Monthly Archives: April 2020

THE GOOD LIAR (2019) – First Movie Pairing Mirren and McKellen A Good One

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the good liar

THE GOOD LIAR (2019) is a movie that I really wanted to see but missed when it came out in November 2019. So, here in the midst of staying home during the coronavirus pandemic, I thought it the perfect time to finally catch up with it.

And the main reason I wanted to see it was because of its two leads, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. Not only am I fans of both these actors, but I like to support movies that feature older actors as well as younger ones. I watch movies because I love storytelling. And there are stories to be told about people of all ages. Hollywood tends to forget that.

In THE GOOD LIAR, Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) is a widow who joins Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen), a widower, for a dinner date after meeting him at an online dating site. Their date goes very well, and soon Betty calls him again, and before long, she has invited him to move in with her. Sound like a romantic love story?

Not quite.

For moments after their initial dinner date, we learn that Roy is really a con man, and a high stakes one at that. He runs cons that earn him big bucks. Furthermore, he’s not above resorting to violence to get his way. Yep, he surrounds himself with enforcers who will get down and dirty with folks if they demand more money from the con than what they were promised. Roy’s con with Betty is just one of many. He’s in it for the money, yes, but also for the thrill. He does it because he can, and he likes it.

And Betty is quite wealthy, and so Roy stands to earn a considerable stash if he can pull off this con, which involves his co-conspirator Vincent (Jim Carter) posing as his accountant who suggests a “sound” investment which involves pooling their money into the same account.

The only hope Betty seems to have is her suspicious grandson Stephen (Russell Tovey) who doesn’t trust Roy at all, but he has an uphill battle to climb, because Betty is smitten with Roy and fully trusts him.

What’s a vulnerable widow to do?

Relax, people, it’s Helen Mirren! She knows what she’s doing!

Yep, in a movie like this, you fully expect some sort of twist, and in THE GOOD LIAR there is one. However, twists are a tricky thing. They don’t always work. Hello M. Night Shyamalan! And I have to admit, with THE GOOD LIAR, I definitely enjoyed all that came before the twist better, which is one way of saying I didn’t really like the twist here. I fully expected it, and for me it was somewhat contrived and strained credibility. There are simpler ways to get done what the character involved in the twist wants to accomplish.

But this didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie.

The best part of THE GOOD LIAR is as expected the performances of the two leads. Both Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen have a field day here.  Mirren is perfect as the sensitive widow, seemingly the perfect target for the charming con man, who nonetheless possesses a strength and intelligence that fully clues in the audience that she’s probably going to figure out Roy ahead of time before he steals her money, or at least the audience hopes this to be the case.

Ian McKellen is both a gentleman and a scoundrel as Roy, with the emphasis clearly on the villain side. As polite and charming as Roy is, McKellen makes sure you believe that he truly is a down and dirty con man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

McKellen and Mirren even get to partake in an old-fashioned physical rough and tumble, as the two come to blows when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan during the film’s climax. And it’s a realistic looking brawl at that!

DOWNTON ABBEY (2010-2015) star Jim Carter also stands out as Roy’s co-conspirator Vincent.

THE GOOD LIAR has a decent screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the novel by Nicholas Searle. The dialogue is strong throughout, the characters sharp and believable, and the story it tells is a good one. As I said, I wasn’t a fan of the twist, which is about the only thing I didn’t like about this one. Of course, this is a rather big thing, and as such, it’s the one reason I didn’t absolutely love THE GOOD LIAR. Hatcher also wrote the screenplay for MR. HOLMES (2015), which also starred Ian McKellen, playing an aged Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a case while dealing with dementia. I liked MR. HOLMES a bit more than I liked THE GOOD LIAR.

THE GOOD LIAR was directed by Bill Condon, who also directed MR. HOLMES, and another Ian McKellen movie, GODS AND MONSTERS (1998),  in which McKellen played FRANKENSTEIN (1931) director James Whale. Condon also directed the recent Disney remake of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017), a film I liked a lot. However, in the category of films I didn’t like— a lot—- Condon also directed the deplorable THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1 (2011) and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2 (2012).

All this being said, THE GOOD LIAR is in good hands with Condon as director. The film is captivating and held my interest throughout, taking a slight hit when the very expected twist meddled with the climax.

Incidentally, THE GOOD LIAR marks the first time Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen have ever starred together in a movie. Their first pairing is well-worth the wait.

And that’s no lie!

—END—

Books by Michael Arruda:

DARK CORNERS, Michael Arruda’s second short story collection, contains ten tales of horror, six reprints and four stories original to this collection.

Dark Corners cover (1)

Waiting for you in Dark Corners are tales of vampires, monsters, werewolves, demonic circus animals, and eternal darkness. Be prepared to be both frightened and entertained. You never know what you will find lurking in dark corners.

Ebook: $3.99. Available at http://www.crossroadspress.com and at Amazon.com.  Print on demand version available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949914437.

TIME FRAME,  science fiction novel by Michael Arruda.  

How far would you go to save your family? Would you change the course of time? That’s the decision facing Adam Cabral in this mind-bending science fiction adventure by Michael Arruda.

Ebook version:  $2.99. Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00. Includes postage! Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT, movie review collection by Michael Arruda.

InTheSpooklight_NewText

Michael Arruda reviews horror movies throughout history, from the silent classics of the 1920s, Universal horror from the 1930s-40s, Hammer Films of the 1950s-70s, all the way through the instant classics of today. If you like to read about horror movies, this is the book for you!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com.  Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR, first short story collection by Michael Arruda.  

For_the_love_of_Horror- original cover

Print cover

For the Love of Horror cover (3)

Ebook cover

 

Michael Arruda’s first short story collection, featuring a wraparound story which links all the tales together, asks the question: can you have a relationship when your partner is surrounded by the supernatural? If you thought normal relationships were difficult, wait to you read about what the folks in these stories have to deal with. For the love of horror!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.  

 

 

 

 

 

HORSE GIRL (2020) – Intriguing Drama Asks: Mental Illness or Alien Abduction?

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horse girl

There’s a fine line between mental illness and alien abduction.

That’s the dance played out in HORSE GIRL (2020), an intriguing drama about a sweet yet socially awkward young woman who suffers from nightmares and blackouts which she interprets as alien abductions while those around her believe more matter-of-factly that she suffers from mental illness.

Just where the truth lies is something the movie doesn’t make crystal clear.

