Conviction (6/10): An inspirational tale about the devotion a sister has for her brother

“I'm sorry you wasted your life on this. Your brother killed that woman.”

Inspired by a remarkable true story in which a sister practically gives up almost two decades of her life in order to save her brother who has been convicted of murder and has been sentenced to life in prison. It’s an amazing and inspirational story, but unfortunately the film suffers from being overly manipulative at times and too conventional. Conviction has Oscar bait written all over it, and despite having a heavy clichéd script the excellent cast elevate the film and make it worth recommending. Many people remember Tony Goldwyn from his villainous role in Ghost, but he has also directed a couple of rom-coms. This is the first time he directs a fully dramatic film and it suffers from being overly sentimental at times (the score is way too melodramatic). 

The film is saved however by its excellent cast. Hillary Swank is amazing as this working mother who decides to put her personal aspirations aside to help save her imprisoned brother. In order to do so she decides to finish High School and go through law school. Not an easy task considering Betty Anne has two children to maintain. Sam Rockwell plays Betty’s brother, Kenny, who was arrested in 1983 for a brutal murder. Betty and Kenny had been very close since they were young because their mother was constantly working so we get several flashbacks of them spending their childhood days breaking into nearby homes and dreaming of a better life. This always got Kenny into trouble with the local authorities. Years later, when a woman was found brutally murdered in a trailer near to Kenny’s place he was the first suspect. After some incriminating evidence against him he is sentenced and that is when her loving sister decides to dedicate her life to free him. The degree of devotion she has for her brother is unprecedented and truly inspirational.

The question one asks throughout the film is how far Betty is willing to go to help her brother considering it has led her to lose her husband and any attempt to have a life of her own. It has even affected her relationship with her two children, played by Owen Campbell and Conor Donovan, who feel neglected at times. There isn’t one second in which she questions what she is doing and takes it more as a responsibility and a debt she has for her brother. Swank gives a powerful performance and her devotion to Kenny is completely believable. Rockwell is also great as Kenny in both the prison scenes and in some of the flashback scenes where we see some of his wild behavior. He plays his character extremely well, up to the point where you are never really sure wether or not this guy is guilty for the crime he has committed. The only person who seems convinced about his innocence is his sister and that made the film all the more compelling. 

Minnie Driver plays Abra Rice, one of the law students who befriends Betty and helps her on the case. Her relationship with Betty could’ve been explored a bit better, but the entire focus of the film was on Betty’s devotion and effort to try to free her brother so she is only introduced as this friend who helped with the case. The family dynamics between Betty and her children and between her and her ex husband is barely touched upon because the filmmaker’s devotion was focused on the relationship between the two siblings. It didn’t hurt that they were played by Rockwell and Swank, two extremely talented actors. I’m a huge fan of Sam Rockwell and I could personally watch anything he does so I might be a bit biased but their relationship in this film is what sold this movie. Melissa Leo has some small scenes in the film, but her presence is always welcomed. The film has its flaws and at times the pacing of the film does begin to drag and feel repetitive, but the performances more than make up for it at the end.   

Laggies (6/10): A talented and funny cast, but a predictable coming of age tale.

“Treat somebody badly enough you just assume they'll be happy to let you go.”

Laggies was one of my most anticipated films from 2014 for several reasons. First of all, Lynn Shelton directed one of my favorite romantic comedies from 2011, Your Sister’s Sister, with clever and witty dialogues and an interesting premise. The other reasons for my high expectations for Laggies revolves around the fantastic cast. Sam Rockwell is an actor who I could watch in any movie, but he is especially fantastic in comedies and coming of age movies (The Way Way Back being one of my favorite performances of his). Ever since Kick-Ass, Chloe Grace Moretz has been one of my favorite child actors and she has grown into a talented and charismatic teen actress. Keira Knightley has delivered in the past as well despite not being one of my favorites, and Kaitlyn Dever gave a refreshing performance in Short Term 12. The director and the cast of Laggies elevated my expectations for this film because I am a fan of everyone involved, but I wasn’t blown away by it the way I thought I would be. Laggies is still a solid coming of age film starring a talented cast with plenty of laughs focusing on a woman who is struggling to live up to her potential and going through some sort of quarter-life crisis.

