My Favorite Collection: Mystic River (10/10)

“We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean.”

     

Mystic River and Unforgiven are my two favorite Clint Eastwood films and depending on which one I see last I tend to put in first place. Right now I’m inclined to declare Mystic River as Eastwood’s best film, but that is subject to change anytime (perhaps even before I finish writing this review). Nominated for six Academy Awards, the film won two: Sean Penn for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Tim Robbins for Best Supporting Actor. I was rooting for Brian Helgeland’s wonderful screenplay adaptation from Dennis Lehane’s novel, but it lost out to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Helgeland had previously won an Oscar for his adaptation of L.A. Confidential, which is another wonderful thriller. Lehane’s novel adaptations have always translated well to the big screen and I recommend each one: The Drop, Shutter Island, and Gone Baby Gone. So when putting these two great writers together you are guaranteed an intriguing story with rich characters, which is one of the reasons why I love Mystic River. On a side note I just want to say that Lehane’s novel, Live By Night, is being directed by Ben Affleck and will be released some time next year. It’s already my frontrunner for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards without knowing anything else about it. 

Mystic River’s underlying theme is the loss of innocence. The story centers around three childhood friends whose life is forever changed when one of them is abducted and molested for several days before he manages to escape. The film centers on these three characters now that they are adults. Dave (Tim Robbins), the victim, is now a married man, but he is clearly traumatized by the abuse he received. Sean (Kevin Bacon) has become a homicide detective, while Jimmy (Sean Penn) is an ex-con who is now a loving father of three. When Jimmy’s daughter goes missing and is found dead, Sean takes over the investigation, but Jimmy is not going to let whoever committed this terrible crime go unpunished. 

Mystic River stands out for its clever screenplay, and that usually translates to fantastic performances. Sean Penn delivers one of his best performances and the scene where he finds out his daughter has been murdered is heart-breaking. Tim Robbins is also fantastic playing a traumatized man whose life was changed by that terrible event during his childhood. Sean Penn is perhaps given the most straightforward scenes as the detective, but even he shares some powerful scenes with Sean Penn. Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden also have some intense dramatic scenes. The film stands out thanks to its powerful performances and the surprising dark reveals along the way. It could even stand out on its own for the detective story, but it is carried to another level thanks to the impressive performances and Eastwood’s solid direction.

“The last time I saw Dave…That was twenty-five years ago, going up this street, in the back of that car.” That quote left me with goosebumps all over my arms and a quick chill run through my spine.

My Review: Apocalypse Now Redux (7/10)

¨I love the smell of napalm in the morning.¨

There is no doubt that Apocalypse Now will be considered by many as one of the best films of all time because it is a very memorable and unique film. It feels surreal at times and has some great performances. It`s also hard to define what genre the film belongs to because it doesn’t seem to have a structure or a pattern we find in other films. Apocalypse Now is a classic and powerful film, but I really wasn’t blown away by it and didn’t enjoy it very much. The problem I had with it was that I watched the Redux version which is almost one hour longer than the original, so there were several moments that seemed to drag forever. What I did enjoy about this movie was the first hour which I felt was an absolute masterpiece. Those first sixty minutes were a lot of fun and had the best moments in the movie. Then the next two hours dragged way too much with all the surrealism. I got the point, the soldiers were getting crazy over the minute and the film succeeds tremendously in pointing that out as we see how nonsensical this war really was. The minds of these men seemed to be lost completely and there was chaos reigning all over the place. For me nothing will replace those brilliant first sixty minutes with a performance from Robert Duvall for the ages. He was perfect in those few scenes he was in and I wish the film would`ve dealt with him instead. The entrance in the helicopters with the classical music and then the surfing in the middle of the war zone was so hilarious; one of the best scenes in film history. I was really feeling good about this movie, until the film went completely in another direction and lost my interest.

The movie takes place during the Vietnam War and it begins with a voice over narration of the main character, Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen), who has recently returned from the United States to continue fighting. He is beginning to lose his mind while he awaits his mission. He says all he wanted to do when he was in the jungle was return home, and once he was home all he wanted was to return to the jungle. War has taken its toll on him. Finally he receives a new mission from Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) that is highly classified. He has to go down the Nung River all the way to Cambodia and find a former Colonel who has seemed to have lost his mind and gone haywire. He has built an army of his own and is killing off several Viet Cong officials without taking orders from anyone. Colonel Lucas wants Captain Willard to locate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and kill him. Willard is sent on his mission along with a Navy patrol boat to escort him. Chief Phillips (Albert Hall), Chef Hicks (Frederic Forrest), Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms) a known surfer, and Clean Miller (Laurence Fishburne) are Captain Willard`s only companions on this classified mission. In order to begin their course down the river they first have to infiltrate a Viet Cong outpost so Lt. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) and his cavalry help them do so. As Captain Willard and his men begin their descent through the river they come across several bases (friendly and enemy) and the further down we go the more chaotic and wild things begin to get.