HORSE GIRL tells the story of Sarah (Alison Brie) a shy young woman who works in a fabric store during the day and comes home to her apartment at night where she spends her evenings alone watching reruns of her favorite science fiction TV show, while her roommate Nikki (Debby Ryan) occupies herself with her boyfriend Brian (Jake Picking). Sarah also has an affinity for a horse Willow which she visits every day at the stable, much to the annoyance of Willow’s owners. We learn later that Willow used to be Sarah’s horse but isn’t any more.

On her birthday, Sarah receives a birthday card from her co-worker Joan (Molly Shannon) who asks her if she has any special plans to celebrate, to which Sarah lies and says she’s going to go out to dinner with some friends from her dance class. Later, we witness the awkward scene where Sarah tries to make plans with these friends but fails miserably, so she returns to her apartment, content to spend her birthday alone, but her roommate Nikki feels bad for her and coaxes Brian to invite his friend Darren (John Reynolds) over who had recently broke up with his girlfriend. Surprisingly, Darren and Sarah hit it off well, and they agree to see each other again for a date.

Up until this point, HORSE GIRL has the makings of a tender romantic love story, but it’s at this time when Sarah realizes she’s been having some pretty bizarre dreams, dreams in which sleep walks and finds herself in other places, not knowing how she got there, and when she returns home, she finds that while she believes she’s been gone for hours, only minutes have passed in real-time.

She does some research on the internet and reads about alien abductions, and the descriptions of these abductions match things she has seen and felt in her dreams. It’s also at this time when she begins to think more about her grandmother and mother, both of whom dealt with mental health issues and spoke of experiences similar to hers. In her mom’s case, she recently committed suicide. But Sarah fixates on her grandmother, who in old photographs is the splitting image of Sarah, which gets Sarah thinking about clones.

Once Sarah starts speaking about this to her friends and family, it’s easy for them— and for the audience— to believe she has inherited the same mental health issues as her mother and grandmother. But Sarah is convinced otherwise, and she sets out to prove it.

HORSE GIRL is a thought-provoking movie that is well-written by director Jeff Baena and lead actress Alison Brie. And while its story is never fleshed out as well as one would hope, it still delivers in that it takes its audience for a ride that is compelling throughout, the only drawback being a conclusion that is a bit too open-ended.

I really enjoyed Alison Brie in the lead role as Sarah. She makes Sarah likeable and vulnerable. She nails the introvert persona suffering from social anxiety to a tee, and the scenes where she tries to be social are painfully realistic. And she does it without being cliché or superficial. In all other aspects of her life, in her job, for instance, she’s comfortable and quite good at it. So, Brie creates a three-dimensional character who we like even before all the weird things begin to happen to her, and once they do, we empathize with her and want her to be okay, even as it becomes increasingly apparent that she’s not okay.

Brie is a wonderful actress who I first noticed on the TV show MAD MEN (2007-2015) where she played Trudy Campbell. She also stars on the TV show GLOW (2017-2020). She’s in nearly every scene in HORSE GIRL, and she easily carries this film on her back.

And as I said, she also wrote the screenplay, along with director Jeff Baena. One of the best parts of the screenplay is how well-written the supporting characters are. They come off as real people, which in this story, is important, because Sarah increasingly becomes unstable, and if she were surrounded by a bunch of cardboard clichés, it would certainly make her story less believable. But that’s not the case here as these supporting characters have real reactions and really care for her.

In one of the film’s best sequences, when Sarah is on her date with Darren, it’s all going so well, and when Sarah opens up to him and starts talking about what she suspects is happening to her, at first since he’s happy and genuinely likes Sarah, he’s supportive and all ears. But as Sarah grows more intense and unpredictable and unrealistic, she becomes scary, and Darren’s reaction changes.  Had he been a cliché, the boyfriend only out for sex, for example, this scene would not have worked as well. Instead, it works wonderfully, because Darren tries so hard to  understand Sarah and to accept what she’s saying, but as she reacts more violently, he, like the audience, becomes unnerved and he has no choice but to react to that. It’s one of the more honest— and frightening— sequences in the film.

As I said, the one weakness in the movie is the ending. Based on the final sequence, you get a pretty good idea on which side the moviemakers favor here, mental illness or alien abduction, but still there’s something missing, and that something is an independent view on the matter. The film is told through Sarah’s eyes, and so even that final scene is from Sarah’s perspective, and hence you really don’t know its true meaning, which often is not a bad thing in a movie, and it’s not a terribly bad thing in this movie, as I still liked it a lot in spite of the ending, but a more emphatic ending would have helped, as it would have given this curious tale an exclamation point on which to end, rather than the way it ends now, with an ellipse.

HORSE GIRL also has an admirable supporting cast. Debby Ryan does a fine job as Sarah’s roommate Nikki, who although she gets frustrated with her does care about her. Likewise, Jake Picking is solid as Nikki’s boyfriend Brian, who’s much less supportive of Sarah and thinks she’s flat-out weird. Molly Shannon also does a nice job as Sarah’s co-worker Joan who also seems to care about her.

I really enjoyed John Reynolds as Darren, the guy who sincerely wants to start a relationship with Sarah, but he unfortunately picked the wrong week to ask her out. Reynolds does an awesome job making this guy a three-dimensional character, and he does it in very little screen time. Reynolds plays quirky Officer Callahan on TV’s STRANGER THINGS (2016-2020). He makes much more of an impact here in HORSE GIRL.

HORSE GIRL also benefits from a couple of screen veterans in the cast. Paul Reiser shows up in one sequence as Sarah’s step-father. It’s just one sequence, but it’s a good one. And John Ortiz plays a man Sarah sees in her recurring dreams, and then later she sees him in real life.

I liked the way director Jeff Baena handled this one. Sure, it’s a bit of a slow burn, as the pace is measured, and the first third is a straight drama. In fact, when Sarah experiences her first weird nightmare, it comes out of nowhere and is quite jarring. If HORSE GIRL were a horror movie, it would fall into the category of quiet horror. So, call this one a quiet mystery/thriller.

But it works.

HORSE GIRL is a captivating drama with sprinkles of mystery and science fiction thrown in that takes its time telling its weirdly provocative story, and while its ending isn’t completely satisfying, it remains a movie that creates a sympathetic main character who’s searching for answers about her past and her future. You’ll want her to find them.

It’s now available on Netflix.

—END—

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POSTCARD KILLINGS (2020) – Average Thriller Nothing To Write Home About

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the postcard killings

THE POSTCARD KILLINGS (2020) was released on March 13, 2020, right at the onset of the social distancing policies here in the U.S as a result of COVID-19, and so I didn’t get to see this one at the time. It’s now available on Xfinity On Demand and other online movie services.

