Review: Roofman

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Derek Cianfrance's "Roofman" is a completely different vibe than the director's bleak dramas "Blue Valentine" and "The Place Beyond the Pines." Based on a true story about a criminal with a penchant for breaking into fast food chains and other stores through the roof, the picture comes close to being a romantic comedy but is just serious enough to avoid that categorization.

In the picture, Channing Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, a former U.S. Army Reserve officer who was known during his overseas missions to have had a good eye for scouting things. When he can barely afford to pay for his young daughter's birthday gifts, a stray comment from a friend (LaKeith Stanfield) gives him the idea to start robbing McDonald's in the Charlotte area in the early 2000s.

But during the robberies - which are just enough to buy him a large house and some gifts for his daughter as well as a Mariachi band for her birthday - Jeffrey isn't particularly fearsome. During one job, he feels sympathy for the McDonald's crew that he locks in the store refrigerator and gives his jacket to an employee who doesn't have one.

He's soon busted and lands in prison for a 45-year stint, a sentence that's a tad egregious. He comes up with a plan to escape, pulls it off, and ends up in a small North Carolina community, where he hides out in a Toys "R" Us and eventually ingratiates himself to the community after dropping off some toys he stole from the store to a toy drive. He also catches the eye of the woman, Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), running the toy drive, who also happens to be a Toys "R" Us employee.

Much like "Breaking Bad" or "The Americans," the film is one of those scenarios that we know can't last forever, so it seems like much of the suspense revolves around whether Jeffrey will get recognized by someone, whether Leigh will discover who he is, or whether he'll jeopardize the escape he's planning to see her one last time.

Tatum, a likable actor, is a good choice for the role. Although a criminal, Jeffrey is affable and affectionate toward Leigh and her two daughters. There's a funny scene in which he charms a group of women at a singles event sponsored by Leigh's church. During his robberies, he seems to feel guilty about scaring the people working in the stores he robs.

While "Roofman" might not be on par with Cianfrance's earliest films - "Blue Valentine" was a powerful albeit depressing love story and "The Place Beyond the Pines" was an ambitious crime epic - the picture is somewhat of a comeback after 2016's "The Light Between Oceans" fell flat and the director disappeared for almost a decade. "Roofman" isn't a grand statement - but rather an amusing true crime drama with comedic and romantic elements - but it's enjoyable nonetheless. 

Review: The Smashing Machine

Image courtesy of A24.

 
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is not a topic that particularly captures my interest - in other words, I'm not that intrigued by the sport - but Benny Safdie's "The Smashing Machine" compelled me due to its performances and the fact that it doesn't take the typical sports biopic approach.

Sports-themed films are often framed around a particular moment of success for an athlete. We watch them in their early days and are privy to numerous training sessions until they finally arrive at a particular challenge and, typically, rise above it to achieve some form of glory. Safdie's film isn't interested in that, although the picture is seemingly compelled by the UFC and its violent form of fighting.

In an attention-seeking move, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been cast as mixed martial artist Mark Kerr who, along with friend and fellow fighter Mark Coleman (portrayed by mixed martial artist Ryan Bader), apparently made a big impact on the sport. Of course, The Rock started his career in the wrestling world and this film is one of the rare chances of watching him take on a more dramatic role, rather than the blockbuster type of action movies in which he typically stars.

And without a doubt, Johnson impresses in this film, while costar Emily Blunt is equally strong in her portrayal of Kerr's wife, Dawn. Yes, there are numerous scenes of people being beaten to a pulp while participating in this violent sport, but the goings-on behind the scenes in the Kerr household were just as brutal, albeit of a psychological nature.

In the beginning, Kerr is undefeated, but suffers a bruise to his ego after losing a match that he believes was the result of a bad call by a referee. The combination of the steroids he's taking along with opioids for pain relief lead to a struggle with addiction. Added to the mix is his volatile relationship with Dawn. During the first half of the picture, it's easier to sympathize with Dawn, who seemingly gives up many things in life for Kerr's sport, while later in the picture he becomes more the voice of reason.

