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Reviews
12 Angry Men (1957)
Superb examination of human dynamics (R.l.P. Sidney Lumet)
Director Sidney Lumet has passed on. May he rest in peace.
Twelve Angry Men exhausts one in the search for superlatives. All but a few minutes at the beginning are set in a single, nondescript jury room, consisting of, essentially, the table and twelve chairs, a closet for hanging coats and hats, a water cooler, a fan that only works for half of the movie, restrooms and windows overlooking a generic view of a city which happens to be New York but which could as well be any other metropolis. Within this sparse environment, director Lumet crafts a riveting drama from Reginald Rose's original story.
Twelve Angry Men does employ some major elements of dramatic license, and some criticize it for them. A few are: juror #8's walk through the defendant's neighborhood and purchase of a switchblade knife constitute jury research, a no-no, not to mention the implausibility of a juror getting away with bringing one into a jury room. The test of the time for a witness to walk a certain distance is a jury experiment, also disallowed. Either would be grounds for a mistrial.
I do not consider these flaws. First, this is not like a modern courtroom drama, trying to realistically dramatize our system of justice. It is a drama about people, their passions and prejudices and the tension that rises high when twelve people are faced with the need to find unanimous agreement on a subject as emotionally charged as murder, with so much at stake, forced to subjugate their freedom to think, feel and speak independently and unchallenged under pressure from eleven others trying to do the same in that search for universal agreement. Jury deliberation is the vehicle for creating this environment. Some limited bending the reality in ways that are implausible only because of the rules of the real world is no crime.
A movie trying to be faithful to the process of jury deliberation would consist almost entirely of people sitting around a table talking. It's hard to imagine making a decent drama out of that. Dramatic license, when properly chosen and limited, is no detriment.
The characters and the superbly cast performers characterizing them are wonderfully diverse and defined, from hesitant and mild-mannered to brash and arrogant, stiff and cerebral to low and bigoted, idealistic and forthright to weak and manipulable, simple and quiet to vengeful and enraged. There is a distinct dynamic to every combination and interaction, and the human condition and spirit are uniquely explored in each of them. Each is a drama in itself and at the same time one piece of a whole seamlessly joined with all of the others.
This movie also contradicts the cynical view that society is hopeless. Despite the differences of intelligence, personality, integrity, values and ethics among these people, ultimately a basic desire to do the right thing surfaces in each one.
A black-and-white cinematic masterpiece, this film is not for those numbed by dazzling effects and wall-to-wall "action." For those moved by a brilliant view into the core of what it means to be human, this will ring true for a long time.
Untraceable (2008)
Good potential, sparsely realized
This film is quite a bit better than one might conclude from the more savage reviews of it, but it is nonetheless a foundation for a strong, gripping story upon which a ramshackle house has been built instead. It is not an unwatchable film, as some claim, but it could have been so much more.
The graphic gore, while perfectly appropriate the proper genre (many reviews mention Saw for comparison), is unnecessary and gratuitous for a techno-thriller like this. This movie could have handled that much more delicately and still gotten the point across to modern audiences without seeming overly sanitized.
A couple of pluses before going into its deficiencies: (1) There's a nice, very concise description of a fast-flux botnet early on which techies might find useful. (2) Some well-done red herrings: based on some other, familiar stories, one might expect the daughter to be captured at some point (and be rescued), and/or the cat might suffer some harm (think Fatal Attraction's rabbit).
Now on to the flaws.
1. As many reviewers have noted, the villain's identity is revealed much too soon for this story, and the character very inadequately developed. There are cases for early disclosure--one that comes to mind is John Malkovich's character in In the Line of Fire--but this isn't one of them. His motivation for his evil is very poorly established and rather implausible the way it is presented. As noted next, this could have been corrected at the denouement, but wasn't.
