergie.

The film also features some acting surprises too. Renner comes across a little too over the top at times. James is a goon, and he’s gradually becoming more ensconced in his gooning as Doug’s desire to leave gets stronger. James spent nine years in jail, and it’s implied that he was, in part, covering for Doug, which aggravates Doug’s guilt further. But from they way James acts and uses emotional blackmail to get Doug to stick around and pull him into one more heist, it’s no wonder that Doug wants to get out of Southie. Another surprise is Blake Lively, who with a convincingly think Boston accent and an emphasis on body language does a lot with the kind of thin role of Doug’s jilted ex-girlfriend Krista.

As I think about it, my preference for Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone comes from the fact that the former is a much tighter, and smaller scale story when compared to The Town. This film has a lot of various plot threads and a rather large web of interconnectivity between various characters, which makes the expanded edition of the film included on a future Blu-ray beneficial. Sometimes brevity and judicious editing are a filmmaker’s friend, but I think The Town would benefit from extra time an the extended cut.

Regardless, The Town stands as a fine film in its own right and as another feather in the Affleck filmmaking cap. The action is well-executed and thrilling, and the character drama is engrossing with mostly excellent performances. And as bonus, it’s all set with the authentic gritty back drop of Boston’s own back streets and back alleys, not to mention the climactic shoot out at “Boston’s Cathedral”, Fenway Park. Affleck definitely shows that he has the chops here, both as an actor and as a director, and the result is a well-made and rewarding film.

Love Ranch

Rating: ***

The new film Love Ranch does something unusual for a Hollywood film, it makes age look sexy. True, this is a film about the first legal brothel in Nevada, but the honorific title of sex bomb doesn’t belong to one of the nubile young actresses that play the ladies of the house, but rather the Academy Award-winning Dame that plays their madam. It should come as no surprise that Helen Mirren owns sex appeal at 65 years of age, but it’s just nice to a movie let it be. Of course, we can probably credit that to Mirren’s husband Taylor Hackford, who happens to also be the film’s director.

But leaving aside the aesthetics for a moment, Love Ranch is an interesting story. The titular establishment, which opened for the first time in the 70s, was the subject of much controversy, even in the laissez-faire state of Nevada. The Ranch was the brainchild of Charlie Bontempo, but it was really his put upon wife Grace Bontempo that kept up the business and made it lucrative. One might even say it was a model. Charlie had his ambitions to turn Reno into the new Vegas with himself as the Bugsy Siegel-like mastermind, but as the story goes, behind every great man…

Mirren stars as Grace and she’s teamed with fellow Oscar-winner Joe Pesci as Charlie; an odder couple on film you can hardly find. Yet somehow, for some strange reason, the combination of classically Brit Mirren and obnoxious Jersey boy Pesci works, and works beautifully. You buy them as a couple because of their dynamism, because there’s something that the one needs from the other and vice versa. Pesci is restraint in his performance playing a kind of giddy con man that hides his more thuggish inclinations that only come out when things don’t go his way.

The movie follows Grace and Charlie has the latter copes with his latest brush at immortality: managing a washed up heavy-weight fighter named Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). Of course because of Charlie’s questionable past in regards to law enforcement, on paper, the management of Bruza falls to Grace. But while Grace knows nothing about managing a boxer, she does know something about men, and what she gets out of Bruza – attentiveness, passion and a little danger – is a far cry from what she gets from Charlie – philandering, neglect and violent leanings.

Grace begins a secret affair with Bruza. Secret because if Charlie ever found out then Bruza’s value would decrease both as a person and as a boxer. The relationship between Grace and Bruza is utterly believable in the moment as Mirren and Peris-Mencheta have palpable chemistry. Still, there’s so much more punch to the stuff going on between Mirren and Pesci that when the movie doesn’t focus on their tumultuous marriage/business partnership the mind wanders. You want to learn more about their background, how they met, and how they engaged in this let’s say “unique” business venture together. The film has an ample and talented supporting cast including Bryan Cranston, Gina Gershon, M.C. Gainey, and Bai Ling, but who’s kidding who? The only stars of this movie are Pesci and Mirren.