The main reason I wanted to see THE POSTCARD KILLINGS was because of its star, Jeffrey Dean Morgan— yep, Neegan himself from TV’s THE WALKING DEAD (2010—) who plays a New York City police detective on the trail of a serial killer in Europe.

THE POSTCARD KILLINGS opens with New York police detective Jacob Kanon (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) being shown the bodies of his daughter and her husband on slabs in a morgue, both brutally murdered, their bodies mutilated. Haunted by this reality, Kanon decides he’s staying in Europe to help solve the case, and he learns that before the murder the killer sent a postcard to a London reporter. Soon, these murders start happening in other European cities, the victims always a young married couple, and a postcard always sent first to a reporter announcing the killer’s arrival in that city. The victims’ bodies are displayed in such ways to mimic famous artworks.

Kanon travels throughout Europe hot on the killer’s trail, trying to get a step ahead of the murderer, sometimes working with local officials, sometimes not, as many of the officials don’t agree with what they see as his aggressive American methods. Kanon does befriend one of the reporters who received a postcard, Dessie Lombard (Cush Jumbo), and the two work together to uncover clues to the killer’s whereabouts and next move.

I liked THE POSTCARD KILLINGS well enough, but I didn’t love it. The number one reason it didn’t completely wow me is its story doesn’t hold up for the entire movie. The first half is very good, but there’s a twist midway through that didn’t completely work for me. I mean, it’s okay, it’s not a game changer, but the story definitely goes in a direction that is less interesting.

Hence the screenplay by Ellen Furman and Andrew Stern is not a strength.

I enjoyed Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the lead role as detective Jacob Kanon, but the material here is just average, and what he’s asked to do in the role hardly means pushing the envelope. He’s a grieving father who wants to make the person who murdered his daughter pay, but don’t expect the kind of passion Liam Neeson used to bring to these kinds of roles.

Cush Jumbo is fine as reporter Dessie Lombard who helps Jacob solve the case, but making a bigger splash in a smaller role is Famke Janssen as Jacob’s ex-wife Valerie, who while at odds with Jacob, eventually is able to help with the investigation herself. Janssen, as you might remember, played Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-MEN movies.

Joachim Krol is also memorable in a supporting role as Inspector Bublitz, one of the few European police detectives who feels empathy for Jacob and is supportive of his efforts. And Naomi Battrick is excellent as one of the characters involved in the plot twist. She’s really good.

Director Danis Tanovic avoids getting all that gruesome, even though this one is unrated. Likewise, even though the majority of the story takes place all over Europe, he doesn’t take full advantage of these European settings, so the film doesn’t have the same kind of feel you get from say a Bond or Jason Bourne movie. There are quick establishing shots and then we switch to interiors, where most of the action takes place.

THE POSTCARD KILLINGS has its moments, mostly during the first half of the movie, but its short on thrills and not really a deep enough drama to get under your skin or make much of an impact. As serial killer thrillers go, it’s pretty average.

It’s nothing to write home about.

–END—

LOST GIRLS (2020) – Story of Serial Killer Victims Not As Powerful As Book On Which It Is Based

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lost girls

Amy Ryan and Thomasin McKenzie in LOST GIRLS (2020).

LOST GIRLS (2020) is a Netflix-original movie based on the nonfiction book Lost Girls An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker, which chronicled the still unsolved murders committed by the Long Island Serial Killer. I read this book when it first came out, and it remains one of the best books I’ve read this past decade.

Lost Girls An Unsolved American Mystery is a meticulously researched and compelling read that tells the story of the victims and their families, a fascinating narrative made more so by the fact that the killer remains at large.

Now comes the movie LOST GIRLS, and since I had been so impressed with the book, I was eager to see this one.

In LOST GIRLS (2020) it’s 2010, and Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan) is a single mom who works two jobs to support her two daughters, Sherre (Thomasin McKenzie) a senior in high school who is hoping to be able to afford community college, and Sarra (Oona Lawrence) who’s in middle school and struggling with mental health issues. When Mari’s oldest daughter Shannan, who doesn’t live with them but does send money to them regularly, fails to show up for a promised dinner date with the family, Mari shrugs it off, but when Shannan’s boyfriend calls Sherre, something he has never done before, looking for her, and when she doesn’t respond to her messages on her phone, Mari begins to worry.

Getting no help from the police, Mari investigates on her own and learns the shocking truth that Shannan worked as a prostitute and was last seen in Oak Beach, New York, a private community on Long Island. She also learns some very disturbing facts, like her daughter made a 911 call screaming for help, and the police didn’t arrive on the scene until nearly an hour later. Shannan reportedly ran screaming down the streets of Oak Beach, and no one claimed to have seen or heard anything. Also, the security camera footage on those very streets from that night was erased, a camera controlled by the man who would later become a person of interest.

Mari makes her presence known to the local police and eventually is able to engage in face to face dialogue with Police Commissioner Richard Dormer (Gabriel Byrne) who pleads with her to remain patient, but she has no intention of doing so. Eventually, the remains of several bodies are found in the woods around Oak Beach, and it’s determined that a serial killer has been at work.

The victims’ families get together and form a support group and eventually hold a vigil on the streets of Oak Beach, all in an effort to memorialize their daughters’ lives. Mari makes the point that she wants them remembered as daughters, sisters, and women, not as prostitutes.

While the police do step up their investigation, Mari is there every step of the way, prodding them, and pointing out their shortcomings, like calling them out for refusing to search the densely wooded swamp area behind the main suspect’s house.

I wish I could say LOST GIRLS the movie was as hard-hitting and as moving as the book, but it’s not. It makes its points, but it does so briefly and without much depth. The film is short, clocking in at 95 minutes, and as such never really gives the subject its due.

I was able to fill in the blanks because I had read the book, but I wonder if folks who haven’t read the book would be able to do the same. The book was exhaustively researched. The reader really felt the scope and magnitude of what these families were going through, what it must have felt like to have daughters murdered and the police doing little about it. The book also chronicled in detail the police investigation and the problems it faced, mostly due to ineptitude. The movie focuses more on Mari and her one on one meetings with Commissioner Dormer. The scope just isn’t the same.

The book was haunting. For the longest time afterwards, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The movie is much more superficial. It has its moments, but there are far too few of them.