So, when I describe "The Smashing Machine" as sort of an anti-sports biopic, it's because there's an equal amount of attention paid to the domestic drama and drug abuse as there is the training for and participation in the sport. In many ways, this makes the film unique to its genre. 

It also helps that the leads are strong. Johnson proves that he is more than stunt casting in the role, portraying Kerr as a soft spoken guy who occasionally bursts into episodes of violence - ripping a door off its hinges during one scene - when frustrated. Blunt portrays Dawn as quasi-sympathetic and reasonable but, at other times, high maintenance. Bader also acquits himself well as Coleman, who starts as Kerr's trainer but eventually makes a successful return to the ring.

The Safdie Brothers often make gritty films about characters on the edge - the Robert Pattinson vehicle "Good Times" and the bleak "Uncut Gems," which is the brothers' most successful venture - and "The Smashing Machine" (directed by Benny, while Josh has "Marty Supreme" releasing later this year) is certainly in that wheelhouse. On the whole, it's a solid sports drama bolstered by impressive performances.

Review: One Battle After Another

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Paul Thomas Anderson is not only a great filmmaker, but also seemingly a magician: He somehow convinced a major movie studio (Warner Bros.) to fund a $150 million Thomas Pynchon adaptation that involves modern revolutionaries battling a fascist U.S. government in which a select group of racist white men belong to a Santa Claus-worshipping cult.

On the one hand, the plot of "One Battle After Another," based somewhat on Pynchon's "Vineland," might sound presciently bleak with its ICE detention centers, violent government-led raids on sanctuary cities, and white supremacists in high positions, but the picture is also hopeful in its depiction of what could be our way through this madness.

Anderson's 21st century films have mostly dwelt in the past and told stories about the birth of capitalism ("There Will Be Blood"), post WWII America and Britain ("The Master" and "Phantom Thread"), Hollywood against the backdrop of the 1970s oil crisis ("Licorice Pizza"), and the lost dream of the 1960s counterculture ("Inherent Vice"). Only one other film - 2002's "Punch Drunk Love" - has been set in the current century.

That being said, I cannot think of any other film that captures our present moment of anxiety better than this one. The film's title is spoken at one point in the picture regarding a specific action taken by the French 75, the revolutionary group that features many of the film's lead characters, but it also speaks to the moment we're living in - keeping alive the dream of a country that favors freedom of speech and expression literally requires one battle after another.

The film opens with a tense mission in which the French 75 infiltrates an ICE detention center and frees its captives. Perfidia Beverly Hills (a fierce Teyana Taylor) takes Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, whose monster of a character provokes much laughter due to his utter humorlessness) captive and sexually humiliates him, while her paramour, "Ghetto Pat" (Leonardo DiCaprio), sets off bombs. Other members of the group are portrayed by Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Regina Hall, and Shayna McHayle.

But when Perfidia is busted by Lockjaw, she rats out her fellow 75'ers, leaving Pat and her newborn daughter to go underground. Some 16 years later, the father and daughter are living as Bob and Willa Ferguson in the fictional California town of Baktan Cross. Willa takes karate lessons from Sensei (Benicio Del Toro), a smooth revolutionary who helps to smuggle illegal immigrants, while Bob is mostly stoned out of his gourd. He still believes in the revolution, but has become paranoid and somewhat useless.

However, Lockjaw finds himself moving up the ranks of the military and is invited to join an elite cabal of white supremacists known as the Christmas Adventurers Club. To be inducted, however, he must wipe clean his past, which includes his coerced liaison with Perfidia. Although she has been missing for years, Lockjaw tracks down some of the former French 75 members and uses them to try to get close to Bob and Willa. During one harrowing scene, Hall's Deandra helps Willa to flee a high school dance, while Bob is amusingly left fumbling through phone calls in which he has forgotten the requisite revolution passwords.