The descent through the Nung River was probably my least favorite part of the film. I enjoyed much more the scenes with Lt. Kilgore and his men that helped them begin their mission. Duvall as Lt. Kilgore steals the movie and he is brilliant in every scene. He is more concerned with surfing than he is with the actual War. It`s as if he is living in an alternate reality. This is just a small glimpse of what we are going to see further on in the movie as we encounter different outposts that seem to get weirder every time. Everything is escalating up to the very end and seems to get more and more chaotic thus making the title, Apocalypse Now, very appropriate. This isn’t your typical war movie, people are losing their minds and the film becomes more and more surreal and harder to fit into one specific genre. Francis Ford Coppola was at the top of his game during the 70`s with The Godfather films and you can see how brilliantly directed the scenes were. The cinematography and lighting was excellent. The reason I don’t give this film a higher grade despite admitting it is a memorable and unique movie is because I really wasn’t entertained that much with it. It would be hard to watch it again, unless I could just see that first hour with Robert Duvall. The all star cast makes it a little easier to watch: Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, and Laurence Fishburne.

  

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My Review: Armored (3/10)

¨Not everybody is a hero Soldier boy.¨

(3/10) Laurence Fishburne´s character, Baines, tells this to his partner after a heist that he has been planning with his coworkers. He is right, not everybody is a hero. That is just as certain as saying that not every good actor makes a good movie. This film has a very talented cast, but the script and story were so bad that it made these actors look like amateurs. I really thought this was a waste of a talented cast with such names as Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus in the Matrix trilogy), Matt Dillon (There´s Something About Mary, Crash), Jean Reno (Ronin and The Professional), Skeet Ulrich (Scream), Amaury Nolasco (from the TV series Prison Break), Milo Ventimiglia (from the TV series Heroes), and Columbus Short (who is probably the least known actor and ironically had the main part in this movie). I was really disappointed with this film because I know most of these actors have made excellent films although they are in a slump right now (Jean Reno has had to settle for two appearances in The Pink Panther, Matt Dillon hasn`t made anything noteworthy for quite some time, and Fishburne has stuck with his TV role in CSI). Hungarian director Nimrod Antal who became famous for his local film Kontroll, which received several foreign film awards, now had the chance to make his second American film after he debuted with Vacancy. He has received much more critical acclaim with his Hungarian films than he has so far with these two movies, and perhaps he is not ready to work with such big time actors or he doesn`t have as much freedom as he did with his other films. Whatever it is, he will have to go back to his roots next time if he wants to have a better reception from critics and audiences alike.

The movie begins with three security guards transporting money in an armored truck from one bank to another. Baines (Laurence Fishburne) is the driver while Mike (Matt Dillon) and Ty (Columbus Short) are in charge of loading the money into the vehicle. When they finish loading, Baines tells them to be on the lookout because a suspicious van has been circulating the area. While they are in the truck, the engine suddenly shuts down because it seems someone messed with the gas tank and they end up stuck under a bridge with no form of communication. A black van comes to a stop right behind them and three masked men come straight towards them and put a bomb on the armored truck. The guards have no time to react but all of a sudden fireworks begin to come out of the device which seemed to be a bomb. Baines and Mike can`t stop laughing while Ty still doesn`t get over what is happening. It is all a prank because Ty is new to the job and that is the way his partners welcome him. The masked men are coworkers from the other armored truck, Quinn (Jean Reno), Dobbs (Skeet Ulrich), and Palmer (Amaury Nolasco). After the scare they all go out and have some drinks in a bar where we get to know each character a little better. Ty is a former soldier who has recently lost his parents and has to take care of his little brother. Mike is a friend of the family and promises to take care of them. We discover that Ty is having a lot of economical troubles and is about to lose his house. At first, Ty tries to get his boss Ashcroft (Fred Ward) to give him some more hours, but it isn`t possible. Mike tells Ty about a plan they all have of stealing a big transaction that is going to take place the next day and they want him to be a part of it. It is supposed to be a simple job where no one will get hurt and they will all walk out with a lot of money which just happens to be from the bank that is trying to take Ty`s house away. The heist turns out to go nothing as planned and the action begins.

I was really disappointed with this film because it had so much potential, but these talented actors performed under my expectations due to a weak plot and bad direction. The story had too many plot holes and unbelievable elements, the actors were unconvincing, the action was predictable, the characters seemed to change moods from one moment to the next, and the main character was someone I really didn`t care for that much. This is one of those movies that you forget about a few days after you see it and will have no memory of it at all. There is nothing positive I can say about this except that it is just cheap entertainment. I really feel bad for some of these actors who have much more to offer but can`t seem to find a decent script. Armored is probably one of the weakest heist movies out in the last few years. The film just makes you wish these armored trucks had a GPS system or something so we didn`t have to watch the silly plot unfold.