The screenplay itself, as penned by American Gangster writer Mark Jacobson, seems a bit too all over the place. It makes no moral judgments against the Bontempos but it doesn’t do much to stick up for them either. The film required the assured tone of P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights, which chronicled the lives of people in the porn industry in a sympathetic way while showing it for what it is, warts and all. Combined with Mirren’s melodramatic narration that seems more romance novel than anything, and the opportunity to make something unique and powerful about sex workers and their industry seems wasted. Especially in a historical context.

Structurally, Love Ranch struggles to get beyond the typical biography pattern of a good-spirited character, bogged down with adversity but given the strength to overcome and stand on their own as a smart, successful and independent person. But this type of storytelling always strikes me as more TV-movie-of-the-week than something made of people with Oscar-calibre skill. Still, that skill comes through thanks to Mirren and Pesci’s performances. Love Ranch was interesting, though not all together involving. Not nearly as lurid or as lucid as it could be, Love Ranch is fittingly in the middle of nowhere thematically.

Hot Docs - Talhotblond

Rating: ****

With MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and all the assorted social networking facets that exist the days, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time, so deeply personalizing one’s self online was strange and one could never be sure if the person on the other end was being earnest. Sure, there are still plenty of people on the internet, predators mostly, that are pretending to be something they’re not, but often we take people at their word that they are who they say they are. Think about it: how many times has someone you’re not sure you know, friended you on Facebook or the like?

But filmmaker Barbara Schroeder quickly sets internet paranoia back by about 10 years in her first feature documentary Talhotblond. Utilizing journalistic precision and impeccable research, Schroeder recounts the unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the murder of Brian Barrett, a promising young man that got caught up in the worst case of fatal attraction since, well, Fatal Attraction.

The story begins in online chat rooms and a cyberspace tale of boy meets girl. On one end is marinesniper, an 18-year-old enlistee about to head off to the frontlines of Afghanistan and Iraq; on the other is talhotblond, a bright precocious and virginal teen queen with blond hair and long legs. A torrid cyber-romance takes place between the two as marinesniper and talhotblond participate in X-rated chats, or sexting as the kids call it. By all appearances talhotblond was every inch the 18-year-old vixen she said she was, and marinesniper the ripped and dedicate young man doing his patriotic duty.

There was just one problem though: marinesniper was a 46-year-old factory worker pretending to be a battle-hardened soldier looking for comfort in his small town girl back home. Of course, talhotblond wasn’t all she advertised to be either, but that’s a twist best left revealed in context of watching the story unfold in the movie. Indeed, Talhotblond may be the best story Law & Order: Special Victims Unit never told. A startling tale of deception, obsession and naiveté taken to perilous extremes that resulted in the death of a young man whose only crime was being a bit too trusting.

Using exclusive access to the players and insightful analysis from psychologist Rex Julian Beaber, Schroeder paints a complete anecdotal and psychological dissection of the tragedy. What drove Tomas Montgomery, a man with a steady job, family and, by all accounts, a happy, productive life, to become so thoroughly obsessed with a woman he never met that he would kill someone for her exclusive affections? As incomprehensible as that question is, the filmmakers do a pretty reasonable job not writing Montgomery off as a gross pervert, and tries hardily to understand him. His counterpart, the woman calling herself “talhotblond” remains a sphinx though. Not including her in the doc, either through her own refusal to participate or the filmmakers purposefully excluding her, makes the film’s title character its real villain.

In thinking about the film, that part is problematic. Such great pains were taken to cover the field and understand the players, as each text message shown seemed mined with subtext. But the woman at the centre of it all was conspicuous by her absence. Combined with the posthumous narration by an actor playing Brian Barrett, the film seemed uncomfortably partisan. What is admirable about the film are the facts of the case, and they way they’re presented, and what is surprising about it is that those facts are so lurid, so scandalous, that given our current media culture, this story is not more well known.