2. There is a perfectly good opportunity to resolve some of these issues and make the villain's character more real and interesting at the denouement, and to some degree, Marsh's as well. Once she's immobilized it would be natural to remove Marsh's gag and take the opportunity to vent his vitriol to her with the intent to engage her in debate so he could pound his point home forcefully in the face of her objections. He would want her to hear and respond, and his sadistic nature would seek the enjoyment of hearing her beg for her life, and she would exploit this to stall for time and try to provoke him into some mistake. He would then have become enraged, pumping up the energy of the scene and also provoking some kind of extreme catharsis on his part that would lead to many more disclosures and enlighten the audience about his inner demons. The process could also draw out much about Marsh's state of mind as has been evolving over the course of her work to solve the case, and if done well and intensely, hold the viewer's interest and attention. As it is, he comes off as just a very nasty boy with a grudge and a lot of technical smarts.
3. THE BIG LETDOWN: The way the good guys find her and the villain at the end. Even if this villain were the kind who wants to be caught, which this one is not, this would be clumsy and crude. In a techno-thriller there needs to be some fresh variation on the basic theme of some sudden insight into new or established technical situations, or some combination of them, combined with heroic efforts to exploit that information in a race against time. This depressingly low-tech solution, along with the mind-bogglingly dumb choices by the villain that cause it, left me hoping he would get away and set the stage for a better ending.
The film's title itself could have been the genesis of just this kind of deduction, where the villain has made some little mistake, a tiny one which nonetheless gives the experts what they need to trace what has been until then untraceable. A really good one might involve Marsh, an FBI computer expert, somehow planting a suggestion in the villain's mind of some flaw in his setup which, in a frenzied state of mind resulting from Marsh's goading, causes him to try correct it before recognizing it and thus betray his location or some other useful information.
All in all, it's too bad that a good premise like this has been so weakly exploited. Maybe someone will find a way to vary from this enough to avoid coming off a copycat and then do a proper job building a story from it.
[ One thing that's starting to bug me about stories like this and other stories with an Internet angle to them, even a great TV drama like NCIS for one example, is the way they can get an IP address and in moments, come up with a name and a street address. For the overwhelming majority of cases where users are assigned addresses from a pool at login time, that takes time to research logs, and before that, a court order. There are real-world spooks who are pushing for a law-enforcement back-door, but if somehow such a thing existed, it could not be kept secret. Someone needs to come up with a more plausible way to exploit that information. ]
Silver Bullet (1985)
An example of a master's touch
I was about to turn off the TV as opening titles rolled for Silver Bullet and I saw the "Cycle of the Werewolf" reference, as I really don't care much for fantasy monsters at all. This being a Stephen King, though, I thought I'd give it a look. I'm glad I did.
The difference between this and the standard, cookie-cutter, grade-B monster/werewolf/e-mail-spammer horror flick could be a tutorial for playwrights, screenwriters and cinematographers. Instead of the tired horror-flick plot - monster terrorizes small town after killing some folks (usually with heavy-handed special-effects gore, repeated frequently throughout); populace panics and does a lot of stupid things; standard-issue hero arrives; standard-issue sexy young heroine falls in love with him and the movie ends with the standard-issue hero dispatching the monster moments before monster is about to make standard-issue heroine his/her/its next victim - this one deftly draws on strong theatrical principles and creativity to make the viewing real entertainment.
The young protagonist, who could be a paraplegic edition of ELL-LEE-YUHHT from E.T., his mid-teenage sister, which character, as an adult, opens the story with off-camera narrative (by Tovah Feldshuh), and an equally-charming third kid, who happens to be the boy's uncle and is chronologically but in no other respect an adult, endearingly played by Gary Busey, are developed skilfully as characters in their own right, entirely apart from the werewolf theme. By making us know and care about them, as well as the lesser characters, King creates a warm and personal relationship between them and the audience, something rarely achieved in standard horror/suspense fare. Busey is just right as the uncle who finds responsibility to be rather an impediment to enjoying life.
Injecting just the right touch of comedy where you'd least expect it and making it work - to avoid spoiling, I'll just say something about the woods at night and a bunch of people who don't belong there - a few red herrings to keep you guessing, and one broad clue to the identity of the werewolf that the sharp-eyed and -eared might catch but is otherwise not at all tipping a hand, all combine to hold the interest and attention of the viewer. The knitting-together of various threads - the significance of the monster's attack on the suicidal woman, for one - creates a certain intricacy that typical monster-flick shows rarely have.
