thriller

Cinequest: Chaos

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Niels Schneider in CHAOS

In the unsettling and suspenseful French Chaos (Désordres), a teacher moves to a rural area only to have his family stalked by one of his new students.  It doesn’t take too long for us to figure out that the student Thibault is up to no good, but we can’t guess his plans or his motivation.  Writer-director Etienne Faure has created a story that grips the audience as Thibault is revealed to be more and more twisted and dangerous.

In a performance reminiscent of Robert Walker’s Bruno in Strangers on a Train, Niels Schneider plays Thibault.  The always reliable Isaach De Bankolé (Night on Earth, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 24) plays the teacher who seeks his bliss but who underestimates the kid’s weirdness.  Sonia Rolland (Josephine Baker in Midnight in Paris) plays the teacher’s wife; so beautiful that she can make your teeth hurt, Rolland is excellent as a woman who moves from aggrieved to reckless with breathtaking speed.

[BTW later this year Sonia Rolland joins Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, Sarah’s Key, War Horse) and Julie Gayet to star in 72-year-old director Bernard Travenier’s political dark comedy Quai d’Orsay, filmed at the real UN Security Council.]

Chaos will play again at Cinequest on March 7.

Cinequest: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

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The best movie that I’ve seen so far at Cinequest is the French thriller Lead Us Not Into Temptation.  A middle-aged married man does a good deed for a beautiful young woman and finds himself the pawn in a dangerous game.  Inventively constructed, we see the story from the perspective of the guy, then from the young woman’s point of view and finally through the prism of another character.  Unlike in Rashomon, we don’t see different realities, but, as secrets are revealed, we finally understand the whole picture.  It’s a brilliant screenplay by writer-director-producer Cheyenne Carron.   In the young woman, Carron has created a character who is both predatory and damaged but who can act charming, vulnerable and sexy. The story hinges on actress Agnes Delachair’s ability to play that complex role – and she delivers a captivating performance.   The trailer below is not subtitled.   Lead Us Not Into Temptation plays again on March 1 and March 9.

I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which also includes comments on The Sapphires, In the Shadows, The Almost Man, Panahida, Aftermath and The Hunt.

Side Effects: a thriller for thriller-lovers

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Side Effects is a psychological thriller that keeps thriller-lovers on the their toes by constantly changing its focus.  First one character is on the verge of falling apart, then another and then another.  Initially, we think that the story is about mental illness and prescription psych meds, but then it evolves into something else quite different.   The plot might have seemed implausible in the hands of a lesser director, but Steven Soderbergh pulls it off with panache.

Soderbergh got superb performances by his leads: Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Mara, so striking in The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, serves notice that she is a perfect fit for psychological dramas; she can turn  apparent fragility and unknowability into menace like few other film actresses.  And few actors can take a character from charming confidence to a desperate meltdown like Law does here.  Zeta-Jones shows that she play a frigid mistress of the universe who is passionate and needy underneath.  The supporting players are all perfectly cast.

The insistent music by Thomas Newman, while never obvious, is an integral part of the suspense.  Soderbergh, a master who has repeatedly elevated genre films, has another winner in Side Effects.

DVD of the Week: Deadfall

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Deadfall is a solid thriller that flew under the radar during the holidays.  Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are brother and sister running for the Canadian border after a casino heist.  They wreck their car and split up.  The brother sets off overland, leaving a trail of murderous carnage.   The local cops are on the alert, including the sheriff’s deputy daughter (Kate Mara).   Meanwhile,  a bad luck boxer (Charlie Hannum of Sons of Anarchy) is released from prison, impulsively commits another crime and is headed for his parents’ (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) remote northern cabin.  The sister hitches a ride with the boxer.  Everybody converges at the boxer’s parents’ place for an extremely stressful Thanksgiving dinner.

An essential element of this thriller is that all of the families are dysfunctional.   The siblings have survived a hellish upbringing, from which the older brother has rescued his little sister; unfortunately, he has emerged as a psychopath himself and has infantilized the sister.  The relationship between the boxer and his father has been poisoned by a long-festering dispute.  The sheriff resents and belittles his bright and highly professional daughter while doting on her idiot brothers.