Schroeder’s compelling narrative style though makes Talhotblond one of those has to be seen to be believed documentaries. The implicit tragedy of the film is that the most honest person in the central triangle is the one that paid the most terrible price, and the feeling that Brian Barrett was left alone out in the vast internet forest without adequate protection. But what is adequate protection? Is it a crime to play act or pretend to be something you’re not? Is that not what things like World of Warcraft and similar online games, are all about? Talhotblond is a guaranteed discussion provoker with no easy answers.

Harry Brown

Rating: ****

Revenge is a pretty durable theme in movies, and on the surface the new film HARRY BROWN has a lot in common with the Charles Bronson franchise DEATH WISH. Both are about urban decay, personal loss, ineffectual police and the horrid discover of what a man is capable of and how easy it is to pursue those dark matters. However, what’s lacking is a kind of raw-raw, “Kill-‘em-all!” philosophy that’s embedded in the DEATH WISH films, vessels of a time in urban America when crime was a sphinx and completely impenetrable.

The background of HARRY BROWN is the socio-economic conditions of the council-estates, the British version of social housing. Not that this is a documentary or anything, but it is made clear that this is the background for the film. It’s a place where things are desperate and where the hooligans can have an easy foothold because the area is made of people that can’t easily defend themselves. Like the title character’s best friend Leonard (David Bradley) who starts carrying a knife to defend himself when he begins to be bullied by the local youth. Believing the police unable or unwilling to help, Leonard assuredly tells Harry that he will defend himself if necessary.

Leonard is, naturally, killed, and the police, as he predicted, seem unable to help bring the people responsible to justice. Against this though are Harry’s own frustrations about his fear about the local youths and his unwillingness to travel through an underpass, even considering that it’s a short cut to the hospital where his wife lies dying. The one-two punch of the death of his wife and Leonard makes Harry depressed. He’s either looking for a fighting or looking for an out when he encounters some local punks in that same underpass after Leonard’s funeral. Either way, his training as a former marine kicks in and he kills the punk. And an idea is formed…

In terms of glorification for D.I.Y. justice, HARRY BROWN falls somewhere between DEATH WISH and GRAN TORINO. Unlike Bronson’s character in the DEATH WISH series, Harry’s vengeance is directed to the people that killed that his friend, and he has a plan that consists of more complicated mechanisms than walking around the neighbourhood with a loaded gun. (It’s worth keeping in mind too that in DEATH WISH, the gang that kills Bronson’s wife and rapes his daughter are never seen again after that scene. And there’s no greater evidence that it didn’t take the writers much to push Bronsan’s character to kill.) Violence isn’t the point in the film, but more the character’s set loose frustration. The discover y of violence as an easy solution.

What sells the film is the performance by Michael Caine as Harry Brown. He’s able to play both sides of the characters soul: the inner soldier and the outer man broken by age and his own perceived ineffectualness. Harry’s character, as essayed by Caine, is kind of easy to understand, which is really something giving the complicated morality of the situation. Caine is good here. He’s reserved, he’s thoughtful and he makes damn sure that he’s not giving Harry even a gleam in his eye or any other hint that this character is having a good time. Harry Brown is a pretty compelling character, and its Caine’s gravitas and poise that helps sell it.

The file itself is built pretty standard. Anytime the story veers away to the detectives investigating the death of Leonard or combating gang activity in the estate, the movie comes across like any other police procedural. The third act too was a typical Hollywood conclusion with Harry heroically saving the cops, and finding out that there’s a bit of a conspiracy afoot with all the local criminality. I could have done without any of that, but I suppose they had to find a way to wrap the film and that was the best of all options. But when focused on Harry Brown, HARRY BROWN is a fascinating character study in the well-worn cinematic genre of the revenge fantasy.