Amy Ryan is excellent as Mari Gilbert. She gives a powerful performance, and as we learn that Mari is driven by the guilt of her past, how she couldn’t handle Shannan as a child and gave her up to a foster family, Ryan shows us the scars of the character and how she uses them to find the strength to be the mother she wanted to be when her daughter was still alive. When Dormer says that Shannan’s fate is not on her, she replies tellingly “I’m her mother. It’s all on me.” It’s one of the film’s more powerful moments. I wish there had been more of these.

This is one of Ryan’s strongest performances to date, adding to the quality work she has already done in such films as THE INFILTRATOR (2016) and BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015).

Thomasin McKenzie is one of my favorite young actresses working today, as she has delivered some powerhouse performances in films like JOJO RABBIT (2019) and LEAVE NO TRACE (2018). Her role here as middle daughter Sherre is much more limited than her roles in the aforementioned movies, and as such she doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this movie, which is too bad, because she’s a great talent.

Gabriel Byrne is perfect as the tired and weary Police Commissioner Richard Dormer. While he wishes Mari would just go away, he never really tells her to do so, and in the movie anyway, seems sympathetic to her requests. We also learn immediately what kind of predicament he’s in, because at the outset, we are privy to a phone conversation in which he’s told point-blank that if he doesn’t downplay the serial killer angle he will lose his job.

I enjoyed Lola Kirke’s performance as Kim, a sister to one of the victims and a fellow prostitute. Her conversations with Mari are some of the better ones in the movie, and you almost get the sense that Mari feels like she’s talking to Shannan when she’s giving advice to Kim.

Dean Winters plays a smug and uncaring police detective and sort of stands in as the face of police incompetence here. And Reed Birney does a wonderfully creepy job as the outwardly “oh so helpful” Dr. Peter Hackett who for a long time was a major person of interest and suspect in the case. The scene where he puts his hands on Mari’s shoulders will give you chills. We just saw Birney in THE HUNT (2020), and he’s been in a ton of movies and TV shows.

The screenplay by Michael Werwie based on Robert Kolker’s book is not really a strength of this movie. It tells the story it has to tell, in that it gets in and gets out without any fluff, but it also doesn’t dig deep. It’s all very superficial, and without having read the book, it would be easy to dismiss it as just another serial killer story, albeit one based on true events. But it’s so much more than that. It’s the story of the victims and their families, and while the movie goes through the motions to say as much, there are few moments where it really tugs at your heart and makes you feel their plight and pain.

In the book these families go through hell. In the movie, scenes cut away and finish long before they should. Sharper dialogue would have gone a long way towards bringing these families’ stories to life.

Liz Garbus directed LOST GIRLS, and the result is an efficient production, and it’s all competently handled. I didn’t, however, get a strong sense of place. Oak Beach should have been a setting so disturbing I could smell the death there, but the camera never gets anywhere that close to make me feel that way.

And there simply are not a lot of heightened emotional moments here, which is surprising considering the subject matter.

Still, I recommend LOST GIRLS. It tells a disturbing story, one that needs to be told, but it does it in a way that may leave you with more questions than answers. As such, if you see this movie and feel you want to learn more, I highly recommend the book  Lost Girls An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

Unlike the movie, the book is thoroughly comprehensive and as such is an incredibly moving and tragic read.

—END—

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (1975)

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Legend-of-the-Werewolf-werewolf

One of my favorite werewolf movies has always been Hammer’s THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961). Directed by Hammer’s A-List director Terence Fisher, THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF features both memorable scenes of fright, a strong performance by Oliver Reed as the werewolf, and superior make-up by Roy Ashton.

However, I can’t deny that this movie does suffer from some very slow pacing and some weak story elements, so much so, that over the years, its reputation has diminished, while Universal’s THE WOLF MAN (1941) keeps getting stronger.

Now, there is another werewolf movie out there, the seldom seen LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (1975), produced by Britain’s Tyburn Films, a company that tried and failed to compete with Hammer and Amicus, that has something that neither of the aforementioned werewolf movies have, and that something is a someone: Peter Cushing.

legend of the werewolf - peter cushing

Peter Cushing didn’t really make a lot of werewolf movies. He appeared in THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974), and he fares much better here in LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF, a movie that has always been dismissed as an inferior cousin to Hammer’s superior THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

But in the here and now, one can almost make the argument—almost-— that it’s LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF that’s the superior movie.

I say “almost” because seriously, LEGEND is hindered by some weaknesses that can’t be ignored. However, it has enough strengths where it can seriously be involved in the conversation of classic werewolf movies of yesteryear.

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF tells the story of young Etoile (David Rintoul) who like Mowgli in THE JUNGLE BOOK was raised by wolves. While still a boy, he’s discovered by the owner of a travelling circus and joins the show as “wolf boy.” As an adult, he runs off to Paris where he finds work at the local zoo, specifically handling the wolves there. But it’s at this time that he discovers he’s a werewolf, but he’s also a particularly selective werewolf, because as a human, he has a crush on a local prostitute, and as a werewolf, he’s able to kill only her clients.

Hmm. Perhaps this one should have been called LEGEND OF THE JEALOUS WEREWOLF.

The subplot in LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF involves medical examiner and coroner Professor Paul (Peter Cushing) who while he’s not rolling his eyes at the local authorities, likes to play amateur sleuth. And when the werewolf murders start to happen, and the police are clueless, Professor Paul decides to solve the case himself, and it’s here where Peter Cushing enjoys the best scenes in the movie.

For Peter Cushing fans, LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF is a must-see film, as it provides Cushing with nonstop memorable scenes, both full of humor as he belittles the authorities, and poignancy, as he’s the one man who actually understands the werewolf. The scene at the end of the film where he confronts the werewolf in the Paris sewers is one of the best scenes in any werewolf movie period. Really!

So, you can list Peter Cushing as the number one reason LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF is a classic horror tale.

The second reason is the make-up. Borrowing heavily from Roy Ashton’s classic werewolf make-up in THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, the make-up team of Jimmy Evans and Graham Freeborn gives us the screen’s second blonde werewolf. The werewolf make-up here is very good. That being said, it’s not quite as good as Ashton’s, and it’s also not original, since it looks exactly like the make-up on Oliver Reed in CURSE.

Probably the biggest knock against the film is its cheap production values. LEGEND simply doesn’t compare to the opulent sets and costumes found in THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF was directed by Terence Fisher, one of the best horror movie directors of all time. LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF was also directed by a veteran of the genre, Freddie Francis. Francis’ reputation is more as a cinematographer and did his best work on movies as a cinematographer rather than as a director. But his horror films in general are pretty good. Probably my favorite Freddie Francis directed horror movie is DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968), Christopher Lee’s third Dracula movie. LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF is probably my second favorite Freddie Francis-directed horror movie.