The core of the movie is the evolving relationship between Wilde’s sister and Hunnam’s boxer.  Neither knows that the other is on the lam.  She cynically seduces him because he is useful.  But then she starts to fall for him, and, by Thanksgiving dinner, her loyalties are uncertain.

Sissy Spacek is brilliant as the boxer’s mom, who must steer over the wreckage of the relationship between her son and her husband, and who must then serve a Thanksgiving dinner to a volatile killer who is holding a shotgun on the other guests.  She is a great actor, and she’s as good here as in any of her signature performances.

The cinematography, characters, acting and the directorial choices by Stefan Ruzowitzky are excellent.  What keeps Deadfall from being one of the year’s best is some trite, TV movie level dialogue along the way.  Still, it’s a good watch.

Note: This is NOT the 1993 Deadfall, with Nicholas Cage even more over-the-top than usual.

Deadfall: Two killers, one shotgun and Thanksgiving dinner

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Deadfall is a solid thriller that is flying under the radar this holiday season.  Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are brother and sister running for the Canadian border after a casino heist.  They wreck their car and split up.  The brother sets off overland, leaving a trail of murderous carnage.   The local cops are on the alert, including the sheriff’s deputy daughter (Kate Mara).   Meanwhile,  a bad luck boxer (Charlie Hannum of Sons of Anarchy) is released from prison, impulsively commits another crime and is headed for his parents’ (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) remote northern cabin.  The sister hitches a ride with the boxer.  Everybody converges at the boxer’s parents’ place for an extremely stressful Thanksgiving dinner.

An essential element of this thriller is that all of the families are dysfunctional.   The siblings have survived a hellish upbringing, from which the older brother has rescued his little sister; unfortunately, he has emerged as a psychopath himself and has infantilized the sister.  The relationship between the boxer and his father has been poisoned by a long-festering dispute.  The sheriff resents and belittles his bright and highly professional daughter while doting on her idiot brothers.

The core of the movie is the evolving relationship between Wilde’s sister and Hunnam’s boxer.  Neither knows that the other is on the lam.  She cynically seduces him because he is useful.  But then she starts to fall for him, and, by Thanksgiving dinner, her loyalties are uncertain.

Sissy Spacek is brilliant as the boxer’s mom, who must steer over the wreckage of the relationship between her son and her husband, and who must then serve a Thanksgiving dinner to a volatile killer who is holding a shotgun on the other guests.  She is a great actor, and she’s as good here as in any of her signature performances.

The cinematography, characters, acting and the directorial choices by Stefan Ruzowitzky are excellent.  What keeps Deadfall from being one of the year’s best is some trite, TV movie level dialogue along the way.  Still, it’s a good watch.

Note: This is NOT the 1993 Deadfall, with Nicholas Cage even more over-the-top than usual.

Flight: a battle against gravity, then another against alcoholism

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Denzel Washington stars in this top rate thriller about an airline pilot who becomes a hero after saving his passengers in a miraculous crash landing, but then falls into legal jeopardy when alcohol is found in his blood.  The plane crash is thrilling, but the high stakes suspense in the final 90 minutes is about whether he can get his drinking under control.

What makes Flight singular is that the hero can take control of a crisis at 35,000 feet and rise to superhuman performance, but is completely out of control when he spots a mini bottle of Ketel One.

And what a hero Denzel Washington makes!  The guy is among our very best actors, and here, his edginess and bluster mask the pilot’s achingly vulnerable loneliness and self-loathing.  And the charisma and confidence in Denzel’s screen presence makes him totally credible as an action hero.

Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) delivers a plane crash scene for the ages, and he does an excellent job of keeping up the suspense.  Flight is pedal-to-the-metal intensity until the final ten minutes, when the ending didn’t quite work for me.  For me, only the ending keeps Flight from being a Must See and one of the year’s best.

The English actress Kelly Reilly is really, really good as a trashy southern heroin addict whose life intersects with the pilot’s, and who must make the same choice between recovery and demise.  John Goodman is hilarious as a gonzo enabler right out of Hunter S. Thompson.  The rest of the cast shines, too, especially Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood and Tamara Tunie.

