Katio Hine

Paperboy Film Review

Attention-deficit disorder operates on a new level in Lee Daniels' latest film, The Paperboy, a dizzy medley of romance, comedy, crime, and drama. Daniels, best known for his work on Precious, lacks any kind of rein on this fragmented, jumpy film. The storyline is fairly simple, but in Daniels’s hands it seems like a chaotic compilation of scenes from four or five different films thrown together in random order to create the mess of a plotline that tells the story of The Paperboy.

Adapted from the Pete Dexter novel of the same name, The Paperboy stars Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron as Ward and Jack James, two brothers out to prove the innocence of Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), a man on death row for slaughtering the local town sheriff. The film begins with the family’s former maid, Anita (Macy Gray), recounting the plot to an interviewer, although who this interviewer is or why he might be interviewing her is never explained. In her signature raspy tone, Gray takes us back to the sweltering swamps of Florida in 1969, where Ward is amidst digging into Hillary’s past with the help from his assistant Yardley (David Oyelowo), a debonair black Englishman whose skin color sparks controversy among the townspeople. As the characters are introduced and settled in, their eclectic, often misguided obsessions lead us into this film’s chaotic, perplexing storyline.

Van Wetter's pen-pal girlfriend Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) appears at the James’ doorstep, determined to help Ward’s team free her man from jail. Charlotte, an insecure, attention-seeking tart in her 30’s with a fetish for dirty letter exchange with prisoners, decides that Hillary is the love of her life. Likewise, when Jack meets Charlotte, he is immediately head-over-heels devoted to her. “As soon as he saw her, he fell in love,” Gray reveals, and that’s the only explanation we ever get.

Despite its promising premise, the storyline becomes overly saturated and drawn out just to fill time. At the start, the voiceover serves as a means to bind the story together, but as Kidman finally allows herself to be seduced by Efron, suddenly Macy Gray’s character starts talking to the audience rather than the interviewer. This, along with moments of random flashback and unprovoked fantasy, disconnects the audience by yanking them in and out of the flow of the film. As the story progresses, the original plotline is somewhat forgotten amid sex and scandal: it is never clear why Ward is so interested in the Van Wetter case, what makes Charlotte act the way she does or who actually killed the cop.

Aesthetically, Daniels is all over the place. While some of the film looks like a cheap soap opera, other scenes read like a Western murder mystery thriller. Some parts leave the audience in complete confusion, particularly in one unforgettable but completely irrelevant scene where Kidman’s character saves Efron from the effects of a life-threatening jellyfish sting. Upon noticing a limp, barely conscious Jack lying in the sand, Charlotte marches up to him, squats down, adjusts her bathing suit, and administers the antidote onto his swollen face.

What is so unsettling about this scene is that in Dexter’s novel, Jack is actually rescued by a group of nurses. In Daniels’ film, only Kidman is worthy of nursing Efron back to health: “If anyone is gon’ piss on that boy, it’s gon’ be me,” she hisses, shoving the other beachgoers aside. Other random twists and turns include gay interracial sado-masochist sex that results in Ward losing an eye, which does nothing to move the storyline forward, and Yardley revealing that he is not actually British but an American with a fake accent, which just makes no sense at all.

No criticism can be given to the cast, however, who all enthusiastically go above and beyond what is asked of them. In particular, Kidman’s total commitment to her trampy, over-the-top role is commendable. Unlike the regal, elegant image she frequently assumes, Charlotte is a sassy, untamed vixen who enjoys playing sexual mind games with dangerous men simply for her own entertainment. With a perfect mixture of precision and abandon, Kidman brilliantly portrays the vision of a self-destructive, oversexed Southern belle.

For all the acting talent and witty one-liners The Paperboy offers, it is nonetheless an extremely frustrating watch. The entire film is a mess, full of unfinished plot curves, futile visual gimmickry and scattered narration. The ending is much too rushed and there are a too many scenes that try to be taken seriously but end up failing miserably. This is a story that invites us to care about injustice, about coming-of-age struggles and about important social issues, but the fact that the script doesn’t really allow us to care about any of the characters is a major flaw, regardless of how fantastic some of the performances are.