In Laggies, Keira Knightley plays Megan, a 28 year old well educated woman who can’t find her vocation in life. She lives with her High School boyfriend, Anthony (Mark Webber), and keeps in close contact with her High School friend circle. They have all seemed to move on, some are getting married, others are having their first baby, and they are succeeding in the professional lives. Megan on the other hand is still working for her father and is content with holding up signs in the streets for his company. She is an adolescent trapped in the body of a 28 year old, so in a sense this is a film about adulthood. When her boyfriend proposes, she panics and decides to hide out for a week. After buying some alcohol for a group of teens she befriends them and asks if she can hang low at one of their homes for a week. Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) who lives with her single father, Craig (Sam Rockwell), offers to let her stay at their place. Jeff Garlin plays the role of Megan’s father and Kaitlyn Dever plays one of Annika’s High School friends.

Laggies balances the difficult transition that Megan’s character has to make with comedic and light humor. There is something a bit uncomfortable with the relation between Megan and the young teenagers she befriends, and when Craig confronts her about it, we feel a bit at unease. But the comedy helps lighten the mood and Sam Rockwell is so good that he makes these scenes believable. Keira Knightley gives a strong performance as well and you can feel her uneasiness and inner conflict. The true surprise of the film for me however was Kaitlyn Dever who delivers most laughs. She doesn’t get many scenes, but the few she’s in she is hilarious. Like in most of Shelton’s films she throws some curve balls along the way with some subplots we aren’t expecting, but the end is rather predictable and generic making Laggies feel like another cliched romantic comedy. I may have over-hyped this film and despite not enjoying it half as much as I anticipated I still consider Laggies a solid film that entertains despite not being groundbreaking or memorable. The thing that is fresh about Laggies is that it centers around a female character with a screenplay written by a woman so there is definitely a female voice, but the fact that Shelton didn’t write the screenplay this time was a bit of a disappointment.  

My Review: The Way Way Back (8/10)

"Duncan! On a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think you are?"

It's been a great year for people like me who love coming-of-age films. So far I haven't been disappointed. Mud is my favorite film of the year, The Kings of Summer was a lot of fun, and The Way Way Back was charming. I loved this film despite it pretty much following the same formula most of these coming-of-age films do. The thing that stood out for me here were the performances and the emotion involving script written by Academy Award winning screenwriters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Descendants). I was engaged with the story from the very opening scene and cared deeply for these characters. There were a perfect mix of funny and entertaining moments with some emotional drama. Liam James delivers a strong lead performance although at times he overdoes the physical aspect a bit by shrugging his shoulders a little too much (especially during the first half of the film until he begins building his confidence). It felt like he was trying too hard to point out that he was shy and lost, but I still sympathized with his character. The true stars of this film however are the secondary characters. Sam Rockwell gives yet another spectacular performance and he owns this movie. It was a pleasure to see his character on screen and he had great chemistry with Liam as he helped the kid grow and became a sort of a father figure to him. Steve Carell hits all the right notes in this film as the douche bag without overselling the performance. No matter how much you may love him as an actor, he genuinely is despiteful in this movie. Allison Janney is also hilarious in this movie. For a coming of age film I thought the adult actors were much better than the kids (at least their characters were better developed), and the location truly felt like a Spring Break for adults. Faxon and Rash not only wrote the script, they also played secondary characters (they were also really funny), and this was their first film as directors. I really liked this movie and thought it was even better than Payne's The Descendants which they helped write. The Way Way Back gets my respects and I definitely recommend this movie.

Fourteen year old Duncan (Liam James) is a shy and lonely kid who is being forced by his mom, Pam (Toni Collette) to travel with her to her boyfriend's beach house for the summer. She has been dating Trent (Steve Carrell) for over a year now and they decide to travel together along with his daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin). Once they arrive to their destiny they are welcomed by Trent's single sister, Betty (Allison Janney) and her two kids: Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Peter (River Alexander). Duncan has a difficult time talking to anyone and would have preferred going to his father's house in California (especially since Trent treats him so badly). At this unexpected place he begins to find himself when he accepts a summer job at a water park managed by the goofy Owen (Sam Rockwell). Owen takes a liking for the shy kid and teaches him a few life lessons. He also befriends the rest of the employees of the park including Caitlin (Maya Rudolph), Roddy (Nat Faxon), and Lewis (Jim Rash). He tries to spend as much time as he can in the water park, since back home the only person he can actually talk to is Susanna with whom a nice friendship slowly begins to form. Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet also star in this film as Trent's friends with whom they spend most of the time.