TIFF Review- Bitch Slap

Rating: **

To review Bitch Slap in any kind of serious manner almost misses the point. Basically you’re either going to roll with it or you won’t. Call it an homage to 70s sexploitation, call it Maxim meets Fight Club, call it shallow and pointless, but don’t call it unengaging. It wears in places, I’ll admit. No matter how well made, or how much titillation you cram in to it, a ridiculously stupid movie will make you feel dumber just for watching it, and walking out of Bitch Slap you feel very moronic indeed. I applaud director Rick Jacobson for getting something this brazen together though, believe it or not it takes a lot of effort to get this low, this fast.

The story (such as it is) follows three insanely hot women as they bring low rent gangster Gage (Michael Hurst) out into the middle of the desert to coax the location of some hidden treasure out of him. But he’s belligerent, and uncooperative, so because these three are a trio of “the craziest bitches” you’ll ever meet, Gage ends dead before he gets a chance to spin too many a web of lies. The ladies are the cool and collected Hel (Erin Cummings), the dim-witted Trixie (Julia Voth) and the borderline personality Camero (America Olivo). Each burned by Gage, they decide to combine their efforts and burn him. Naturally, each of them has a secret they’re keeping from the others, and complications abound as they search for the buried stash between some vaguely and not-so-vaguely lesbian scenes.

Say you want about the content of their characters, but the three lead actresses really throw themselves into their parts. They doesn’t require much in the way of acting talent obviously, but there is the costuming restraints, the hackneyed dialogue and the less than logical nature of the story must have given them more than enough as an actor to work with. Jacobson, who I understand directed more episodes of Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess than anyone else, features actors from both shows in prominent cameos. Kevin Sorbo fits right in as a government spook, while Lucy Lawless and Renée O'Connor are somewhat harder to spot as a pair of nuns.

Then, to further solidify its B-movie creds, Bitch Slap sets itself down in one location for much of the movie, and should it have to go anywhere else, that’s where the handy, and obvious, green screen comes into play. It’s hard to fault Bitch Slap for its technical choices though. I mean quite honestly, what else were they supposed to do? It’s not like a CG Vegas detracts you from all the hitting, biting, hair pulling, open-mouth kissing and fondling. And then there’s the costuming: fish nets, halter tops, tight-fitting jeans, land ow hem lines, but let’s face it, all the money was probably spent on altering the slutty clothes to make the ladies look sluttier. Not that I’m complaining of course.

But as I said, Bitch Slap defies criticism because its either going to appeal or it won’t. I will say that all the attractive women in the world, despite their provocative state of dress can’t always make up for scriptural and narrative shortcomings, and after the initial titillation wears off, all your left with is campy acting and ridiculous dialogue built on a razor thin premise that still has an hour left in it. Bitch Slap is nice to look at, but like any relationship built on superficiality it loses its shine after a while and you’re left wondering why exactly you’re here to begin with. But it was sweet there for a while.

Public Enemies

Rating: ****

John Dillinger may be an American legend, even in his own time, but he’s hardly been done justice, so to speak, on the big screen. The new film Public Enemies, based on the exhaustively researched book by Bryan Burrough, is about as close to fact that any film about Dillinger has probably got. Part docudrama as well as mob drama, filmmaker Michael Mann has put together an all-star cast to bring the true story of the quintessential era of the American gangster to life, creating an ambitious movie that’s large in scope, but still has an art house feel.

Johnny Depp is both an unusual and natural choice to play Dillinger. By far, it’s probably the most “normal” role he’s memorably taken on since Donnie Brasco. Depp’s an oddly appropriate selection to play Dillinger; both are accidental heroes that became beloved in spite of themselves. Depp, the oddly quirky actor who made a name for himself playing relatable outsiders, became a star quite out of the blue when one of those characters caught on like wild fire. Dillinger was a run-of-the-mill criminal, locked up for robbing a grocery store only to embrace the criminal lifestyle while behind bars. After serving his time he became a bank robber, and in the midst of the Great Depression was seen as a kind of Robin Hood figure, sticking it to the man.