Unfortunately, The Paperboy is a tale of a director getting in the way of promising film material with his muddled artistic agenda. Despite its star-studded lineup of actors, The Paperboy is full of distractions that blur the entire storyline and its underlying themes, ultimately leaving the audience underwhelmed and confused.

Cast and Credits:

John Cusack, Zac Efron, Macy Gray, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey

Benaroya Pictures, Lee Daniels Entertainment, and Millennium Films present film directed by Lee Daniels. Adapted from the novel by Pete Dexter. Running time: 107 minutes.

Katio Hine

“Love and Honor”

It’s heart over head in Danny Mooney’s debut film Love and Honor, a war drama starring Liam Hemswortb as a soldier who accidentally falls in love. Flying home illegally from Vietnam as wingman to his best friend on a mission to win back his estranged girlfriend, Mickey (Hemsworth) stumbles into a serious whirlwind romance with the beautiful protester-hippie, Candace (Teresa Palmer). Despite casting the well-known Hunger Games star in its lead role, Love and Honor fails to evoke emotional investment from the audience with its contrived and all-too-brief development of the relationship between Mickey and Candace. While Hemsworth delivers a number of sharp, hilarious one-liners, the unoriginal premise and rushed storyline make this film not worth watching.

Cast and Credits:

Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer, Aimee Teegarden

Lightning Entertainment presents film directed by Danny Mooney. Written by Jim Burnstein and Garrett K. Schiff. Running time: 100 minutes.

Killing (the) U.S. Softly

“America’s not a country, it’s a business,” scoffs Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) at a televised then-Senator Obama promising change and national unity. This is only one of many scenes that all serve as one big testament to Australian director Andrew Dominik’s sizeable directorial talent and story-telling ability in his cynical and aggressively philosophical film, Killing Them Softly. In his adapted version of George V. Higgins’s novel, Dominik tells the story of modern-day gangsters living in a dystopian version of contemporary America. While at first, it seems that the explicit message of a corrupt nation via archived televised political speeches doesn’t directly tie into the plot, it eventually becomes clear that America is a place in which no one, especially our political institution, has anyone else's best interests at heart. 

The plot begins with two young, greedy thugs who rob a group of men participating in a high stakes poker tournament run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), earning themselves $30,000 simply by disrupting a dozen angry, well-connected mobsters in the middle of a game. It sounds pretty dangerous, but there's a twist: a few years back, Markie once staged a robbery of his own game, pocketed the money for himself, and later bragged about it. So if his own game gets hit again, he'll be the first suspect. Now that the tournament has been robbed a second time, confidence in these illegal poker games is at an all-time low. Powerful, angry mobsters are missing a lot of money and the boss-men need to settle them down. The higher ups embark on a mission to find a hitman to kill Markie regardless of who actually committed the robbery. They don’t want justice, they only want to send a simple message: if you mess with their business, there will be consequences.

And so unfolds a core idea of the film: the disconnect between those who are truly responsible and those who have to do the dirty work and suffer any possible consequences of their actions. Peppering the movie with “uplifting” televised political speeches especially during the most intense of crime scenes, Dominik shows the audience that while the government can make empty gestures to buy time, the common men on the streets don't have the option to put their lives on hold. Each of his characters is painfully alone in the world, constantly disappointed by the actions and the ethics of others.

This is especially true of Jackie, the hitman hired to take out Markie and the two men actually responsible for the heist. Jackie explains that he prefers not to kill people that he knows, unsettled by the emotionality behind imminent death as people beg and plead for their lives. Instead, he prefers some distance from his victims, allowing him to "kill them softly." He wants to believe that he's the kind of guy who can detach from his own cruelness, who doesn't let the darkness of the world into his heart. But as Jackie gets more and more blood on his hands, eventually there's no one left on his side but himself. Although subdued at first, Pitt brilliantly reveals how inner anguish is slowly tearing Jackie apart, while Dominik shows us how corruption is tearing apart the nation around him.

