Review: Shoplifters Of The World

Image courtesy of RLJE Films

I'll never forget where I was when airplanes hit the World Trade Center or when Barack Obama won the presidency - or when Donald Trump lost it. For the young, the breakup of a favorite band could be such a pivotal moment. That's the basic premise of "Shoplifters of the World," which is set in Denver in 1987 when the seminal 1980s British band The Smiths called it quits.

The picture is set over the course of one night and focuses on two storylines: In one, a group of college-age youths spend a night on the town mourning the band's breakup before they set off for their lives - a young woman named Cleo (Helena Howard) plans to flee for Paris, a couple made up of Sheila (Elena Kampouris) and Patrick (James Bloor) try to confront their sexual preferences and a young man named Billy (Nick Krause) who loves to masturbate is about to head off to the Army.

In the other story, a distressed Smiths fan and record store employee named Dean (Ellar Coltrane, of "Boyhood") proceeds with a gun to a local radio station, where a DJ named Full Metal Mickey (Joe Manganiello) is in the middle of a heavy metal program, and demands at gunpoint that the night be dedicated to playing Smiths tunes. This storyline is apparently based on a real incident in which a Smiths fan tried to do something similar, but it never made it as far as it does in this picture.

Oddly enough, the more narratively-contrived plot thread - the hostage situation - in "Shoplifters of the World" ends up being the more interesting of the two. Although it starts off a little silly, the repartee between Coltrane and Full Metal Mickey, who's a lot more soulful than one might expect from a heavy metal disc jockey (plus, he likes Whitney Houston and the New York Dolls!), ends up making the film more watchable.

The scenes involving Cleo and her friends are a little less so. None of the four characters are particularly well defined. Cleo complains about some problems with her mother, but this all takes place off screen. Billy appears perpetually horny, and isn't sure whether he likes men or women - although one thing's for sure: He likes blown up balloons (don't ask). While Sheila breaks off from Patrick at a party where much of the action takes place to hook up with a jock, Patrick is left to roam the dance floor and decide whether his bisexual tendencies can overcome his celibate vows (as an ode to Smiths singer Morrissey). 

Of course, the film's most compelling aspect is music that's more than 30 years old. The film plays a number of well known Smiths songs, plus a few deep cuts, and it's interspersed with video clips of interviews with the band's members from the past. There's an interesting moment when Full Metal Mickey tells Dean that, one day, his musical heroes will disappoint him, and it makes one wonder if this is a reference to Morrissey's seeming turn toward right-wing politics in recent years. 

Regardless, that concept is barely explored, as is much else in the film. While Full Metal Mickey and Dean's tete a tete has its moments, the rest of the film is a great soundtrack in search of a movie. The four teenage leads are all appropriately gloomy as they take Smiths lyrics to heart - "if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die" - but none of their stories are compelling enough to warrant a movie. Ultimately, "Shoplifters of the World" is a missed opportunity.

Review: The Courier

Image courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

"The Courier" is a standard spy thriller that might remind you of other - and slightly better - movies of the same genre set during the same time period (the early 1960s), such as "The Good Shepherd" and Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies," which is also a true story involving the Russians that ends with a prisoner swap. So, while the film is amusing and well made, just don't expect a reinvention of the wheel.

The film follows the story of a businessman named Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose method of keeping the money flowing is ingratiating himself to his clients. Between 1960 and 1962, Wynne helped to smuggle an enormous amount of intel out of Moscow with the assistance of a high-ranking Russian official with a conscience - Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) - who fears how far Premier Nikita Khruschchev will go to be dominant over the west, especially the United States.

Wynne is portrayed as an affable enough fellow who thinks little beyond his own business dealings, which is why the CIA and MI6 operatives who single him out consider him to possibly be a good courier - they think he'll be able to remain oblivious to the packages he's carrying, and could adequately play dumb if the Russians catch on to what he's doing.

Meanwhile, Wynne's wife, Sheila (Jessie Buckley), becomes suspicious of her husband's dealings, and for good reason - it is mentioned that years before he had an affair, and Sheila starts to believe that another such dalliance could be keeping her husband away for long spells. 

The friendship and partnership between Wynne and Penkovsky is among the film's more compelling plot strands. Penkovsky is an idealist who hates the idea of selling out his country, but figures he's doing so to retain world peace. Wynne gradually becomes impressed by Penkovsky's aims and vows to do what he can to protect the Russian as well as Britain's interests in the matter.

While "The Courier" isn't as good as "Bridge of Spies" - or "The Americans," the marvelous TV show about spying Russians - it's an effective and occasionally tense - especially when Wynne is captured by the KGB and tortured - spy thriller. The story and style in which it is made might seem overly familiar, but the film remains interesting due to the bond between the two men risking their lives to sneak intelligence out of Russia. The film doesn't show us anything new, but it takes a time honored genre and does a decent job of playing to its conventions.