But Public Enemies doesn’t go into too great a detail about why Dillinger was a hero to the people, so the story kind of lacks context. Indeed, many of the criminals labelled “public enemy” were at once feared and beloved for their criminality. In an era where corporate greed had caused so much suffering, people like Dillinger were giving them a taste of their own medicine, especially seeing as how they refused to take money from individuals even when it was offered to them. Context is what was missing, and I think that if you’re someone who’s not overly familiar with the era then there may be a disconnect in knowing why Dillinger was Dillinger.

The other part of the story has to do with the birth of the FBI, and the dogged Agent Melvin Purvis, played by Christian Bale. To be frank, the FBI portions feel kind of marginalized, and kind of Law & Order-like in their straightforward procedural manner. The politics surrounding J. Edgar Hoover - brilliantly, though briefly essayed by Billy Crudup – and his push to create the Bureau in his own very restrictive image are touched on, but not elaborated. Bale himself seems kind of restricted in his role, like he’s wearing an uncomfortable suit.

On other matters, Time film reviewer Richard Corliss unleashed a can of worms concerning Mann’s use of digital for the film. For my part I think that while the film does look great, it’s not an aesthetic that suits the subject matter. It’s just too clean, too precise. For a movie that calls back to classic gangster pictures of old, there’s just too much of a modern feel here. That’s not a huge complaint, but it is something that stuck out in my mind during a couple of scenes: things just look too good. Mann’s been great about pushing the technology between Collateral and Miami Vice, even though it was kind of novelty in that last one, but I think Public Enemies should have been one of those times when a step back would have been the better choice.

But having said all of that, I was enraptured by the film; the personalities, the time, the story, they all just clicked perfectly. Depp ably and expertly leads the ensemble and shows his ample charm and charisma as Dillinger. From the action to the production design to the costuming, everything just clicks together to make the movie work despite its few technical flaws. Though it clocks in at nearly two-and-a-half hours, Public Enemies actually flies by and is truncated enough to stay focused on the main story it’s trying to tell, without feeling like it’s losing much aside from what I stated above. A very well done film all around and a special treat for lovers of classic gangsters.

Gomorrah

Rating: ****

Any vestige of romanticism about the mob is stripped away in about two minutes in Gomorrah, the rest of the 137 minute running time reinforces with extreme severity that it does not feel good to be a gangster, and is, in fact, rather soul destroying. Directed by Matteo Garrone, Gomorrah is based on the book by Roberto Saviano, which deals with crime and the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. To put things in perspective, so visceral was Saviano’s work that he’s been threatened by several Italian “godfathers” and has been granted a permanent police escort by Italian authorities.

Seeing Gomorrah it’s not hard understanding why. There are no real good guys, just bad guys and not so bad guys. People, who are either victims or the victimized, all caught in a vicious cycle of violence and crime. The plot trades back and forth between five different stories from the frontlines of the mob wars and shakedowns and dirty deeds. On the one hand the minutia of daily criminality is shown in all its non-glory, but underneath there is always an undercurrent of possible death or dismemberment. Sudden bursts of extreme violence punctuate the fractured cityscape, and even when you’re expecting it, you’re not expecting it.

The stories run the gamut: from veterans sick of the game, to wannabes trying prove themselves to folks just trying to get by much to the Mob’s discontent. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a middle-manager caught up in rivals’ revenge plans against his clan. Totò (Nicoló Manta) is a 13-year-old grocery delivery boy that’s initiated into a gang after returning some of their wayward property (ie: a gun and some drugs). Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) is put to work for another crime family, assisting in the illegal dumping of barrels filled with chemicals in an abandoned quarry. Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) is an haute couture tailor who works overnight training Chinese garment workers, putting his life endanger because these firms are a threat to the Camorra’s stake in the industry. And Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are a pair of young thugs that want to grow up to be Tony Montana.

Marco and Ciro are really the only two characters that carry Hollywood delusions about the mob; they steal guns, strip to their undies and fire wildly at debris in a nearby swamp. At the heart of a lot of mob movies, no matter who realistic they are, is that there’s a certain degree of fantasy to them. A kind of wish fulfillment to being the good old boy kind of outlaw that’s as good as any law abiding citizen, but just plays by a different rule book. The violence in Gomorrah though is raw and cutting. Good people can die as horribly as the bad, and if you should happen to be a person of conscience, and you get involved in the mob, things are definitely going to go from bad to worse for you.

Shot in a very documentary style that puts intimacy with the characters over lavish production values, Garrone puts us right in the centre of the action both in terms of camera placement and where he delivers us into the narrative. It’s dirty, it’s gritty, it’s imperfect and it’s without pity. Stylish without drawing attention to itself, and engrossing without losing it’s clinical detachment, Gomorrah is a powerful work that almost transcends genre and stands on its own thanks to a certain quality of uniqueness. There’s never been a mob movie like it, and you’ll probably never look at mob movies of the past in the same way again.

Mad Money

Rating: **1/2

Ever hear of this show called Weeds about a suburban soccer mom that deals pot to maintain her upper middle class lifestyle after the untimely death of her husband? Well, it’s pretty funny despite the one fundamental flaw I find in the series’ ethics; that one probably shouldn’t turn to a life of crime to maintain a lifestyle of avarice when downscaling several notches would probably have been the preferable option. A similar flaw is apparent in Mad Money, a bank heist movie that makes Ocean’s 11 look plausible in its execution.

So three ladies work in the federal reserve: Bridget (Diane Keaton), an upper-class housewife struggling to keep the big house after her company man husband (Ted Danson) loses his job; Nina (Queen Latifah), a single mom trying to give her kids a better life; and Jackie (Katie Holmes), a ditz who lives in a trailer with her bum husband. Bridget is the ring leader and comes up with a plan to rip off the reserve of money taken out of circulation and scheduled for destruction. Their plan works too well and they succeed, but then Bridget gets too greedy and pushes the ladies to steal more and more, only to have the authorities begin to clue in.

I guess the reason I’m holding Weeds in higher esteem is because that pot mom Nancy Botwin often finds herself in over her head dealing with dealers, suppliers and the intricacies of having to hide the way she makes money. Mad Money, to the contrary, says, “Hey, if they’re throwing it in the trash, it’s not really stealing.” No consequences in a situation compounded by the fact that it can’t possibly be that easy to rip off a Federal institution on a daily basis for months and years, but hey these guys make it look so easy. Guard finds out: cut him in. Investigator gets suspicious: keeps stealing so that he doesn’t notice a change in your routine.

And what does Diane Keaton think she’s doing? She used to be a respected actress but this is the latest in a line of movies where a woman of her experience and talent shouldn’t be caught dead in. And remember when Kevin Williamson once said that Katie Holmes had an Oscar in her future and then she ended up sequestered as Mrs. Tom Cruise for a year while former Dawson’s co-star Michelle Williams got the nod?

Queen Latifah manages to keep her dignity, maybe because her character is the only one with truly altruistic intensions. Ted Denson though is utterly hysterical as Bridget’s suffering husband, he’s the only one who seems to get the extent of the criminality. Also good in a small and thankless role is Roger Cross (24’s “Black Jack” Curtis Manning), for whom I hope this leads to bigger and much better things, this guy has leading man material written all over him.

Aside from being a mostly unfunny comedy with dubious moral and ethical implications, Mad Money is also bizarrely structured. It starts off with the crew getting rid of the evidence before the cops roll in for the arrest and then shows the various characters in custody as they tell the story in flashback. It’s a little like saying Verbal’s Keyser Soze, now here’s the search for Keyser Soze. Or failing that, kicking off The Sixth Sense by showing that Bruce Willis is a ghost and then showing him get shot by skinny Donnie Wahlberg.