            This is not your typical crime-mob story. Crime films have always been about desperate men trying to get out of desperate situations, but Killing Them Softly gives them plausible circumstances that make theft, murder, drug dealing and other bottom-feeder jobs seem somewhat legitimate, if only for the fact that they are available and offer substantial paydays. The powerful scene depicting a hopeless, crippled Markie hobbling away after enduring punishment for a crime he didn’t commit is perhaps the clearest indication that Dominik has no interest in delivering a typical thriller about criminal mobsters. Instead, he focuses on the bleakness of our future in America as we become more and more worn down into mere Darwinian species fighting for survival. Even Jackie realizes that it's a dog-eat-dog world. "We're all just on our own," he sneers as Obama delivers his speech about hope and a unity on election night. Despite what political leaders tell us, the government is looking out for the government, and we are all left to fend for ourselves.

Dominik controls the cast and the development of the story extremely well. The film is elegant and beautifully crafted, and in scene after scene, Dominik keeps his audience captivated, whether with creative soundtrack choices or with outstanding camera moves. He shining directorial moments lay in his bold ideas about how to shoot the few outbreaks of violence that punctuate the picture. When bloodshed does occur, it's both brutal and beautiful, as seen in one point-of-view slow motion scene that combines a car accident, a gunshot to the head, and chillingly tranquil music. While slow-mo hit scenes accompanied by ironically peaceful music are not entirely original, Dominik’s scenes are executed with unique camera angles and a plentiful supply of humor, suspense, and drama within the dialogue. With Dominik’s distinguishing techniques tied into a shrewd, ruthless critique of the nation, Killing Them Softly is a mostly actionless movie clearly made more from brain than brawn.

Wicked, cynical, and surging with furious political unrest, Killing Them Softly definitely wasn’t made for everybody. This film dissolves the naïve idea that America is a community, that we all care for one another, and that we remain in any way united. And if that sentence alone bothers you, there’s a big chances that Dominik's film will drive you absolutely crazy throughout and then leave you enraged. From the chilling opening shot to the cruel, bitter closing line, Killing Them Softly makes the metaphor about the current political and economic state of America absolutely loud and clear.

Cast and Credits:

James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Brad Pitt

Plan B Productions, 1984 Private Defense Contracts, and Annapurna Pictures (Matthew Budman, Will French, Brad Pitt, and Douglas Saylor Jr.) present film written and directed by Andrew Dominik. Running time: 100 minutes.

“Room 237”

From staged mooning landings to a forthcoming apocalypse, all conspiracy theories are welcome in Room 237, a documentary all about the true meaning behind Stanley Kubrick’s most well known film, The Shining. Director Rodney Ascher uses audio interviews as narration coupled with Kubrick film clips, creating a maze of fragmentations that emulates the feeling of getting lost inside the world of Kubrick. Room 237 isn’t about whether anybody’s theories are right or wrong; it’s about the obsession itself. It’s not simply a documentary about conspiracy theories; this film is centers around the love of film itself. Though not made for most audiences, Room 237 is a film in which all Kubrick fans will definitely delight.

Cast and Credits:

Produce and Screenwriter Tim Kirk presents film directed by Rodney Ascher. Running time: 104 minutes

Two Actors, One Room, and a Camera

Can a one-night-stand truly turn into a profound, honest relationship? This tough question is examined in 28 Hotel Rooms, a film that explores a long-distance affair that starts with a night of casual sex and grows into deep emotional involvement over a number of years.  Written and directed by longtime actor Matt Ross, 28 Hotel Rooms proves to be a rare accomplishment: the near-perfect blend of comedy and drama within a single love story.

Sometimes all you need is two actors, one room, and one camera. In this classic but perceptive love story, Ross gives 28-one night raw and candid glimpses into an evolving relationship. Opening with two strangers both in town on business trips in their first (and what they think is their last) fling, we see little more than sexual desire between the unnamed man (Chris Messina) and woman (Marin Ireland). After their night of passion over, he gives her his number to which she hastily responds, “I’m not going to call you.” But as the next hotel room number tells, she indeed gives the mystery man a call; and so begins perhaps the truest relationship of their lives. The personal story grows with the dilemma that they are both in other relationships; we even witness Ireland’s character getting married and having a child all while continuing her outside love affair with Messina. Their relationship deepens as the storyline progresses, enrapturing the audience with two simple unanswered questions: do they intend to be together outside of the hotel room, and how long can they put off making that decision?