Review: The Father

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Everything from a misplaced watch to a chicken dinner takes on particular menace in Florian Zeller's film adaptation of his play, "The Father," and the picture is shot like a horror movie - which, similar to Michael Haneke's incredible "Amour," it sort of is. Anthony Hopkins gives a heroic late career performance as Anthony, a man who is slowly deteriorating due to dementia as his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), attempts to figure out where she'll place him after he's clearly no longer able to live on his own.

The film is unique in that it places the viewer in the head of a person suffering from the disease and scene after scene in the picture comes from the perspective of someone who is confused and often frightened by the strange turn of events that continue through the film's repeating cycles. One character suddenly becomes another, while storylines continuously change - that is, because Anthony can never quite get a grasp on what the truth is.

As the film opens, Anne tells Anthony that she has met a man and will move to Paris from London to live with him. She's attempting to find a live-in caretaker to watch over him and, if that fails, she will consider putting him in some sort of long-term care facility where he can be watched over. Anthony is clearly smart - he is surrounded by art, often listens to classical music and his arguments, despite being colored by his disease, show evidence of someone who's lived a life of being thought clever.

But stories begin to dissolve into each other. At first, Colman portrays his daughter, but then Olivia Williams suddenly pops up as the daughter, and later she's the caretaker. In between, Imogen Poots shows up as a sunny and cheerful caretaker with whom Anthony appears to enjoy flirting - but she does look very similar to Laura, Anthony's other daughter, who died some time ago in an accident, although Anthony also struggles with recalling that information when it's presented to him by Anne.

While at the beginning, Anne tells Anthony that she's going to live with a man in Paris, a man who's apparently her husband - at times played by Mark Gattis, while at others portrayed by Rufus Sewell - often intrudes into various scenes, and we get the idea that Anthony is living with his daughter and her husband, much to the latter's chagrin.

During several scenes, Anthony frets about where he's placed his watch - and we learn early on that a housekeeper has quit after he angrily accused her of stealing it - while during others, there is confusion about a chicken dinner that Anne serves to Anthony and the man who seems to be her husband.

Needless to say, "The Father" is, at times, somewhat disorienting - but this is to the picture's credit, not its detriment, in its harrowing depiction of a dementia patient. Hopkins, whose storied career includes Hannibal Lecter and his stunning performance in "The Remains of the Day," gives a challenging, brutal and heartbreaking performance as Anthony. His character can be alternately charming, maddeningly frustrating and heartbreaking.

On a personal note, my grandmother had Alzheimer's during the final years of her life, and while there are obvious differences between that disease and dementia, there are some similarities - and the frightening level of disorientation portrayed in this film feels on the mark, even if it often makes "The Father" a difficult viewing experience. The expression "old age isn't for wimps" certainly applies here, and those who can stomach this often grueling film will be duly rewarded - at least, by the strong performances and bold stylistic choices, even if it leaves one wrung out afterwards.

Review: Moxie

Image courtesy of Netflix.

 

Amy Poehler's "Moxie" is a film that simultaneously manages to be a sweet natured story of a young woman coming into her own and a cross generational story about gender equality in which a shy teenager who doesn't like to rock the boat is inspired by an outspoken new student as well as her mother's secret history as a riot grrrl to effect change at her high school, which is dominated by alpha males and chauvinistic attitudes. Yes, the film cross all of its t's and dots all of its i's a little too perfectly at the end - in which nearly every storyline is wrapped up with a little bow - but it's a charmer all the same.

In the film, Vivian (Hadley Robertson) and her "best friend for life," Claudia (Tsai), make it their life's mission to stay below the radar at their high school, where the jocks annually put out a list of ratings of the school's female student body, emphasis on the "body." As the film opens, Vivian is having a nightmare in which she can't speak - a literal embodiment of a young woman who has no voice. As she walks the hallways of her high school, she and Claudia discuss who they believe will get top ranking in this year's survey - the dubious awards are "most bangable," "best rack" and other misogynistic prizes. The school's golden boy and football star, Mitchell (Patrick Schwarzenegger), is seemingly the leader of the committee.

A new student named Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Pena) intrigues Vivian, especially after she rebuffs Mitchell's advances and lodges a complaint that he's harassing her. The oblivious principal (Marcia Gay Harden) advises Vivian not to use the word "harass" because, essentially, it will lead to her having to do a lot of paperwork, and suggests instead using the word "bother." Lucy, who tells Vivian she prefers to hold her head high rather than keep a low profile, isn't having any of it.

All the while, Vivian is looking for a subject of interest to write about for her college application. She's not sure what she's passionate about until she takes a closer look at the sexism at her high school and discusses a treasure trove of 1990s memorabilia stored in a closet that contains evidence of her mother's (Poehler in a very effective supporting role) involvement with the Riot Grrrl movement as well as her seeming love of Bikini Kill's music.