He includes some nice touches, like close-ups of the werewolf’s bloody teeth, shots that are particularly effective.

Also working against LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF is it arrived on the horror scene late in the game. In 1975, JAWS took the world by storm, and modern werewolf classics like AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) and THE HOWLING (1981) were just a few years away. Audiences in 1975 weren’t all that interested in a werewolf movie that seemed more at home a decade or so earlier.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF also featured Oliver Reed in the lead role. LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF features David Rintoul. And while Rintoul is just okay here, I don’t think you need Laurence Olivier playing a werewolf. For what he was supposed to do, Rintoul is just fine, but he never received the praise which Reed did for his werewolf portrayal a decade earlier.

What LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF does have is a veteran cast. In addition to Peter Cushing, the film also stars Ron Moody as the cantankerous zookeeper.  Moody won the Best Actor Oscar in 1968 for his portrayal of Fagin in the musical OLIVER!, incidentally, directed by Oliver Reed’s uncle Carol Reed, who also won Best Director that year, and OLIVER! won Best Picture as well. Moody is excellent here in LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF, and the scenes he shares with Peter Cushing are well worth watching.

Hammer’s favorite character actor Michael Ripper is also in the cast. Ripper also appeared in Hammer’s THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, and not only that, but his characters have the dubious distinction of being murdered by the werewolves in both movies!

The screenplay by John Elder (aka Anthony Hinds) is also not a strength. While the story told in the movie is decent enough, and the Peter Cushing storyline a very good one, the dialogue throughout most of the movie is sub par.

Long considered a tepid entry in the werewolf movie canon, LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF is trending upward. It’s getting better with age, and in spite of some obvious weaknesses which still need to be considered, it does feature two acting greats, Peter Cushing and Ron Moody, who add a lot to this otherwise standard werewolf picture.

Is it really better than THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF? No, I wouldn’t say that. But the gap between these two movies is no longer as wide as once thought. Watch out CURSE. The LEGEND is growing!

—END—

BUFFALOED (2019) – Spicy Comedy-Drama Showcase for Zoey Deutch

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Zoey Deutch in BUFFALOED (2019).

BUFFALOED (2019) is a spirited, in-your-face comedy-drama about a young woman whose hell-bent on out-hustling anyone and everyone around her as she pursues her dream of making money.

It features a tour de force performance by Zoey Deutch in the lead role and sharp funny writing by Brian Sacca. It doesn’t entirely work, but for the most part, it’s a film I liked a lot and recommend.

While made in 2019, BUFFALOED premiered on February 14, 2020, and is currently available to watch at home on Xfinity On Demand.

BUFFALOED is the story of Peg (Zoey Deutch), a young woman who from a very young age believed she had to hustle in order to make it big in life, and that’s because her dad died when she was young, and she found herself unhappy at home with her now single mom and older brother in their low-income home in Buffalo, NY, an area she describes as being dominated by Bills’ games and chicken.

When she gets accepted into college, she realizes there is no way she can pay for it and so she comes up with a scheme to scalp Bills’ tickets, a decision that lands her in jail. After serving her time, she’s contacted by debt collectors regarding the money she owes, and after a phone conversation in which she realizes she’s better at this process than the guy she’s talking to on the phone, she joins a sleazy debt collecting business run by the unsavory Wizz (Jai Courtney) with the challenge that she will become his number one debt collector.

It turns out to be true, but when Wizz fails to pay her what she is owed, she quits and launches her own debt collecting firm, hiring an eclectic crew of collectors, from people she met in prison to a Bible salesman who showed up at her door. Of course, Wizz doesn’t take kindly to the competition, and he declares an all out war on Peg and her business, a war that gets nasty, violent, and dangerous. Hence, the drama part of the story.

I have to say, I liked BUFFALOED a lot, for the two main reasons mentioned above, for Zoey Deutch’s performance and for the script by Brian Sacca.

By far, the best part of BUFFALOED is Zoey Deutch’s performance as Peg. From the opening seconds of the movie, where she screams out one giant expletive, she had me hooked, and she easily carries the rest of the movie on her back. Peg is an abrasive, obnoxious, and often raunchy young woman who is also incredibly persistent and driven, a perfect salesperson, who in this case sadly uses her talents to collect debts from people. In a lesser actor’s hands, she could have been a very unlikable character. That’s not the case here as Deutch imbues her with such oomph and drive she’s like a roller coaster ride. It nearly makes you sick but you go right back in line for more.

I first noticed Deutch in ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP (2019) where she played Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus’ new girlfriend. She more than held her own alongside Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. In fact, her performance was one of my favorite parts of that movie. She’s equally as memorable here in BUFFALOED. Zoey Deutch is an actor to watch.

I also enjoyed Jai Courtney as the villainous Wizz. While most of the film is played for laughs, Courtney’s Wizz is not. He’s a sexist bully who is an exceedingly annoying character, well-played by Courtney. While Jai Courtney has enjoyed some prominent movie roles, like Captain Boomerang in SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) and Kyle Reese in TERMINATOR GENISYS (2015), his work here in BUFFALOED may be the best thing I’ve seen him do yet.

Judy Greer plays Peg’s mom Kathy, and she’s excellent as always. She stands by her daughter even as Peg’s decisions continually hurt the family, but even she has limits, and one of the best scenes in the movie is when Kathy finally has had enough and admits to Peg she wishes she would just leave. Greer has been playing Scott Lang’s ex-wife Maggie in the ANT-MAN  movies, and she also starred as Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode’s adult daughter Karen in the recent HALLOWEEN (2018) movie.

I enjoyed the screenplay by Brian Sacca, who also stars in the movie as Sal, one of the debt collectors who works for Wizz. The strength of the screenplay is the rough and raunchy dialogue which scores high on the funny meter. I laughed a lot. It also does a fantastic job creating Peg’s character, helped of course by Zoey Deutch’s performance.

Where it doesn’t do as well however is the actual story. As much as I enjoyed the dialogue, I didn’t always believe what I was watching. For example, the plan by Peg to scalp Buffalo Bills tickets to make money for college seemed more a plot device to get her into prison than something she would actually do. And things come so easily for her later, I wasn’t always buying it.

The best part of the story and when the movie hits its stride is when Peg assembles her debt collecting staff. This array of characters are the liveliest in the movie, and I wish the story had spent more time on their antics and less on the bully tactics of Wiff and his cronies to stop them.