From this point on, "One Battle After Another" becomes a relentlessly propulsive chase movie in which Bob and Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti), now separated, must stay one step ahead of Lockjaw and his goons. Willa and Deandra make their way to a desert enclave of revolutionary nuns, while Bob hides out with Sensei, who leads an escape of Latino immigrants as jack-booted ICE types attack their sanctuary city. There's an incredibly shot sequence in which Bob and a group of skateboarding associates of Sensei make a run for it.

The film's final scenes involve a series of car chases that culminate with a spellbinding pursuit along Borrego Springs' blind humps of Highway 78 that recalls the 1971 cult classic "Vanishing Point." At this point, the paranoid stoner comedy and revolutionary thriller modes of the picture seamlessly transition into a breathless action film. This is a movie that juggles numerous tones and set pieces of various genres, all deftly.

It is also a film chock full of superb performances, from supporting roles that pack a punch such as Taylor, Hall, or Del Toro to remarkable leading turns - DiCaprio expertly juggles hilarity with pathos as the burnout father whose dedication to the revolution often butts heads with his ability to protect his daughter, while Penn gives what must be his most frightening portrayal. Also, Infiniti is a real find.

"We've been laid siege for hundreds of years," Del Toro's Sensei calmly remarks during one of the film's tenser moments regarding how communities of color have long struggled against hateful forces in the United States. In the context of this movie and the country in which we live, it has indeed been one battle after another to prevent those forces from overpowering the struggle for liberty. 

Anderson's incredible film is a clarion call for keeping up the fight in the face of overwhelming odds, a concept that really hits home at the moment. The film's defiant final scene of multi-generational determination powerfully drives home the old adage that the "only way out is through." This is unquestionably the movie for this moment - and a great one at that.

Review: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

 

Director Kogonada's third feature, "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey," is the first of his films that didn't quite work for me. Its two leads - Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie - help to make the picture watchable and there are some amusing moments, but the film feels like a Charlie Kaufman movie if you stripped away some of the darker elements and deep thematic resonance and just went straight for the quirky and, in this case, the neuroses.

The film is a romantic comedy, of sorts, about two people who are commitment-phobes for various reasons. When we first meet Farrell's David, he is mourning the death of his father (Hamish Linklater) and has recently called it quits with his girlfriend. Robbie's Sarah is a version of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl trope that appeared more in movies about a decade or so ago. She makes it clear that she intentionally sabotages relationships, especially when they seem to be going well.

The duo meet at a wedding where they flirt but resist the temptation to take it any further. David has rented a car with a GPS that seems to be sending him on some sort of spiritual journey. Sarah gets mixed up in the journey and has some moments of her own.

It all starts when they come upon a door in the middle of a forest that leads them back to previous points in their lives - a lighthouse where David spent a reflective moment in the past is one, while a visit to Sarah's mother is another. The longest sequence involves David traveling back to his high school, where he takes part in the school production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and again makes the mistake of declaring his feelings to a girl who wasn't interested.

One of the issues with the film is that other than the somewhat forced quirkiness - the scene where he picks up the car with the magical GPS strains under the weight of trying to be funny - the picture doesn't really tell us too much about the characters before it immediately throws us head-first into their neuroses. 

We have a scene where David sees his father waiting to learn about his newborn son, the one involving his high school heartbreak, and another having to do with his parents' relationship. Then, we have Sarah's visit with her mother, which draws attention to the strained relationship she has with her father. There's another scene in which both of them meet their recent exes at a coffee shop and they dish out all of their problems. At times, the film feels like an expensive therapy session.

A movie that the film attempts to be emulating is Michel Gondry's wonderful "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," in which a couple whose relationship has failed gets the chance to renew the evidence as they plan to have their minds wiped clean. That film too was offbeat and featured a setup that was beyond the realm of the likely, all the while being emotionally resonant. "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" appears to want to be a film in that register, but it feels more one-dimensional.