Inspired by her mother, who has kept her ideals but lives a middle aged existence of eating ice cream on the couch while watching the news, Vivian starts an anonymous zine called "Moxie," the title of which she steals from a speech by the principal that is meant to inspire students during a football pep rally. In the zine, which Vivian covertly drops off in the school's girls' bathroom, she attacks her school's patriarchy, its sexist rules (Mitchell is named as the shoo-in for an athletic scholarship, but the girls who become inspired by Moxie put forth the name of a young Black female soccer player to challenge him for the scholarship) and the school administration's turning a blind eye to everything from harassment to a rape incident. There's also a young trans student who is angry that she's not allowed to try out for the role of Audrey in the school play, "Little Shop of Horrors."

Naturally, as this is a high school movie, Vivian has a love interest - a skateboarder named Seth (Nico Haraga) who is an obvious ally to the Moxie girls, and theirs is a sweet romance that normally might feel a bit tacked on considering the theme of the film, but in this case works pretty well. There's also a funny sequence in which Vivian's mother insists on meeting the young man, and then torments him about an incident from his childhood.

One of the elements that makes "Moxie" endearing is that nearly every character - and there are quite a few once the Moxie movement picks up steam at the school - is well drawn without being a caricature - well, perhaps, Harden's principal is a bit of one - and feels pretty well realized. 

The film's final moments are a bit too neatly tied up - everything converges a little too perfectly during a school walkout, and I was a bit skeptical during scenes in which pre-teens and teenagers in a film set in the 2020s appeared to be intimately familiar with the oeuvre of Bikini Kill and other riot grrrl bands, but this is a minor quibble. "Moxie" is both charming and has something to say - and that it manages that balancing act without losing much on either side is impressive. A substantive movie about youth - especially one made in America - is nothing to sneeze at.

Review: Coming 2 America

Image courtesy of Amazon.

There are sequels that come about as a natural extension of an unfinished story - and then, there are others that exist merely for fan service. "Coming 2 America" arrives 33 years after the original and is an example of the latter. That's not to say it doesn't have its pleasures - yes, it's fun to see Sexual Chocolate perform again, and some story lines that focus on the film's female characters is a welcome addition that I didn't exactly see coming, considering this is a sequel - albeit a PG-13 one - to a very R-rated 1988 comedy starring Eddie Murphy.

But otherwise, there's a lot of fan service going on here. The cast appears to be having a good time, although it might be said they're having more of a gas than the viewer at times. Murphy returns as Prince Akeem - soon to be King Akeem after his father (James Earl Jones) shuffles off his mortal coil - and Arsenio Hall is back as trusty servant and friend Semmi, while Shari Headley reprises her role as love interest - and now queen - Lisa.

New to the mix are Wesley Snipes as General Izzi - taking over for Calvin Lockhart as Col. Izzi - as well as Akeem's three spirited daughters and a new family: Leslie Jones as Mary Junson, Jermaine Fowler as Lavelle Junson and Tracy Morgan as Lavelle's Uncle Reem. In a plot thread borne completely out of convenience for the script, Akeem finds out that he bore an illegitimate child (with Mary) back in the 1980s when Semmi got him drunk at a club, and Lavelle is his long lost son. This all comes up when Akeem becomes nervous about choosing his oldest daughter, Meeka (Kiki Layne), as his heir when Izzi starts making threats against the kingdom.

The strangest part about "Coming 2 America" is just how little time is actually spent in the United States. Akeem makes a stop in Queens to meet Lavelle and his family, whom he almost too easily convinces to return to Zamunda, and there's a scene late in the film during which Akeem has further reason to return to the New York City borough, but that's primarily it. 

Many of the gags in the picture are recycled from the original: There's the return of the barking Imani (meh), a washing of the "royal privates" (in this case, the joke feels somewhat fresh for reasons I won't divulge), a cameo by the lecherous priest (meh), the return of Sexual Chocolate (although it's not nearly as funny as that group's appearance in the original film, seeing Murphy as Randy Watson again made me smile) and the old geezers in the barbershop (mostly pretty funny, although I could have stood spending more time with them than some of the sequel's various plot threads).

It's great to see Murphy and Hall together again, and the scenes involving them somewhat retain the spirit of the original, albeit in a more "family friendly" sequel. The scenes involving Lavelle's rituals to prove he is a worthy heir are less interesting, and a love interest between the young man and a palace employee feels somewhat forced and rushed, although Mirembe (Nomzamo Mbatha) is among the more interesting of the newly introduced characters.

So, no, "Coming 2 America" wasn't exactly necessary. Whether the sequel to "Top Gun" this summer or the latest iteration of "Ghostbusters" are remains to be seen. I'm glad to have spent a little more time with Akeem, Semmi and the rest of the gang, but as far as sequels go, this one is in line with a mostly time-honored tradition: It isn't as good as the original and its existence can mostly be explained by the desire to squeeze a few dollars out of an existing property. It's not bad, but it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor.