Unfinished Business (3/10): Dumb and Dumber Eurotrip.

“Hello, I’m Mike Pancake.”

This quote is just one example of how uninspired the screenwriter was at the moment of writing the script for Unfinished Business. Of course he followed it up by making several breakfast references, but none of the jokes were actually funny. It’s a shame because Ken Scott had a stronger cast to work with here than in his previous collaboration with Vince Vaughn, Delivery Man, a film I didn’t really like but that I didn’t dislike either. I’d rather sit through that movie than watch Unfinished Business because this was incredibly dull, the jokes were lame, and the story was completely unfocused and all over the place. Delivery Man is a masterpiece next to Unfinished Business. It seemed like screenwriter Steve Conrad thought about several funny scenes he could include in a movie like having Vince Vaughn run in his wife’s jogging clothes, but he didn’t worry about giving any reasonable explanation for the scene other than having his young daughter confusing her mom’s clothes with his (like if that were a possibility). Actually the entire subplot with Vaughn’s family is unnecessary and shouldn’t have been included because it felt completely out of place. I’ve read some positive reviews and I respect them, but I honestly didn’t find this film funny and thought that it was a waste of a talented cast. My greatest problem was the lazy writing, the forced jokes and the unfocused story. 

In Vince Vaghn’s latest bromantic comedy he plays Dan Trunkman, a salesman for a big company who decides to quit and start his own small business after discussing with his boss, Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller). He offers the rest of his fellow co-workers the opportunity to come work with him and the only ones who follow him are Timothy (Tom Wilkinson) and Mike (Dave Franco). The only reason they do is because Timothy has been forced to retire because of his age and Mike was actually interviewing for a position which he didn’t get. Tom immediately invites them to Dunkin Donuts to plan their strategy. A year goes by and the three of them are still having their meetings there, but they are about to close their first important deal. In order to do so they must travel to Germany where they will meet Jim Spinch (James Marsden) and his assistant Bill (Nick Frost) to shake hands and seal the deal. Unfortunately the sale isn’t as closed as they had anticipated because Chuck has been interfering and trying to seal another deal with them. In the meantime, Dan’s kids Paul and Bess (Britton Sear and Ella Anderson), are having trouble in school and his extremely supportive wife, Susan (June Diane Raphael) needs his attention. Dan will have to try to balance his family life and his business, but things get extremely wacky in Europe where a sex fetish event is taking place at the same time as a global economic summit.

I honestly have no idea what Dave Franco was thinking when he decided to play this character, but I guess he never considered taking Robert Downey Jr’s advice of never going full retard in a movie. It’s hard to understand what he’s saying at times as he doesn’t speak out much and seems to mumble and make up words. Vaughn is playing the same character he has been playing in his latest comedies and I’m glad he is finally going to be doing something different in the upcoming True Detective series because he needs to try to break out from that tired formula which worked wonders for him in Wedding Crashers, but has gotten old now. Tom Wilkerson is a terrific actor, but his character isn’t funny at all. He plays an old man who is looking forward to getting divorced and having sex for the first time with someone he can love. Not even the reliable Nick Frost is given decent material to work with. The film is only 90 minutes long but you feel every second of them because most of the jokes miss the mark. The film is also incredibly unbalanced being on the one hand an irreverent business road trip and on the other trying to deliver an anti-bullying message which is never actually resolved and ends up being an afterthought. 

American Sniper (8/10): Chris Kyle gets the Eastwood treatment.

“I'm willing to meet my Creator and answer for every shot that I took.”

Clint Eastwood’s latest film, American Sniper, is a carefully constructed character study of one of America’s deadliest snipers during the War in Iraq. Unlike most war films this isn’t an anti or pro-war movie; it is a film focusing on a character who happens to be a soldier. Bradley Cooper is in nearly every scene of the movie and everything revolves around him. We really don’t get familiar with any of the other characters in the movie because he is the main subject of the film. Sienna Miller plays his wife and she is the only other character in the film who has any depth beside him. Eastwood is doing what he does best here, which is focusing on the narration and telling the story of this unique man who had more than 150 confirmed kills during his service as a Navy SEAL. Some may read this film as patriotic, but I think it doesn’t really take a side on this issue and rather simply focuses on a man who acted upon the firm conviction that he was doing what was right. Having his character kill off a woman and a young child during the opening scene proves this point. It is a difficult decision, but Chris Kyle has no reservation about what he is doing because he is determined and is able to justify his own actions. The film then flashes back to Kyle’s adolescent years where he is taught by his father to be a protective man (to be a sheep dog that protects the sheep from the wolves). This is the key scene in the movie that becomes a metaphor of who Kyle will later become. That is why after watching the 9-11 attacks on TV he decides to join the army. This could’ve been cheesy and cliche, but I believed his character actually would act on such an impulse because it was the way he was raised. So without taking sides or judging this character, Eastwood is able to focus on his actions and later the consequences those decisions had in his life. He isn’t simply portrayed as a hero, he suffers PTSD and suffers consequences for his actions. This however is the weakest part of the film because the film sort of rushes the character to recovery and doesn’t take more time to dwell on that aspect of his life. American Snpier a solid character study with some good action scenes and a strong lead performance from Bradley Cooper.

Based on Chris Kyle’s autobiographical book, Jason Hall adapts a solid screenplay and walks the dangerous fine line of trying to force a point of view about the war on the audience. Focusing on the character allows it to steer away from that common and familiar take on war films. Bradley Cooper is the driving force of the movie and for the first time I actually forgot I was watching Bradley Cooper, and I believed he was the actual Chris Kyle. He downplays much of his performance and that is what made it more convincing. Sienna Miller is also great (she disappears like she did in Foxcatcher, and becomes the character). The rest of the cast really never get much to work with considering everything centers on the lead character. There is a thrilling confrontation between Kyle and an enemy sniper played by Sammy Sheik that is very interesting. The film has plenty of well choreographed action scenes and many thrills that keep us engaged. There is a great sandstorm action scene near the third act of the film that stands out. The action scenes are perhaps the most gripping thing about American Sniper, but a deeper exploration of the effects of the war on Kyle could’ve lifted this to another level. It is portrayed in a light and rushed way, but Cooper does his best to capture that inner tension. What American Sniper does best is tell the character’s story and let the audience make their own conclusion of wether or not he was a hero or a murderer. 

My Review: Layer Cake (7/10)

¨Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will all be legal. I´m not a gangster. I’m a businessman whose commodity happens to be cocaine.¨

Layer Cake is the film that made Hollywood turn its eyes on Daniel Craig to become the next James Bond. Despite playing an anti-villain in this film, he displayed several qualities that we actually see in some of his recent roles as Bond. If it weren’t for Layer Cake, I can´t imagine Craig being considered for the role. But Layer Cake wasn’t just a breakout role for Daniel Craig; this was also Matthew Vaughn´s directorial debut. Vaughn who had previously produced some of Guy Ritchie´s work including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch was heavily influenced by his directing style and Layer Cake is living proof of that. After the success Vaughn had with this film he went on directing different projects like Stardust, Kick-Ass, and X-Men First Class, which in my opinion were superior to Layer Cake. In Layer Cake I felt, Vaughn took a lot of things from the British criminal genre that Ritchie made famous, but in his next movies he was able to break free and try new things. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time with this crime thriller, but I felt like it didn’t stand out from the rest of the films in this genre besides Craig´s superb performance. The film requires its audience to play close attention to the story because several things are happening at once and at times I felt the pace of the film was a bit rushed. There were way too many things going on to fit everything in a 100 minute movie. The screenplay was based on J.J. Connolly´s successful novel.

The story centers on a cocaine dealer who considers himself a businessman and not a gangster. He´s working as sort of a middle man between the underground wholesalers and street dealers. He´s not named, but the credit roles call him XXXX (Daniel Craig). XXXX is a very intelligent and cautious businessman who knows what he´s doing, but happens to work for very dangerous people who sometimes get him into trouble. He´s planning on retiring from the business, but before he can do so his boss, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) asks him to locate Charlotte Ryder (Nathalie Lunghi), who happens to be the daughter of another powerful underground mob leader named Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon). XXXX works alongside with Gene (Colm Meaney) and Morty (George Harris) who watches his back, but he also has two other employees who work for him: Clarkie (Tom Hardy) and Terry (Tamer Hassan). Everything gets complicated for XXXX when a group of junkies steal two million pounds worth of ecstasy pills from a wholesaler named Dragan (Dragan Micanovic) and he´s forced to find and give back the drugs. The person who stole the drugs is Duke (Jamie Foreman), and he´s not willing to give them back. While Duke´s hiding out, XXXX encounters his nephew and ends up falling for his girlfriend, Tammy (Sienna Miller), making matters even worse. XXXX will soon find out that the British mob is like a cake which consists of several different layers.

The film has so many characters and different thing going on at the same time that it’s very difficult to follow everything. Layer Cake is a bit too complicated and messy, but it is still a great crime thriller in which Daniel Craig gives a very solid performance. The rest of the characters don’t get too much screen time. Sienna Miller is much underused here and her character doesn’t bring much to the film. I love Tom Hardy as well but he has almost nothing to work with here and goes unnoticed as well. Michael Gambon and Colm Meaney give the best supporting performance in my opinion, but the rest of the cast is totally forgettable. We´ve seen many crime thrillers and this one doesn’t stand out from the rest. It is above average but nothing groundbreaking in my opinion. I love Vaughn´s films, but this is probably my least favorite film of his.

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