I'm perhaps making the film sound worse than it is. The picture is often visually stimulating and the two leads are, not surprisingly, good despite the material. Kogonada's first two features - "Columbus" and "After Yang" - were also offbeat indie movies with a distinctive vibe, but I found them to be a bit weightier and more compelling than this one. The film has its moments, but it feels as if it's missing something.

Review: The Long Walk

Image courtesy of Lionsgate

It looks like we're in the mist of what could be one of the best years for Stephen King adaptations, first with Mike Flanagan's superb "The Life of Chuck" and, later this year, a new version of "The Running Man" by Edgar Wright. This week, Francis Lawrence's film "The Long Walk," based on a novella during King's Richard Bachman years, finally sees the light of day.

The film, which was apparently in development hell for a long time, is a solid picture in the King tradition of male bonding exercises such as "Stand By Me" and the mostly all-male "It." Much like some of King's other "Bachman" works - including "The Running Man" - this story is set in a dystopian future in which a dictatorship keeps the public at bay through bloody spectacle.

We don't get much in the way of explanation for why the country has turned out this way - although a quick glance at the evening news these days is probably good foreshadowing - but we learn that a great war has led to an extended period of joblessness and poverty among the populace. 

A cruel man known as The Major (Mark Hamill, who I didn't even realize was in the film until I saw his name in the credits) leads the titular stroll in which one young man from each state in the union is picked via a lottery to take part in a grueling walk in which there can only be one winner. Those who can go no further are given warnings and then shot.

Although there are memorable characters among the participants - wisecracking Olson (Ben Wang) or the unruly Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer) - the film mostly focuses on the friendship between Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and McVries (David Jonsson), who along with Olson and a young southern man named Arthur (Tut Nyuot) make up the self-proclaimed "musketeers," although there are four of them.

Garraty has a secret reason for taking part in the contest - and he's the only one to volunteer - that is only gradually revealed, while optimist McVries wants to use the prize money to do something good. The yin and yang of these characters makes for a compelling partnership and it helps that both actors are so good in the roles.

While "The Long Walk" doesn't exactly go places that you won't expect, it's a solid example of how the success of a film often depends less on what it's about than it does how it goes about it. This film succeeds because of its strong performances, imaginative camerawork that prevents a scenario that could become visually boring from becoming so, and some interesting back and forth between the characters about what it means to be a friend and to put others before oneself. It's a solid little genre picture with heart.

Review: Lurker

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Those who find it challenging to watch movies about people with whom they wouldn't want to spend time might struggle through director Alex Russell's "Lurker," a psychological thriller of sorts that took a while to grow on me, but ultimately made its case. This is a movie about people who are mostly intolerable, but the story in which they are involved becomes increasingly interesting as it goes on.

It's been said that there's something about being in the room where something great is born. While the music in "Lurker" primarily comes off as the type of pop radio music that I'd flip through while channel surfing, clothing store clerk Matthew (Theodore Pellerin) is instantly drawn to pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) when he drops into the shop to pick up some outfits. 

It's unclear whether Matthew is telling the truth when he says he's unfamiliar with Oliver's music - whereas Matthew's star-struck fellow employee Jaime (Sunny Suljic) is almost drooling - but he jumps at the opportunity when he makes some comments on music that Oliver likes and is soon thereafter invited to drop by his concert in town (the film is set in Los Angeles). 

Upon arriving backstage, where he is at first ignored and then ridiculed by Oliver and his entourage, Matthew is encouraged by Shai (Havana Rose Liu), who appears to be Oliver's manager, to find something that he can do to make himself useful. We soon learn that what she means is that to stay in Oliver's orbit, one must do something to impress him or risk being quickly forgotten.

At first, Matthew must contend with the other members of his entourage, which include Swett (Zack Fox), who goes out of his way to poke fun at Matthew, and a videographer (Daniel Zolghadri) who seems wary of having to work with Matthew.

But Matthew is a master manipulator and convinces Oliver that he can provide great insight into the videos he is making for his upcoming album as well as photo shoots and a documentary about the making of the album. When Jaime tries to insert himself into the entourage as well, Matthew becomes just as overprotective - and even more fearsome - than the previous members.

The group takes a trip to England, where things begin to go south for Matthew, who had since ingratiated himself into the group. The second half of the film turns into somewhat of a stalker movie in which Matthew, who becomes more and more sinister and Oliver becomes more vulnerable, goes to great lengths to keep his place in the pecking order.

At first, the picture only appealed to me moderately. Admittedly, I found most of the characters to be obnoxious, but it becomes obvious that this is intentional. It becomes increasingly more interesting as we get a glimpse at how Matthew, in some respects, torments Oliver, but how he also seems to provide him with valuable collaboration. He's both good and bad for him. As Oliver sings at one point in the film, "What's the difference between love and obsession? I can never tell them apart." 

Pellerin gives a solid performance as Matthew, who's both nakedly desperate not to fall out of favor with the rich and famous person onto whom he has latched himself like a leech. He's also a bit of a cypher, which makes the film at times more mysterious and unsettling. All in all, "Lurker" doesn't say much that's new, but it does so in a compelling way. 

Review: The Conjuring: Last Rites

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

I've never quite understood the logic of demons in horror movies like "The Conjuring: Last Rites." They seem to spend a lot of time lurking in the shadows and popping up for a quick scare before disappearing again, leaving their victims time to come up with a plan on how to get rid of them. The endless taunting doesn't seem very productive.

There's a lot of that in this - allegedly - final chapter of "The Conjuring" chronicles, which follows the exploits - a word that could, depending on who you ask, be taken literally - of Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga), parapsychologists who take on cases that have to do with the supernatural.

This fourth chapter of the series involves a 1986 case that, we are told, devastated the family and was therefore the couple's last case, although the film's ending on a happy note doesn't seem to denote that. Regardless, this particular haunting is one that comes with a fair amount of creepy sequences and, yes, jump scares.

The film's first scene is set in the early 1960s when Lorraine has trouble in the delivery room and it appears as if she's being tormented by a demon as she gives birth to her daughter, who nearly dies in the process. Cut to the 1980s when Judy (Mia Tomlinson), the Warrens' supernaturally inclined daughter, gets engaged to Tony (Ben Hardy), a former cop who is supportive of his fiancee, but still has difficulties getting on Ed's good side.

Meanwhile, a family of eight in a working class Pennsylvania town is being terrorized by a demon that bears some similarity to the one that tormented Lorraine during childbirth. The haunting appears to be caused by the presence of a sinister-looking mirror that appears in the early 1960s scenes and the 1986 ones.

The Warrens are contacted by a friend regarding the case, but when that friend meets a gruesome end, they reluctantly get involved. Ed's heart problems had been the primary cause of their hesitation to get back in the game, while Lorraine secretly worries that her daughter has more troubles than she is letting on.

The film ups the ante on the jump scares - you know, people looking around a room in the dark at a specific spot several times, and then on the third or fourth time something suddenly makes an appearance. I've always considered this a cheap scare tactic in movies, but it can be effective when applied correctly. There are a few sequences - especially one involving a closet and a phone on a cord and another that is centered around the rewinding of a videotape - here that are rather spooky.

"The Conjuring: Last Rites" is better than the third entry in the series, but not as effective as the original two pictures. All in all, it's not bad - but it works much better during the scenes laden with atmosphere that exude creepy menace than the others involving histrionics or shouting prayers at sinister figures, something that multiple "Conjurings" and god knows how many "Exorcists" have made redundant. In essence, this isn't the best entry in this series but it has its moments and its finale provides a nice sendoff to these characters, assuming that a large box office draw doesn't result in a fifth entry.