The love story between Peg and her attorney friend Graham (Jermaine Fowler) also didn’t really work for me, for a couple of reasons.  One, I didn’t think Graham was a particularly well-written character, as he was by far the least developed character in the movie. And also, I didn’t feel that Fowler and Deutch shared much onscreen chemistry together.

Also, for a movie that clocks in at a crisp 95 minutes, there were times, especially towards the end, where it actually dragged a bit.

Director Tanya Wexler captures the Buffalo blue-collar feel well enough, and for the most part the film possesses the same oomph as Deutch’s Peg, but it’s not quite a home run.

With the heavy-handedness of Wizz and his henchmen, the film tries to make a  statement about the debt collecting underworld, but it’s not as successful as it sets out to be. There are times where it aims for the relevance of THE BIG SHORT  (2015) and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) but it falls short of these aspirations.

Just before the end credits roll, for example, the films lists the sad statistics of how many Americans are now in debt and who now face the unceasing ire of debt collectors, a practice that remains largely unchecked and unpoliced by the U.S. government. While this statement definitely pertains to the movie’s plot, it almost seems like it belongs in a different movie, since so much of BUFFALOED was played for laughs.

For the most part, I enjoyed BUFFALOED. It’s a showcase for an up and coming actor, Zoey Deutch, and it’s got a lively and very funny script that will make you laugh even when it explores some of the darker sides of the shady practice known as debt collecting.

And it does it all with as much spice as your favorite buffalo hot sauce.

—END—

 

 

 

IN THE SHADOWS: MICHAEL GOUGH

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Michael Gough as Arthur Holmwood in Hammer Films’ classic HORROR OF DRACULA (1958).

Welcome back to IN THE SHADOWS, that column where we look at the careers of character actors in the movies, especially horror movies.

Up today it’s Michael Gough, the actor who has been described as “Hammer Film’s hammiest actor,” an apt description, since Gough has been known to ham it up on occasion, especially in those horror movies in which he appeared in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

In his later years, Gough also played Alfred the butler in both Michael Keaton BATMAN movies, and also in BATMAN FOREVER (1995) with Val Kilmer, and in BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) with George Clooney.

And while Gough is best known for his over the top villainous roles in horror movies, my favorite Gough performance is in Hammer’s HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, in which Gough portrayed Arthur Holmwood, a heroic character, not a villain.

Here’s a partial look at Gough’s 195 screen credits, focusing mostly on his horror movies:

ANNA KARENINA (1948) – Nicholai – Gough’s first big screen credit is in this romance based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, starring Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS (1957) – Geoffrey Carter – Thriller about a couple dealing with a strange landlord and an unsettled spirit. Co-starring Patricia Roc and Ronald Howard.

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Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) look for clues for Dracula’s whereabouts in HORROR OF DRACULA (1958). That’s Melissa Stribling as Mina Holmwood in the background.

HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) – Arthur Holmwood – The big one, Hammer’s first and best Dracula movie, and arguably their best horror movie period, features Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula. Gough hams it up as the emotional Arthur, in a role that is beefed up from Stoker’s novel, as this version kills off Jonathan Harker and reduces Dr. Seward to a bit part. He shares some key scenes with Peter Cushing, like the infamous staking of Lucy scene, one of the more violent horror sequences of its day, and later when a border official refuses Van Helsing’s entreaties for information on Dracula’s whereabouts, Holmwood saves the day with some conveniently placed paper currency, prompting the official’s cooperation.

HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959) – Edmond Bancroft – Gough is at his hammy best here as a writer who uses hypnosis to commit violent crimes, and the crimes are indeed over the top violent. They include the use of ice tongs and a deadly pair of binoculars.

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Michael Gough gives his pet Konga instructions on who to kill next. “Can’t I just visit Fay Wray?” Konga asks.

KONGA (1961) – Dr. Charles Decker – Once again playing an over the top villain, this time a doctor with a serum that changes his pet monkey into the giant and deadly Konga! Not a very good movie. The giant ape sequences are particularly bad, but it is fun to watch Gough ham it up, as always.

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Michael Gough is the main villain in Hammer’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1962).

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1962) – Lord Ambrose d’Arcy – Gough returns to Hammer horror, here playing the main villain in the movie, as Herbert Lom’s take on the Phantom is a heroic one. Hammer’s version of the classic Phantom of the Opera tale features some of director Terence Fisher’s finest work during the first half of the movie. Second half drops off considerably, as the mysterious phantom’s story is explained and he becomes more sympathetic and heroic, in a role that was originally intended for Cary Grant.

BLACK ZOO (1963) – Michael Conrad – Gough is back at it again, this time as the owner of a small zoo who uses his animals to kill his enemies. Again, the main attraction here is Gough’s over-the-top in-your-face acting.

DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965) – Eric Landor – while Gough only has a small role here in this anthology horror film by Amicus Films, which also starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, he does have one of the film’s best moments, as he humiliates Christopher Lee’s pompous art critic, which leads Lee’s character to commit a heinous crime in the segment “Disembodied Hand.”

THE SKULL (1965)- Auctioneer – reduced to a cameo in this superior thriller by Amicus Films starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. This is a film that has only gotten better with time. Definitely worth a look.

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967) – Master of the Moon – Science fiction flick directed by Freddie Francis is one of Amicus’ worst movies.

BERSERK (1967) – Albert Dorando – Murder at the circus! Stars Joan Crawford in the lead role.

THE CRIMSON CULT (1968) – Elder – co-stars with Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee in this witchcraft thriller which also stars Barbara Steele. In spite of the star power here, not a very good movie.

TROG (1970) – Sam Murdock – once again co-stars with Joan Crawford in this sub par thriller about a murderous missing link on the loose. Crawford’s final movie. The film initially performed well at the box office and has since become something of a cult classic.

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (1971) – Walter Eastwood –  Gough plays a sadistic husband and father, whose wife and daughter plot to kill him, and for a time believe they have, but suddenly he shows up for breakfast looking very much alive. Hmm. Well, that didn’t work out well.

HORROR HOSPITAL (1973) – Dr. Christian Storm – horror comedy in which Gough plays a mad doctor who likes to perform mind altering brain surgery on his victims.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) – Emeric Belasco (uncredited) –  appears as a corpse in this superior haunted house tale scripted by Richard Matheson based on his novel, and starring Roddy McDowall, Pamela Franklin, Clive Revill, and Gayle Hunnicutt.

THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) – Mr. Harrington – superior thriller about a Nazi hunter who uncovers a bizarre plot to resurrect Hitler’s Third Reich, starring Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, and James Mason.