Some blood and gore is unavoidable in a story like this; but again, it's handled with skill and delicacy instead of blunt force. The attack scenes are crafted to use the viewer's imagination much more than the special-effects department to create the impression. Watch carefully and you'll notice that the illusion is created by alternating very brief flashes of action streaking by the lens, almost too fast to discern, with establishing shots of the victim's accumulating injuries, with the audio gluing it all together. A few frames of the monster's snout or eyes moving past, a claw (or later on, a club or baseball bat) streaking by, but not not visibly headed for any particular target, horrified looks and increasing amounts of blood from the victim who may get tossed across the room or otherwise propelled violently but you never see the propelling directly, and your imagination does the rest.
It's not the masterpiece of the ages; but it's a film to enjoy once, and then, if you're into the theatrical arts at all, see again - for study.
Pygmalion (1938)
Magnificent, compelling, but not My Fair Lady
Even if I had not yet seen this film I'd have had good reason to assume its merit simply because George Bernard Shaw, as cantankerous and protective of his work as he was, liked it. But I have seen it, many times, and that only validates that conclusion.
Leslie Howard not only starred in it but co-directed as well, and accomplished both magnificently. His rapid-fire intensity, conveying the true overbearing Higgins using Eliza as if she were "a block of wood," to quote, to be sawed, hewn, nailed, drilled and pounded into an object to his liking, is wonderfully complemented by Wendy Hiller's Eliza, bringing us to understand the full range of her growth from the depths of her imprisonment in the class of the street vendor barely escaping mendacity by selling flowers to a real princess, not by royal birth, but by her strength and accomplishment. Higgins may like to claim credit for her transformation; but it's Eliza who really made it happen.
There's a lot said here comparing Pygmalion to My Fair Lady. That's really a classic apples-and-oranges fallacy. Musical theatre is an entirely different art form, with a different goal. It's clear that if this interpretation of Pygmalion had been duplicated with songs and dances tacked on, it would have been horrible; yet My Fair Lady is a triumph of its art. It's often called a musical adaptation. That's mistaken; it's "based on" Pygmalion. The nature of musical theatre requires a different approach. To evaluate either by the standards of the other is a waste of time and thought.
Shaw would undoubtedly have hated MFL; his revulsion for Romanticism and the failure of The Chocolate Soldier, the operetta based on Arms and the Man, would guarantee that. MFL is not a musical Pygmalion, and should never be mistaken for one.
It is a great tribute to the genius of George Bernard Shaw and his best-known play that it could spawn both this artful and powerful movie version and a greatly different and beautiful musical as well.
Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Tsk, tsk, Stephen...
If I had any advice for Stephen King, it would be, just stick to suspense and horror and leave comedy to your good friend, Dave Barry. This thing seems unsure of which it wants to be and misses both by a huge margin.
The caricatures passing as characters have all the spine-tingling realism as Leslie Nielsen in Airplane. Characters with southern accents are, of course, backwoods hicks with single-digit IQs. And - I don't think this qualifies as a spoiler, but I'll be safe and call it so, as if this thing could ever be spoiled more than it already is - the moment you see the truck with the absurd plastic ornament on the front and the evil-looking clown on the back, you know four things: 1) It's the ringleader of the Monster Machines. 2) Eventually it's gonna get blown to molecules. 3) Everything else is gonna be blown to molecules first, and, 4) Once it is blown to molecules, everything's gonna be all right.
OK; if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all, right? OK, here it is: Maximum Overdrive did give gainful employment to quite a few pyrotechnicians for a while.
The Haunted (1991)
More human than horrible - and that's good.
If you're looking for dripping gore and spectacular special effects, you can pass on this one. If you're more interested in getting inside the personal experiences of people besieged by terrible forces beyond human understanding, this may well be a quite worthwhile view.
Like Amityville, this is based on what are at least claimed to be real experiences. And, naturally, there are skeptics. I don't intend to get into that now; I'll just say that, if such things really do happen, they happen more the way they're depicted here than the way the garden-variety spook movie shows them. Even Spielberg's excellent Poltergeist (yes; despite Tobe Hooper's role as director, it's Steven's film) is clearly, from the outset, a story. This one, to anyone who doesn't reflexively reject all things supernatural as psychological atavism, rings close to home.
This film eschews gross theatrics and sock-'em spectacle to keep the focus on the people. It also is refreshingly respectful and authentic to Christian, and particularly Catholic, practices, something quite sparse in Hollywood or the New York stage.
This more-with-less approach is more powerful than a numbing avalanche of stock horror-film gotchas.The depiction of the attack of the demon on Mr. Smurl may not be all that shocking by Hollywood standards; but it would certainly be horrible enough to someone who experienced something of the kind in reality, whether as the result of mental disease or of a genuine demonic presence. A good drama is supposed to draw you into a vicarious experience of what the characters are experiencing, with their emotions and sensitivities. Typical horror fare is so lost in intense action and effects that you never identify with anyone; you start out as spectator and never move from there, just waiting for the often all-too-predictable sequence of skewered and dismembered mannequins to run its course.
I think you'll find that this is a good film if you would rather be moved by what you see through a character's eyes than by what you happen to see only with your own.
The High and the Mighty (1954)
Haunting drama, even more enjoyable if you read the book
This is a gripping, dimensional drama, which gets better when you have read the novel by Ernest K. Gann. The tension that builds as the effects of the catastrophic failure of engine number one of the Douglas DC-4 (not called that, but that's what it was) grow on all concerned draw me in deeply. Younger audiences might find the 1954 style, with its rather more formal characterizations than modern and post-modern films, less impressive, but I don't.
There are some weaknesses: I didn't care for the way Miss Spalding was characterized; the novel's Spalding was much more human and gentle. The movie's version was hard to care for, or about. Whether that was the actress' doing or the director's is undertain. There are a few others, perhaps of necessity for the sake of cinematic practicality. Sometimes things that can be understood when described in print don't translate perfectly to the screen. But they are minor.
John Wayne gets a lot of good mention here, this being quite a departure from his more familiar roles. That's for good reason.
The time-line of the story is much longer than in more recent films, being based as it is on the travel time of a prop airliner. That gives a lot of time for the visceral human reactions to the failure of the engine to develop, within the plane and with the many outside it who are affected in one way or another. There's not all that much spectacle of the failing airliner itself; it's the human experiences that predominate, and that's to the good.
Dimitri Tiomkin's classic theme, no doubt influenced by John Wayne's character, Dan "The Whistler" Roman, won't appeal to everyone; no piece of music ever does! But it's a winner with me, and its persistence to this day in its genre attests to its merit.
The Net (1995)
Gripping, disturbing drama
While many of us dyed-in-the-wool techies will briefly notice some improbable items and circumstances here and there in this film, they won't detract from the gripping suspense and tension it skillfully builds. Sandra Bullock is impressive and convincing as Angela Bennett, a socially reserved work-at-home systems analyst whose reclusiveness is so extensive that when her identity has been stolen and replaced with another, she can find no one to vouch for her but her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and cannot remember who she is and a former therapist who considers her terrifying story to be merely delusions.
Though it's highly unlikely that a conspiracy such as the one in The Net could penetrate the world's institutions to the extent this one did, the issues of identity theft and Trojan-horse infiltrations are by no means far-fetched. The extent to which our dependency on computer-based data leaves us all vulnerable to those who can find ways to corrupt it is a quite realistic aspect of this film. Makes you appreciate those who insist that plain old paper records be kept around, just in case.
There are a number of factual improbabilities and impossibilities in The Net, but by and large they are of the sort that one excuses for the sake of drama. After all, this is a movie, not the Discovery Channel. And there are a few rather formulaic predictabilities: when she's had sex with the guy, you can be he'll either turn out to be dirty or doomed; much the same for the therapist.
But no matter. It's a great film. If you haven't seen it, see it. If you have, see it again.