crime drama

DVD/Stream of the Week: Top of the Lake

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Elisabeth Moss in TOP OF THE LAKE

If you’re looking for an episodic drama before you can get another taste of Treme, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Justified or the like, you can do a lot worse than the Sundance Channel’s seven part series Top of the Lake, staring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss.  It’s just right for a Labor Day Weekend marathon.

Moss plays a cop who returns to her rural New Zealand hometown only to get entangled in the case of a missing pregnant 12-year-old. Moss’ cop begins unraveling the community’s secrets, and it turns out that she has a past herself.  It’s easy to find oddballs and seekers in a mountain community, along with the usual crop of redneck louts, and this New Zealand backwater has more than its share of both.  There’s a dodgy police commander, a slimy real estate broker, a bunch of edgy teenagers – and the protagonist’s old prom date is now living in a tent.

But that’s nothing compared to one of the most twisted characters of recent years, the sadistic local drug lord played by Peter Mullan (the Red Riding series, Tyrannosaur, The Claim).

And then there’s a colony of women living in shipping containers while they heal from life’s traumas and seek enlightenment.   Their sometimes catatonic and always harsh guru is played by Holly Hunter.

Throw all these characters together into a cleverly constructed plot, and you’ve got one highly entertaining series.

Peter Mullan in TOP OF THE LAKE

Top of the Lake was created by New Zealand’s own Oscar-winning director Jane Campion.

Each of the episodes is only 48-50 minutes long, so watching all seven episodes goes pretty briskly.

Holly Hunter in TOP OF THE LAKE

You can catch Top of the Lake episodes on the Sundance Channel or watch all seven episodes on DVD or streaming from Netflix.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Place Beyond the Pines

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Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

According to the Old Testament, “the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”. Indeed, the successes and flaws of fathers, and the choices they make, impact their sons. And sons are often driven to be like or unlike their fathers, to match them or to surpass them. That is the territory explored in writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines. (The story is set in Schenectady, New York, and the title refers to the Mohawk origin of the town’s name.)

At first, the story follows a familiar path for a crime drama – a motorcycle trick rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to bank robbery and has an encounter with a cop on patrol (Bradley Cooper). But the screenplay embeds nuggets about how both men feel about their fathers and how those feelings drive their actions. Both men have infant sons, and the father-son theme becomes more apparent as the story resumes fifteen years later with a focus on their own sons as teenagers.

I can’t remember a recent performance by Ryan Gosling that hasn’t been compelling, and he’s outstanding here, too. But the unexpected gem is Bradley Cooper, who shows us acting depth and range that we haven’t seen in his earlier work. Especially in scenes with a police psychiatrist and when forced to ask his father for advice, Cooper exposes the naked vulnerability of his character.

The Place Beyond the Pines is replete with excellent performances. Eva Mendes plays the mother of Gosling’s baby, and her performance stands up to Gosling’s – no small feat. Harris Yulin is superb as Cooper’s canny father. The wonderful Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, Killing Them Softly) plays Gosling’s crime partner. Ray Liotta, who often plays shady characters, has never been so menacing.

I found the character of Cooper’s son to be very unsympathetic; he is supposed to be a kid messed up by his parents’ divorce and father’s inattention, and I think that the story would have worked better if it were easier to look past his obnoxiousness to appreciate his damaged nature. Still, it’s a film that I’m still pondering a day later. Cianfrance made Blue Valentine, the hard-to-watch but starkly authentic story of an unraveled relationship, an acting showcase for Gosling and Michele Williams. The Place Beyond the Pines is just as thoughtful and more accessible than Blue Valentine. Pines is an ambitious and mostly successful film.

The Place Beyond the Pines is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD providers.

DVD of the Week: Stand Up Guys

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Stand Up Guys doesn’t really have much going for it except for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin playing old mobsters, but that’s enough for a good time at the movies.  The premise is that a gangster (Pacino) is released from prison after taking a 28-year fall for his colleagues.  He is picked up by his buddy (Walken), who both men know has been ordered to execute the newly released man.  Along the way, they “rescue” their getaway driver (Arkin) from his convalescent home and have a series of adventures.  The adventures themselves don’t matter.  It’s all  really about these old men – all adrenaline junkies in their youth – getting a chance for one more surge of excitement and mastery.  Pacino’s Val gets to ask for what must be the hundredth time “Are we gonna kick ass or chew gum?”, knowing that Walken’s Doc will once again reply, “I’m all outta gum”.

Pacino, Walken and Arkin each deliver rich characterizations.  Pacino’s Val, despite his creakiness, has 28 years of pent-up energy and a determination to party before he gets whacked.  Walken’s Doc has adjusted to the pace of retirement; he’s not looking for adventure, but just to show Val a good time with sad obligation.   Arkin’s Hirsch already has a foot in the grave, but still possesses some impressive skills.  The young actress Addison Timlin brings a charisma to what could have been a generic role; she is in four more movies this year, and she’s worth watching out for.