VENOM (1981)- David Ball – Horror movie about a kidnapping gone awry, thanks to an aggressive poisonous snake. Starring Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed.

TOP SECRET! (1984) – Dr. Paul Flammond – spoof of Elvis and spy movies by the same creative team that brought us AIRPLANE! (1980), notable for reuniting Gough with Peter Cushing, who also has a small role in the film.

THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988) – Schoonbacher – voodoo horror movie by director Wes Craven.

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Michael Gough as Alfred.

BATMAN (1989) – Alfred- received a whole new following of fans as he played Batman’s faithful butler Alfred, in this Tim Burton superhero film starring Michael Keaton as the caped crusader, notable for Jack Nicholson’s performance as The Joker. A hit when it came out, viewed as a darker take on the character compared to Adam West’s campy 1960s version, the film nonetheless hasn’t aged all that well and is nowhere near as dark as the later Christopher Nolan Batman movies.

BATMAN RETURNS (1992) – Alfred- Gough returns as Alfred in this Tim Burton sequel, again starring Michael Keaton as Batman. Michelle Pfeiffer as the Catwoman delivers the best performance in the movie. My favorite of the 1980s-90s Batman movie series.

BATMAN FOREVER (1995) – Alfred – Gough stayed on as Alfred even with a new director— Joel Schumacher— and new actor playing Batman: Val Kilmer.

BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) – Alfred- plays Alfred for the fourth and last time in this bottom of the barrel entry starring George Clooney as Batman, largely considered to be the worst Batman movie ever. However, while I can’t disagree with this assertion, I do have to admit once you realize how bad this one is, it becomes campy fun, reminiscent of the old Adam West days, although theater-goers at the time weren’t really in the mood for this sort of Batman. Also difficult to dislike Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, both of whom chew up the scenery throughout.

SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) – Notary Hardenbrook – reunited with director Tim Burton in this effective thriller starring Johnny Depp and featuring Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman. Also notable for featuring Christopher Lee in a small role, reuniting him with Gough once again.

CORPSE BRIDE (2005) – Elder Gutknecht (voice) – back with director Tim Burton again, this time lending his voice in this animated feature, which again features Christopher Lee in a small role, lending his voice as well. Starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010) – Dodo Bird (voice)- Gough’s final screen credit is once more a voice credit for a Tim Burton animated feature, again featuring the talents of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Michael Gough, whose last name is pronounced the same as “cough,” pretty much enjoyed three stages of his film career. He often played the villain in horror movies from the 1950s-1970s, played Alfred in the BATMAN movies of the 1980s-1990s, and finished his film career appearing in Tim Burton movies.

Gough also enjoyed a very successful career on stage, and he even won a Tony Award for Best Actor in “Bedroom Farce” in 1979.

Of course horror fans will remember him for his over-the-top villain roles from those horror movies in the 1950s-1960s especially. As for myself, I remember him most for his portrayal of Arthur Holmwood in Hammer’s HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), and my favorite part of his performance in that movie is how early on he severely criticizes Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing and his vampire theories, but after Dracula attacks his sister and his wife, he’s all ears and becomes Van Helsing’s loyal assistant. It’s a convincing turnaround.

Michael Gough passed away on March 17, 2011 at the age of 94.

Michael Gough – November 23, 1916 – March 17, 2011

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this edition of IN THE SHADOWS and join me again next time when we look at the career of another character actor in the movies, especially horror movies.

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTERMATH (2017) – Depressing Character Study of Two Men Grieving A Showcase For Arnold Schwarzenegger

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As you look for movies to watch while staying home during the coronavirus pandemic, AFTERMATH (2017) may not be your best choice. It’s hopelessly depressing.

It’s also not that great a movie.

If there is one reason to watch it, it’s for the lead performance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s right. The Terminator himself, here playing a subtle dramatic lead.

I missed this one on its initial release in 2017, which was easy to do, since AFTERMATH is a slow burn drama with not much to get excited about other than the fact that the cast features Arnold Schwarzenegger in a rare dramatic role.

I’ve always been a fan of Schwarzenegger’s, going all the way back to his TERMINATOR heyday and his subsequent action films and comedies. I also enjoyed his low-key horror movie MAGGIE (2015), a film in which he delivered a notable acting performance, and so I was intrigued to see him here in AFTERMATH, a movie in which he portrays a man grieving over the deaths of his wife and pregnant daughter, both of whom died in a plane crash.

AFTERMATH gets off to a solid start. It opens with construction worker Roman (Arnold Schwarzenegger) leaving work early so he can pick up his wife and daughter from the airport. They’re about to celebrate their daughter’s new pregnancy. But when he gets to the airport, he reads that the flight is delayed but there is no information as to when it’s arriving, and then he is asked to come with an airline representative into a private room, and it’s there where he is told that the plane has crashed.

This opening sequence is full of dread, as the audience sees where this is going before Roman does, since he’s so full of euphoria over seeing his wife and daughter, and the process of his being told about the crash is as painful as one can imagine. It’s really well-acted by Schwarzenegger. There’s no other way to say it. He’s really good here.

The film then jumps back in time moments before the crash, and we meet air traffic controller Jake (Scoot McNairy) who finds himself solo in the control tower at the airport, and through a series of problematic events including a faulty phone line becomes distracted, and on his watch two planes collide in midair. This is also a devastating sequence, well-executed by the film’s director Elliott Lester, and well-acted by McNairy.

So, the first twenty minutes or so of AFTERMATH are very, very good. But then the film really slows down and for a long time seems to go nowhere, and that’s because it doesn’t.

The story follows the parallel stories of Roman and Jake. With Roman, we watch him grieve over the loss of his wife and daughter, unable to move on, unable to find closure. He wants someone from the airlines to apologize to him for the deaths of his wife and daughter, but no one gives him that apology.

Jake is completely devastated by the crash and pretty much loses it, so much so that his wife and young son have to move out of their home. Eventually, Jake takes the airline up on their offer to relocate him to a new state with a new name and a new job, since his name had been made public in the media and as a result he had been receiving death threats.

As these two stories play out, it becomes obvious that these two characters are destined for a meeting, and how that will occur and what will happen when it does are questions that for the bulk of the film remain intriguing. However, the film’s climax is a big–-that’s it?–– which for me was a huge letdown. For a movie that is as slow burn and depressing as this one is, you really need a thought-provoking climax to lift it up, but this movie simply doesn’t have that moment. Its answer is violent and disappointing.

The very ending of the film is a bit better, but by that time it’s too little too late.