Argo: the first Must See this fall

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Ben Affleck directs and stars in Argo, unquestionably the best Hollywood movie of the year so far.   In this true story from the Iran Hostage Crisis, a down-on-his-luck spy rescues six Americans hiding in the Canadian Ambassador’s Tehran home by pretending to make a cheesy Hollywood sci fi movie. The scenes in Tehran and Washington are pure thriller, leavened by the very funny Hollywood thread.

It’s a gripping story.  Setting up the audacious plan is only the beginning. It must be sold to risk averse government officials.  And it must be sold to the “house guests”, who clearly understand how risky it is.  The diplomats must learn their cover identities as Canadian filmmakers well enough to withstand interrogation.  And the team must be shuttled past layer upon layer of suspicious, trigger happy and completely unpredictable revolutionaries.  Helluva story, well told.

Thanks to director Affleck, editor William Goldberg and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, Argo is brilliantly photographed and constructed.It is economical story-telling at its best, with each shot revealing critical information – the lethal chaos in the streets of Tehran, the paralyzing fear of the house guests, the determination of Affleck’s operative.

It’s a deep cast.  John Goodman and Alan Arkin are hilarious as the movie industry guys.  Scoot McNairy and Christopher Denham are especially good as house guests.  Farshad Farahat is compelling as the commander of the final revolutionary checkpoint.  The rest of the cast is equally superb:   Bryan Cranston, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Kind, Michael Parks, Clea DuVall, Adam Arkin, Chris Messina and Victor Garber.  Watch for a bit role played by 80s horror maven Adrienne Barbeau.

This could have been jingoistic, but Affleck starts the movie with an animated historical primer to remind (or teach) the audience about why the Iranians were so angry.  And he generously included another American perspective during the end credits.  Much more nuance than the standard Hollywood movie –  good for Affleck!

Looper: thinking person’s sci fi

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I liked Looper because it’s old school sci fi – based on an idea, in this case, what happens if humans learn how to time travel?  I think that much of the sci fi in that past thirty years hasn’t been idea-based, but more an excuse to clothe a monster movie or an action movie in cool-looking sci fi settings.  The credit here goes to writer-director Rian Johnson who has imagined a 2044 in which the richest 10% (including organized criminals) live pretty well, but the rest of us vie for scraps in decayed cities that haven’t seen any investment since maybe 2012.  In Johnson’s foul future, time travel is discovered, but by 2074, is used by criminals to dispose of their victims back in 2044.

In Looper, 2044 hit man Joseph Gordon-Levitt is confronted with the 2074 version of himself, played by Bruce Willis.  Willis is on a mission to do something in 2044 that will change an outcome in 2074.  The mission is shocking – would you murder a child to prevent him from growing up to become a Hitler-like monster?

In a year with many excellent performances by child actors, Pierce Gagnon plays one compellingly terrifying four-year-old.   As a bonus, one of my favorite character actors, Garret Dillahunt (No Country for Old Men, Assassination of Jesse James, Winter’s Bone) has a nice turn near the end of the movie.

As Looper climaxes, the audience needs to think along – if history is altered, how will the dominoes fall?

DVD of the Week: Headhunters

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The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie:  at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners.  As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures.  So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie.  But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos,  and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive.  As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo.   There are reports that Headhunters will be remade soon by Hollywood.  In the mean time, see Headhunters and have a fun time at the movies.

Premium Rush: cool bike chase, not much else

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Premium Rush is a thriller set in Manhattan’s bike messenger subculture and is basically one 90-minute chase scene.  It is cool to watch skilled outlaws bob in and out of NYC traffic, running red lights and just missing cabs, more cabs and the occasional baby carriage.  But that’s all that Premium Rush has to offer.

Premium Rush does employ – and mostly waste – the talents of two of our greatest actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon.  Gordon-Levitt is just fine, and, Lord knows, he deserves a Hollywood payday after making all those wonderful indies.  The same goes for Shannon (who better to play a maniacal villain?), who does well when called upon to be scary and less well when he displays Elmer Fudd frustration.