Stand Up Guys is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Vudu, Amazon and several other VOD outlets.

Outrage Beyond: glorious gangster exploitation

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Takeshi Kitano dares a Yakuza to shoot him in OUTRAGE BEYOND

Takeshi Kitano returns to star in the Japanese gangster movie Outrage Beyond.  It’s a sequel to writer-director Kitano’s 2011 Outrage, of which I wrote:

If you’re looking for a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other, Outrage is the film for you.  But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese)…Kitano, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.

Outrage was more of a tragic noir, because you know that most of the characters probably won’t survive – and they know it, too.   There is less foreboding in Outrage Beyond, which is just glorious exploitation – gangster mayhem splattering the streets.  Because this is a Yakuza film, Kitano delivers the minimum one full body tattoo and one severed finger.  But he also makes ingeniously lethal use of a pitching machine in a batting cage, and “Let’s play baseball” is the cruelest line in the film.

I saw Outrage Beyond at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Coming Up on TV: 3 noir classics

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OUT OF THE PAST

On May 7, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting three classics of film noir.

You really haven’t sampled film noir if you haven’t seen Out of the Past (1947).  Perhaps the model of a film noir hero, Robert Mitchum plays a guy who is cynical, strong, smart and resourceful – but still a sap for the femme fatale…played by the irresistible Jane Greer.  Greer later reported that she received this guidance from director Jacques Tourneur: “First half of the picture – good girl.  Second half – bad girl.”  Kirk Douglas plays The Bad Guy You Don’t Want to Mess With, emanating a mix of evil and power.  With Out of the Past, Tourneur crafted one of the most dramatically lit and photographed noirs – not one puff of cigarette smoke goes uncelebrated.

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

In The Asphalt Jungle (1950), the crooks assemble a team and pull off the big heist…and then things begin to go wrong.  There aren’t many noirs with better casting – the crooks include Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe and James Whitmore.  The 23-year-old Marilyn Monroe plays Calhern’s companion in her first real speaking part.  How noir is it? Even the cop who breaks the case goes to jail.  Directed by the great John Huston.

Every police procedural from 1948 through today’s Law and Order and CSI owes something to the prototypical The Naked City (1948). Tenacious New York City cops solve a murder amid gritty streets and shady characters. Unusual for the time, it was shot on location.   Directed by noir great Jules Dassin, The Naked City won Oscars for black and white cinematography and film editing.

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

The Place Beyond the Pines: the sins of the fathers visited upon the sons

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Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

According to the Old Testament, “the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”.  Indeed, the successes and flaws of fathers, and the choices they make, impact their sons.  And sons are often driven to be like or unlike their fathers, to match them or to surpass them.  That is the territory explored in writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines.  (The story is set in Schenectady, New York, and the title refers to the Mohawk origin of the town’s name.)

At first, the story follows a familiar path for a crime drama – a motorcycle trick rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to bank robbery and has an encounter with a cop on patrol (Bradley Cooper).  But the screenplay embeds nuggets about how both men feel about their fathers and how those feelings drive their actions. Both men have infant sons, and the father-son theme becomes more apparent as the story resumes fifteen years later with a focus on their own sons as teenagers.

I can’t remember a recent performance by Ryan Gosling that hasn’t been compelling, and he’s outstanding here, too.  But the unexpected gem is Bradley Cooper, who shows us acting depth and range that we haven’t seen in his earlier work.  Especially in scenes with a police psychiatrist and when forced to ask his father for advice, Cooper exposes the naked vulnerability of his character.

The Place Beyond the Pines is replete with excellent performances.  Eva Mendes plays the mother of Gosling’s baby, and her performance stands up to Gosling’s – no small feat.  Harris Yulin is superb as Cooper’s canny father.  The wonderful Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, Killing Them Softly) plays Gosling’s crime partner.  Ray Liotta, who often plays shady characters, has never been so menacing.

I found the character of Cooper’s son to be very unsympathetic; he is supposed to be a kid messed up by his parents’ divorce and father’s inattention, and I think that the story would have worked better if it were easier to look past his obnoxiousness to appreciate his damaged nature.  Still, it’s a film that I’m still pondering a day later.  Cianfrance made Blue Valentine, the hard-to-watch but starkly authentic story of an unraveled relationship, an acting showcase for Gosling and Michele Williams.  The Place Beyond the Pines is just as thoughtful and more accessible than Blue Valentine. Pines is an ambitious and mostly successful film.