The main reason to see AFTERMATH really is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He really does deliver a strong performance in this movie. His portrayal of Roman is right on the money and comes off as a man who just can’t move on from the deaths of his wife and daughter. It’s natural and sad. You don’t watch him and think he’s acting. You believe he’s Roman.

Scoot McNairy is equally as good as the emotionally scarred air traffic controller Jake, a man who outwardly seems more unhinged than Roman, although Roman keeps most of his emotions inside. McNairy has been in a bunch of movies, including the lead role in Gareth Edwards’ MONSTERS (2010).

The screenplay by Javier Gullon starts off well with two riveting sequences, the one where Roman is informed about the plane crash, and the other where Jake is in the control tower when it happens. These two sequences are both very well-written, but after that things just slow down, and many opportunities are missed. The story shows the pain of these two men, but as it goes along, the question arises, so where is this all going? And it’s the answer to this question that is so disappointing.

Director Elliott Lester shares a similar fate in that the first two sequences are better than the rest of the movie, although I thought the gloomy look and feel of this movie was effective throughout. Lester captures the sadness of these two men with the ever-present cloudy and gray cinematography.

While the pacing of the movie was slow, I was not bored, as I was anticipating the confrontation between Roman and Jake, and Lester does a nice job gradually building to this fated meeting. But when Roman and Jake finally do meet, it changes the film and seriously takes away all that had come before it. It’s not that it’s an unrealistic moment. It’s simply a disappointing one. The audience has just invested nearly an hour and half together with these two grieving characters, especially with Roman, and the moment simply detracts from the bonds built during this time.

AFTERMATH is a moody and sorrowful character study of two men dealing with different kinds of grief following a tragic plane crash. It starts off well before settling in for a slow burn of a narrative that ultimately has little to offer in the way of a thought-provoking conclusion.

—END—

 

 

 

 

MUDBOUND (2017) – Story of Two Farm Families & Racism in 1940s Mississippi Builds To Compelling Final Act

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MUDBOUND (2017) is a Netflix original movie from 2017 that tells the story of two families, one white and one black, who live and work on the same farm in the days following World War II. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Mary J. Blige, and Best Adapted Screenplay, but it didn’t win any.

In MUDBOUND, stoic and often cold Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) moves his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) and their young children to Mississippi to fulfill his dream of owning and operating a farm. Included in the move is his racist father Pappy (Jonathan Banks) who makes no secret of his hatred of blacks. When Henry realizes his deal to rent a farmhouse off the property of the farm was phony, and that he was swindled, he’s forced to move his family onto a much less attractive home on the actual farm, within walking distance of the black family who live there and work on the property.

This family belongs to Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence Jackson (Mary J. Blige), who along with their children, all work on the farm. The stories and interactions of these two families are told through a variety of perspectives, as each character spends time in the movie as a first person narrator.

Two of the characters, Henry’s playboy brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and Hap’s oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) both serve in World War II and see combat, bloody scarring combat, and when they return after the war they form a friendship which crosses the racial divides of the time.

I liked MUDBOUND well enough, but for most of the movie’s two-hour and fourteen minute running time I found it watchable but seldom compelling, until the film’s final act, when the story focuses on the friendship between Jamie and Ronsel, and leads to the film’s brutal climax, the one moment in the movie that lifts it to a higher level. It’s a moment that is exceedingly disturbing yet equally powerful and captures the racial hatred of the time in a way that the rest of the movie only hints at.

One of the reasons I didn’t love MUDBOUND is the screenplay by Virgil Williams and director Dee Rees, based on the novel by Hillary Jordan, utilized the method of having multiple characters narrate the movie from their individual perspectives. While this seems very creative, it prevented the film from having a main narrative voice, that one character who as a viewer you could latch onto, buy into their story, and go along with them for the ride. This doesn’t really happen until the film’s final act, with the story of Jamie’s and Ronsel’s friendship, and the tragedy which ensues because of it.

Neither family, the McAllans or the Jacksons, really come to life. They each have their moments, and the film chronicles the often uncomfortable ways they have to deal with each other, because of the McAllan’s racist attitudes, but there are few moments that really stand out.

The film looks good, and with a title like MUDBOUND is sufficiently muddy. Director Dee Rees successfully captures the climate of rural Mississippi, with hard long rains, and thick soggy farmland. And while the story of the two families works, it never gets as emotional as I expected it to, except towards the end. The biggest reason for this lack of emotion was the lack of a main character to latch onto.

The acting in MUDBOUND is all very good. The two best performances were by Garret Hedlund as Jamie and Jason Mitchell as Rondell, and the story of their friendship is the best part of the movie. I especially thought Jason Mitchell knocked it out of the park.

As I said, Mary J. Blige was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Jackson matriarch Florence, and Blige does give a noteworthy performance. She especially enjoys some key moments where she reflects on her role as a mother, like when she is called to care for the McAllan children who have developed whooping-cough, and she realizes what it would mean for her entire family if she were to fail and these children were to get worse or die.

I also really enjoyed Carey Mulligan as Henry’s long-suffering wife Laura. She too has some notable scenes, and she’s often the character who can see past her family’s racist views but knows she’s in no position to do anything about it. I hadn’t seen Mulligan in a while. She has delivered some very memorable performances in such films as THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) where she played Daisy Buchanan, and DRIVE (2011). Here, Mulligan is plain and down to earth, a farmer’s wife, which is a far cry from some of the more glamorous roles she’s played in the past.

Interestingly enough, her co-star here Jason Clarke, who plays her husband Henry, also starred in THE GREAT GATSBY as George Wilson. Clarke is fine here as hubby Henry, a man most in the audience will ultimately not like.

Rob Morgan does a commendable job as Hap Jackson, and Jonathan Banks is at his vile best as the extremely racist Pappy. If there’s one character who draws out an emotional reaction throughout, it’s Pappy, and Banks is excellent in the role. He’ll turn your stomach.

MUDBOUND was the first of the non-documentary Netflix movies to be nominated for an Academy Award, and all four of its nominations were for female nominees.

MUDBOUND tells a noteworthy and often disturbing story of racism in Mississippi in the days following World War II, and it tells this story through the lens of two families living on the same farm, one white and one black.

And while it’s not always as evocative and emotional as one would expect, it does build to a very disturbing conclusion that sears into its audience’s memory some rather horrific images, in a climax that lifts this film from historical narrative to tear-inducing drama.

It takes a while for this to happen, but overall, it’s worth the wait, as before the end credits role, the ugliness of racism rears its putrid head and reminds us why ultimately stories like this need to be told.

—END—