The Way Way Back has some similarities to Adventureland and although that film might be a little better I still think The Way Way Back holds its own mainly because of how great Sam Rockwell is here. It was easy for me to identify with Duncan and the film builds on that nostalgic sentiment of adolescence at times. Some elements may seem familiar or taken from other movies, but they still work in a unique way here. I really wouldn't mind watching this film again because it was a pleasant experience. It's like a summer destiny I would like to visit again the following summer. I loved how they managed to turn so many familiar elements from the genre and make them feel fresh and new. There are moments where you will find yourself laughing hard and then the next minute you will feel heart broken. I also loved the soundtrack for this film. The Way Way Back is a very enjoyable film, especially if coming-of-age films are you sort of thing.

My Review: Seven Psychopaths (7/10)

¨I´m sick of all these stereotypical Hollywood murderer scumbag type psychopath movies. I don’t want it to be one more film about guys with guns in their hands.¨

This is one weird, strange, unique, and messy movie as the title suggests. At times the film seems to be a masterpiece, at other it simply wonders off too much. I was a bit disappointed with how things turned out, but it was still a great ride. Martin McDonagh is perhaps one of the best contemporary playwriters; I had a blast with his film In Bruges and had huge expectations for this one considering the impressive ensemble cast, but I guess my expectations were set too high because this film didn’t work as well as I would have liked. McDonagh does succeed in creating original characters as he plays around with movie clichés and has fun breaking the genre down and putting his spin on things. We´ve seen other movies about movies before, but not like this one; it never gets generic. This is one funny and quirky dark comedy written with very sharp dialogues and unique characters. You can see some influence from Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese in McDonagh´s work, but it still remains fresh and breaks with generic clichés in a way that it remains unique. This is the second time Colin Farrell works with director McDonagh after In Bruges, and in my opinion these are his best roles. We can only hope these two continue to work together. McDonagh couldn’t have counted on a better ensemble cast than this one; everyone was terrific here.

This dark comedy is about a screenwriter named Marty (Colin Farrell) who is trying to write a screenplay titled Seven Psychopaths. The only problem is that he has only come up with one psychopath so far, and can´t get inspired to write the story. His good friend, Billy (Sam Rockwell), a frustrated actor who makes a living by kidnapping dogs and collecting the ransom, tells him about another psychopath and begins throwing ideas for the script. Billy´s associate in the dog kidnapping business is Hans (Christopher Walken) who is trying to make some extra money to help out his wife, Myra (Linda Bright Clay), who is in a clinic diagnosed with cancer. Billy and Hans end up kidnapping a shih tzu from a dangerous mob boss, Charlie (Woody Harrelson). They´ve messed with the wrong guy, because Charlie begins going all psycho on everyone in order to find his dog. Somehow Marty becomes entangled in this Los Angeles criminal underworld and in a way everyone seems to be pitching in ideas for his movie. The story begins taking some weird and unexpected turns everywhere as the action continues and some of Marty´s characters begin to come to life as not everyone seems to be who we expect.

This dark comedy has some wonderfully written dialogues with some great moments of humor, but at other times I felt the movie was drifting away by trying to break with generic barriers. It is still a fun movie and one I recommend thanks to an excellent and cleverly written script, and a brilliant ensemble cast. Farrell is always great working alongside McDonagh; Sam Rockwell gives another masterful and quirky performance, Woody Harrelson was made for these types of role, and Christopher Walken is just spectacular with his deadpan acting. It is not difficult to give good performances when you have such a great screenwriter creating some memorable and funny dialogues. I had a pleasant time with this film although my expectations were set much higher considering McDonagh´s previous film was much better. I was a huge fan of In Bruges, but Seven Psychopaths didn’t really surprise me as much.

  

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My Review: Cowboys & Aliens (6/10)

¨Whether you end up in Heaven or Hell isn't God's plan, it's your own. You just have to remember what it is.¨