Stand Up Guys: one more surge for three old masters

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Stand Up Guys doesn’t really have much going for it except for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin playing old mobsters, but that’s enough for a good time at the movies.  The premise is that a gangster (Pacino) is released from prison after taking a 28-year fall for his colleagues.  He is picked up by his buddy (Walken), who both men know has been ordered to execute the newly released man.  Along the way, they “rescue” their getaway driver (Arkin) from his convalescent home and have a series of adventures.  The adventures themselves don’t matter.  It’s all  really about these old men – all adrenaline junkies in their youth – getting a chance for one more surge of excitement and mastery.  Pacino’s Val gets to ask for what must be the hundredth time “Are we gonna kick ass or chew gum?”, knowing that Walken’s Doc will once again reply, “I’m all outta gum”.

Pacino, Walken and Arkin each deliver rich characterizations.  Pacino’s Val, despite his creakiness, has 28 years of pent-up energy and a determination to party before he gets whacked.  Walken’s Doc has adjusted to the pace of retirement; he’s not looking for adventure, but just to show Val a good time with sad obligation.   Arkin’s Hirsch already has a foot in the grave, but still possesses some impressive skills.  The young actress Addison Timlin brings a charisma to what could have been a generic role; she is in four more movies this year, and she’s worth watching out for.

DVD of the Week: End of Watch

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End of Watch is a top notch thriller of a cop movie, and it made my list of Best Movies of 2012.   Two cops, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, patrol a hell hole beat in South Central LA.  They are well-intentioned cops, but they are testosterone-fueled young guys. They are always looking for action, and this neighborhood has plenty of action.  They ultimately bite off more than they should try to chew.

Writer-director David Ayer (Training Day) has made a movie that rises above the genre because of the well-written main characters and their relationship.  We watch them chiefly from a camera on the dashboard of their squad car.  We learn that they are both decent guys and both adrenaline junkies, but one is more aspirational and one is more settled.  They are both funny, and the multiracial theater audience at my screening was howling at the ethnic ball-breaking.

There are also some impressive chases, often filmed with the dashboard camera facing forward.  It’s thrilling stuff.  There’s a lot of shaky cam (which I usually hate), but here it works well to enhance the chaos of the setting as well as the action.

The rest of the cast is excellent, most notably Natalie Martinez and Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) as the love interests, David Harbour, America Ferrera and Frank Grillo as fellow cops, and Diamonique as a fierce gangbanger.

And here’s a shout out to Michael Peña.  In End of Watch, Peña nails both the humor and the action; he’s on-screen almost the whole movie and has an engaging presence.  He has played so many Latino cops, and he really deserves a chance to show what he can do with a different type of role.

Gangster Squad: waste of a good cast

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An uncommon collection of acting talent (Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi) sinks with Gangster Squad, a mob movie based on Mickey Cohn’s 1949 sojourn in LA.  Because director Reuben Fleischer recently made Zombieland, which I loved for its original approach to zombie movies.  Unfortunately, there is not one original minute in Gangster Squad.  If you enjoy movie violence, avoid Gangster Squad and see Django Unchained a second time.

Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohn – or maybe he’s playing Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas.  What made Pesci’s volatile character so menacing (and unforgettable) was that you never knew when he would irrationally erupt and do something unthinkably horrible.  But Penn’s character is totally predictable – he always does the worst thing imaginable so there’s no menace; it’s like watching Michael Vick train dogs – just gruesome.

Gangster Squad was slated for a September 7, 2012, release, but it contained a scene of a mass shooting inside a movie theater; the Aurora, Colorado, tragedy made the distributor skittish, so another scene was shot to replace it, delaying the release for four months.

Killing Them Softly: almost as good as a Sopranos rerun

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In Killing Them Softly, a low-level gangster gets two hapless losers to hold up a poker game that is protected by the mob.  The mob, of course, brings in an enforcer to put things right.   Perhaps Killing Them Softly would have been a great gangster movie in the 60s, before Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and David Chase raised the bar.  It was a big hit at Cannes, but that crowd may not be used to watching The Sopranos.

We know what is going to happen in the plot.  Fortunately, we have some excellent actors, led by Brad Pitt in a character role as the ruthless and nihilistic mob enforcer.  Pitt’s enforcer brings in a trusted colleague, a hit man from New York (James Gandolfini) to help him out – but the hit man is emotionally damaged from a betrayed romance and can only focus on drinking and whoring.  Richard Jenkins plays an unusually squeamish mid-level manager in the mob.  Scoot McNairy (one of the “house guests” in Argo) and Ben Mendelsohn (the most psychopathic criminal in Animal Kingdom) are especially good as the doomed hold-up men.

As good as the cast is, there’s just not much here.  An attempt to intertwine a thread about the 2008 economic collapse and Presidential election is a misguided device that only serves as a distraction.