I realize there’s an artistic methodology here; J.J. Abrams has done it numerous times with Alias, Lost and Mission: Impossible III. But the trick is that you’ve got to leave something to the imagination, and if Mad Money were anymore obvious, they would have handed out copies of the script to follow along.

Still though, it bugs me: the main plot with the stealing for the purpose of remodelling the bathroom and maintaining an unattainable lifestyle to maintain one’s social status. Given present economic conditions in the US it seems a pretty crappy message that it’s an acceptable final solution to steal to achieve your dreams and collect all the stuff you really don’t nee in the first. When the man said “land of opportunity” he didn’t imply one should get there by any means necessary.

American Gangster

Rating: ****

What’s all the hype about? This isn’t the first time that Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe have faced off on the big screen. Remember Virtuosity? That’s what I thought. The basic premise was that Crowe, flush from his star making turn in The Quick and the Dead, plays SID 6.7, a serial killer composite born in virtual reality that escapes into the real world. Denzel was the cop that had to stop him from reaping havoc in the not-to-distant-future. Such a story, and what a tremendous success at the box office, one wonders why it took more then 12 years for these titans to team up again.

Based on a true story, American Gangster takes place on the mean streets of Manhattan in the 1970s. Frank Lucas (Washington) takes over a criminal empire from his mentor and sets about making a name for himself by getting into the heroin business. Lucas establishes a delivery route for pure heroin direct from Southeast Asia to the US, where he can sell a product that’s twice as pure for half the price. Richie Roberts (Crowe) is a NYPD narcotics officer famous for turning over a million dollars in cash to evidence. Roberts is made head of a crew of federal agents under a new drug-centric agency to track down the heroin to its source and very slowly they begin making a case against Frank Lucas.

Like Heat, another movie that teamed two powerhouse actors on opposite sides of the law, the script almost goes out of its way to keep these characters apart until the very end of the film. As a consequence we almost get two different movies with Washington as the black Godfather and Crowe leading an Untouchables like crew out to bring down a criminal empire. In fact, there are portions of Gangster that plays like Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, but sans De Palma’s characteristic action style and oblique camera angles.

This is the Washington show, unquestionably. His character is the more interesting, he has the better arc and as consequence, he gets the lion’s share of the attention. What’s neat is the way Washington clothes himself in that nice guy demeanour that he’s so perfectly perfected over the years; Lucas is no Alonzo-style thug to be sure. Lucas sets himself up as a man of the people and you believe, which makes it all the more galling when he walks up to an enemy on the street and shoots him in the head in broad daylight.

Crowe’s cop is more staid despite attempts to make him more of an imperfect human though not dirty per se. Crowe is also saddled with a subplot involving a custody battle with his ex-wife (played by Carla Gugino) which is utterly pointless as it adds nothing really to the story. I can only imagine that it was employed in order to give Crowe some balance and give him something more interesting to chew on other than looking imploringly at police files and rap sheets for inspiration to break the case.

The film’s two hour and forty minute running time appears daunting, but I actually found that the story moved along rather briskly. Sir Ridley Scott goes to great trouble to detail the elaborate operation that Lucas put in place and the obstacles that Roberts encountered in trying to not only identify the big boss, but also having to fight his not only this intricate organization but the cops that are supposed to be in his side. Aside from the marquee names, the film is filled with a tremendous character actors giving great performances in parts big and small, whether its Josh Brolin’s morally bankrupt cop or Cuba Gooding Jr’s gangster Nicky Barnes.

It’s always hard to do something new and exciting with the gangster genre but American Gangster comes with a marvellous energy and a script that allows powerhouse actors to shine in their roles. Both Scott and Crowe can consider themselves redeemed for their combined failure in A Good Year (Better known as “Russell Crowe sits around and drinks wine for two hours”).