In Cowboys & Aliens Jon Favreau meshes two genres that I never thought I would see in a same movie: a Western and Sci-fi film involving an alien invasion. The idea is pretty original considering we`ve seen several alien invasion films like Men in Black and Independence Day, but they all take place in big modern day cities. Cowboys & Aliens on the other hand takes place in a small Arizona town during 1873 where local cowboys have to unite with bandits and Indians in order to fight against these aliens.  The idea which was based on an independent comic book was great, but the film itself is mediocre. One of the main problems in my opinion is that there were too many people involved in the adaptation of the screenplay. It`s never a good sign when you have more than five people writing the story. Jon Favreau proved in Iron Man that he can direct great films, but this time he was missing an actor like Robert Downey Jr. who can deliver great action scenes along with some comic relief. Downey Jr. was actually Favreau`s first choice to play the lead role, but due to scheduling conflicts he had to go with Daniel Craig. Craig is a great action star (he was great in Casino Royale), but he doesn`t have the charisma that Downey Jr. has and it could`ve came handy in this role. Cowboys & Aliens had plenty of well staged action scenes, but the comedy was missing. I think some humor could have worked better to let the audience know that this movie should be taken lightly considering the title and the plot. I still enjoyed the movie, but I`ve seen a lot better westerns and sci-fi flicks on their own.

Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up near a small town in Arizona with no memory as to what has happened to him or who he is. He has a strange bracelet in his arm and a cut near his abdomen. Once he arrives in the small town he has a dispute with a young kid named Percy (Paul Dano) who thinks he can do what he wants because his father is a rich and important cattle man: Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Woodrow used to be a Colonel during the Civil War, but now he runs the town known as Absolution. The local Sheriff (Keith Carradine) discovers that Jake is a wanted man and locks him in prison, but Woodrow wants his head because apparently Jake has stolen gold from him. Jake has no memory of this, but a young local woman named Ella (Olivia Wilde) seems to know more about him. It`s during this dispute between the Colonel and the Sheriff that the aliens attack the small town and abduct about half of the population, including Woodraw`s son. The few cowboys that remain decide it`s best to settle their differences and unite in order to try to find the aliens. Jake discovers that his bracelet works as a powerful weapon against the aliens and he can be their only hope. As the search begins, Jake begins remembering things about his past and piecing things together with the help of Ella.

Daniel Craig is a great actor, but I don’t think this was the right role for him. Harrison Ford has been playing similar roles as a grumpy old man and I really think he can do a lot better. Olivia Wilde is beautiful, but she doesn`t have much to work with in the role she was given. She pretty much stares at Jake all the time, and we get to see her pretty eyes a lot, but that`s about it. Sam Rockwell is very talented and he does what he can with the small role he was given, but I insist a much more comedic approach should have been taken with this film. More comedy, less action. The special effects were good, the action scenes also pretty entertaining and the aliens looked cool, but that is about it. I really like the cast, but they were just given poor material to work with. I still had a decent time with the film, but I was expecting a little more from Favreau and the boys. Cowboys & Aliens is fun, but I`ve enjoyed regular Westerns or Sci-Fi films a lot better. For example I would much rather prefer seeing True Grit, a straight up Western, than this film. What I mean to say is that there are a lot better looking Westerns and Sci-Fi films on their own, and this film would have been a lot better if the meshed genres were better. I still recommend this movie, just don`t go into it with great expectations.

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My Review: Everybody`s Fine (6/10)

¨If you would ask me I would have to say in all honesty, everybody`s fine. Everybody`s fine.¨

Kirk Jones (who also directed Nanny McPhee and Waking Ned Divine) directs this italian remake from the 90`s called Stanno Tutti Bene. He also is given credit for adapting the original screenplay to suit this american version better. The film works because De Niro gives a pretty powerful performance and makes you forget all the cliches the film has. Yes, it is very formulaic and we know every single kid will have something to hide from his father, they all have a problem, and they all are withholding information from him. The journey De Niro`s character is making will be revealing and teach him some lessons which he never learned in his 60 years, but he will now in these few days. Everybody`s Fine follows all those formulas which we have grown used to in Hollywood films, but thanks to some interesting performances the movie is worth your time. It is a dramedy, a movie that likes to play with our emotions, but it still is worth checking out. The weakest part of the movie is the distance that De Niro`s character has with his children. It is hard to believe sometimes that this is actually a family and I think the director exagerated a bit with the coldness and distance between them, and it all just ties up too neatly at the end.