Hotel Rooms is enriched by Ross' ability to go against the grain, beginning with the characters: She is a no-nonsense corporate accountant; he is a free-spirited novelist. He is outspoken; she is guarded. As the witty and charming novelist, Messina is a perceptive and decent guy. Ireland's expressive eyes and cautious, glowing smile convey a warm beauty. Yet, like her lover, she hardens when confronted with the realization that she can't leave her husband and child. Ultimately and appropriately there is no pat ending or answer to this tough but delicate story and Ross is careful not to judge these people by demonizing their actions. And when she and him aren’t judging themselves, he’s making her laugh, and she’s making him think, as though their relationship was something much more that just a simple affair.

What sets this movie apart from other typical love stories is the fact that the characters’ lives outside of the affair are never shown, allowing the audience to feel guitless while rooting for the two of them to end up together. Some may object to the film’s seemingly microscopic viewpoint in which we learn almost nothing about these two people except from what they tell each other. But Ross’s clever approach creates suspense within the audience, making us voyeurs into their relationship while still withholding critical information about the characters. This unique and daring directorial technique, coupled with the stellar performances of Messina and Ireland, are what sets this romantic film apart from and above other typical love stories.

The quality of the acting on display here is brilliant; it’s easy to assume the chemistry Messina and Ireland achieve on screen is the result of actors simply playing versions of themselves. It’s hard to remember that these humans on screen, interacting so raw with each other, are performing. The film is almost claustrophobic and, even when the audience knows the affair should end, each time Messina and Ireland are back on screen together, the chemistry and pull that they themselves cannot seem to break away from has us falling right back into bed with them as well.

Behind the cameras, Ross never shies from what’s happening. His cinematographer, Doug Emmett, composes beautiful, full frames, both far away and brutally close. In this world of hotel rooms and passionate night-long romances, there’s little room for middle ground. When these two fight, we see the sweat on their foreheads, the bulging veins in their temples, and the fire in their eyes. Then we’re shown the room full on, which seems small and lonely, almost too spacious for the audience to bear. It seems that Ross can do more with hallway shots than other cameramen do with entire films.

            If the audience feels a bit of repetitiveness on occasion, it’s only because 28 Hotel Rooms feels quite realistic in portraying the ebb and flow of an affair initially based around excitement and freedom that moves towards a unbreakable connection. Those who see the world in black and white won’t be pleased with Ross’ non-judgmental treatment toward his characters’ illicit affair, but 28 Hotel Rooms is nonetheless incredibly moving in its depiction of the challenges of making true love last – even if it’s a love that’s a betrayal of others. Overall, 28 Hotel Rooms is a clever, insightful examination of how every love affair eventually comes with strings attached.

Cast and Credits:

Marin Ireland, Chris Messina

OneZero Films Productions presents film written and directed by Matt Ross. Running time: 82 minutes.

“Amour”

Georges and Anne are a retired married couple in their eighties. One day, Anne has a severe stroke with devastating side effects, leaving her completely helpless and therefore, Georges’ full-time responsibility. While the actors deliver heart-wrenching performances, much time was wasted on long running scenes with little or no action that fail to move the story forward. Despite the slow pace, the plotline remains strong as their relationship is severely tested. The audience begins to care deeply for Anne and George through small but powerful glimpses into their lifetime together, and the horrors of old age are fully realized in the agony and beauty of their enduring love.

Cast and Credits:

Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell

Les Films du Losange, X Filme Creative Pool, and Wega Films (Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Margaret Menegoz) present film written and directed by Michael Haneke. Running time: 125 minutes.

“The Man Inside”

 A troubled young man must find his own identity and let go of his past relationship with his violent, abusive father.  In a city full of gang violence and murder, Clayton Murdoch (Ashley Bashy Thomas) struggles to overcome past trauma, using boxing to channel his inner aggression. While this film has a promising “finding yourself” premise, the performances of the actors are nothing short of disappointing and even laughable in some of the most “poignant” scenes. The biggest flaw in this film is the characters’ lack of development; most are simply randomly introduced and form relationships without explanation. While the flashbacks scenes are brilliantly shot, the storyline itself is not worth watching.

Cast and Credits:

David Harewood, Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, Ashley Bashy Thomas

Scanner Rhodes Productions (Dean Fisher) and Urban Way Producitons (Ray Panthaki) present film directed by Dan Turner. Written by Dan Turner. Running time: 99 minutes.