Frank Goode (Robert De Niro) is a widower, who is planning on having his four children for dinner on the weekend. After making plans for preparing a nice meal he receives calls from each one saying that they won`t be able to make it. Frank hasn`t seen his kids since their mother`s funeral and he realizes she was the one that maintained the family together, so he decides to go give them a surprise visit each. Frank has a lung condition and his doctor recommends him to stay at home and not travel, but he decides to go anyway across the different states on train and bus. His first stop is New York where he plans on visiting David (Austin Lysy), an artist. He is not at his apartment and Frank waits for an entire day without being able to reach him, although he is glad to see one of his paintings at a gallery near his apartment. Frank decides to move on and visit his daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale) in Chicago. She is a succesful ad executive and has a nice home she shares with her husband and son. Frank then travels to Denver the next day because she is busy and visits Robert (Sam Rockwell), who plays the percussion for the orchestra. Frank`s last trip is to Las Vegas where he meets up with Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a succesful profesional dancer. Frank realizes that his children have all been lieing to him and that they are not all fine, but he wonders why they can`t trust him and figures it is because he pushed his kids too hard. 

Robert De Niro gives one of his best performances in years, and  it was good to see him in this kind of role. Drew Barrymore also gives a great performance and she seemed the closest with her father, and perhaps the only one who really had chemistry with him. It was hard to beleive his relationship with his other children, especially with Kate Beckinsale`s character who was too distant. Sam Rockwell gives a good performance, he is a great actor, but he was much better in Moon. The movie has a slow start, but after a while you begin to get involved in the story and wonder what the kids are hiding. Frank has worked hard all his life making telephone cables in order to give his kids a good education and has really pushed them, perhaps a bit too much. Ironically that communication media is not used anymore by his children who all use wireless cellphones, and it represents the communication between them that has been broken over the years. I think that the main problem the film has is that it tries to resolve everything at the end, and it just doesn`t work that well. However, the story is well told and if you are into these emotional movies then you will probably enjoy this one because it has some good performances and is a very touching movie. The problem I had with it was that it was too formulaic, but still worth it in my opinion.

My Review: Moon (8/10)

¨I hope life on Earth is everything you remember it to be. ¨

Moon is a very good sci-fi film, which is even more impressive considering it is Duncan Jones`s directorial debut (and he actually won a BAFTA award for this picture). Jones, who was known up to this moment primarily for being David Bowie`s son, does a great job at creating such an artistic movie with such a low budget. He came up with the story and Nathan Parker wrote the screenplay for it. Moon is probably among the best films of 2009 and my favorite sci-fi movie of that year along with District 9. The film works because it has an interesting premise, it`s a well thought out movie, and it has a very good performance from Sam Rockwell. It also is impossible not to compare it with Kubrick`s 2001 A Space Odyssey, since Moon seems to pay homage to that film and I think that it does the movie justice. It is very hard to come across smart movies like this one, especially in the sci-fi genre, and it really felt very nice to not know what was going to happen nor being able to predict the film. In a period of time where so many remakes are being made and ideas are constantly being recycled it was good to come across a fresh movie like this one. Even though the budget to make this film was pretty low, the visual effects are great and that is a must for a sci-fi picture.

 Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) works for Lunar Industries and he has a 3 year contract to work solo at the station in the moon. The new energy source in Earth is Helium 3 which is harvested in the moon and Sam is in charge of sending it back to earth. The only company he has at the station is a robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who is designed to fulfill his every day needs and since direct communication with Earth has been interrupted he has to communicate with his wife through video recordings. Sam also has a young daughter who was born shortly before he went to the moon and he can`t wait to go back to meet her since he only has a couple of weeks left in his three year contract. The problem is that the three years of isolation have begun to leave its mark on him and he begins to suffer from hallucinations and finds himself often talking to himself and his plants. One day Sam encounters some problems outside of the station as he was trying to fix a mechanical harvester and suffers a head injury and is left unconscious. He awakes inside the station with GERTY attending him but has no recollection of how he got back to the base.  After Sam recovers from the injury he decides to visit the site of the accident and makes an astonishing discovery that makes him doubt about his sanity. He sees himself in the same place where he suffered the injury and decides to bring him back to the base. He begins to question his mind and his true identity and whether or not he has been cloned.

The movie really takes some interesting twists and turns making it very hard to predict. This is what makes Moon such a good sci-fi film, but it wouldn`t have worked if Sam Rockwell didn´t give such a great performance as he put on a one man show. He had to play two different kind of characters and it was very entertaining to see him deliver such a great performance. Kevin Spacey also was great as the voice of GERTY and it was impossible not to think about HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey. I really enjoyed this movie which raises a lot of questions towards the advances of science and will leave you thinking about some important issues which I don`t want to give away. It also focuses on the importance humans have of communicating with each other and having intimacy with other people in a similar way that Tom Hank`s Castaway did. This is a highly recommendable film which you should see if you`re not easily put off by the slow pacing of the film.

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