All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

 

Once upon a time, I saw all the nominees for Best Picture before the Oscar ceremonies. As time as gone by in the last few years, I have become less and less interested in the Awards. The expansion of the Best Picture Category was done to include more popular films and keep audiences coming to the theaters and the TV ceremony, but the effort has largely resulted in the inclusion of more independent, specialized films. Sure this year a couple of big movies have been included, but there are at least three films on the list that would not be there if the category had not been expanded, that very few people know or care about. This film would not be one of those. This is a large scale historical epic that is compelling and deserving of attention, however, in the past it would have stayed contained in the "International/Foreign Film" category. Even beyond that classification, it might have been excluded because it was not a theatrical release. This is a Netflix film that probably got a token theatrical exhibition in order to qualify for awards, in spite of the fact that Netflix's model is almost exclusively streaming.

By waiting to see this, I was lucky enough to find a theater that would play the movie on a big screen because of it's award nominations. People who experience this at home are missing out on a very immersive experience, and probably the whole reason that the story is being told in the first place. The film makers want you to share the horror of war, especially the meat grinder that the European Conflict was in WWI. In the past couple of years, there have been a number on movies that featured the horrors of the trench warfare of WWI: "1917", "They Shall Not Grow Old", even "Wonder Woman", "The King's Man" and "Death on the Nile". All war is horrible, but the environment and conditions in this first of the modern wars was particularly brutal.

It has been almost a hundred years since the first version of this story was brought to the screen. It is not as visually brutal as the new film is, but it was emotionally powerful nonetheless because of our ability to empathize with the young men who had excitedly volunteered for the war. Their disillusionment  does not take long, and in this modern version it is accompanied by extreme fear, violent dismemberment, and the gruesome duty of collecting the bottom part of the dead soldiers dog tags, as a way of inventorying the casualties. One element I did not remember from the 1930 film, is the negotiations for a ceasefire and the insistent resistance of some of the German general staff to making such an arrangement. Neither side was able to achieve a military victory, but the war of attrition took a toll on the homefront, which is largely ignored in this story. 

The structure of the film is roughly the same, as we follow the schoolfriends from enlistment to battlefield. The local politics from the first film, where a postman becomes an authority and abuses his power, is missing from this version. The relationship between the veteran Katczinsky and the newbie Paul is developed substantially, and there is a well told moment when the two men share a latrine, where we see that each of them has something that is being lost by the continuation of the war. The final resolution of their friendship occurs not in combat but in the sort of savaging that is typical of a war and with an unlikely antagonist being responsible for the end. I'm not sure if this expansion of the dangers of war improves the film's message or dilutes it.

Production design on the film feels authentic, with the trenches being a miserable puddle for most of the time the soldiers occupy them, and the bunkers being a claustrophobic nightmare, especially with the arrival of tanks on the front, One of the memorable segments from each film is the period when Paul is trapped in an artillery crater, with a French soldier he has brutally overcome, but who takes so long to die that Paul apologizes, attempts to rectify and then suffers from guilt by the experience.  The one famous moment from the 1930 film, which ends the story, is not present in this film. Instead we get an end card that totals up the dead, measures it by the territory gained and losses, and makes a final case for the futility of war through the text rather than the visual. 

"All Quiet on the Western Front" may be a more difficult film for American audiences because of the use of German and French. The authenticity is meritorious, but the need to read the words does add a layer to the experience that can distance the emotional investment we make with the soldiers. It is not the sude of the war that they are on, or their cultural differences that might impede us, it is simply the fact that we may not be as in synch with each moment as we might be if it were in our own language. Still, I mourn for Kat, Tjaden, Franz, Albert and Paul, for the humanity that they lost and the needless sacrifice that they made. 

The Gray Man

So before I talk about the movie itself, a little bit of background on the film, exhibitors and myself. This is an expensive Netflix production, that is getting a limited theatrical release ahead of it's debut on the Netflix steaming service. The reported budget was near $200 Million and that looks like it made it to the screen. The Directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, who did some of the most successful MCU films, were in charge for this show. The reason that the release is limited probably has something to do with the fact that several film chains require exclusivity to theatrical for a set amount of time, and Netflix was not prepared to accept those conditions.  AMC is one of those exhibitors who will not play a movie that is going to compete with itself, at least not after the pandemic restrictions which had call most bets off. I am happy to see a film on streaming, but I much prefer the theater experience, so when given the opportunity, I took it and traveled to a nearby town to be able to see this since it was not within a ten mile radius of where I now live. With rare exceptions, this site is devoted to the cinema experience. There is too much content on streaming for me to keep up with, and I don't want to review TV. However, since Netflix make the effort to put this in theaters and I made an effort to see it in one, it will get some attention from me here.

"The Gray Man" is a spy film, which focuses on the assets that are primarily in place to kill someone. Although there may be comparisons to Mission Impossible" or the James Bond films, this is really closer to "Atomic Blonde", "The Hitman's Bodyguard", "The Accountant" or "The Eiger Sanction", which all pretend to be spy films but are really cat and mouse games between paid killers. "The Gray Man" is not a character that works in intelligence, they do not infiltrate conspiracies to bring them to an end, there is not really much suspense in the work they do. The Gray men exist in the shadows, executing directions that have been given to them rather than forging their own path. Sierra Six, Ryan Gosling's character in this film, is basically a weapon for action, not a tool of investigation. As long as you keep that in mind, you will probably be able to enjoy this film for what it is. 

The Russos have managed, along with the screenwriters and editors, to cut the story down to the minimal outline required in order to have a plot, and then filled in that skeletal structure with as much screen action as is possible, staying just this side of the nonsense that shows up in the "Fast and Furious" franchise. There are wild shootouts in crowded locations every few minutes. There are also over the top car chases on city streets between the shootouts and while they are happening. Cars don't fly between buildings or swing from one cliff to another, but people do emerge from wrecks that would kill most of us at half the speed, and they simply jump up, dust off and get in the next ride. The foot chases are sometimes tough because of the shaky cam that is used to film them, but the car chases are problematic so often because the use of frequent close ups keeps us from observing the context and knowing what the risks are.   

There are certainly joys to be had in the overkill that is employed in providing mayhem on screen. All of that is OK for an audience interested in pyrotechnics only. Any viewers who were looking for a plausible story with characters facing consequences for their choices will be disappointed. It is as if the CIA, sent it's own forces en masse to London, to collect Julien Assange or to Moscow to get Edward Snowden, and along the way they wiped out half of the security services of those countries and there were no ramifications. That's because this movie is not about anything, it is simple a diorama for moving the toy soldiers around and blowing things up. If you have seen the MCU films the Russo Brothers have directed, you will see that they are quite capable of showing interesting mayhem. They continue to be able to do that. 

Gosling is delivering an understated character as an action hero pretty well. He keeps the sardonic quips to a minimum and provides a voice that is exhausted, injured or optimistic as the situation calls for. His co-star and fellow agent Ana de Armas, is proficient physically as she was in "No Time to Die", but her character here lacks the joyful enthusiasm of that character and she is simply another action figure without much personality or purpose. That was certainly not the actress's fault, it is the screenwriting team that left her high and dry. Chris Evans plays against type in this film, as he did with his previous effort which starred  Ana de Armas, "Knives Out". The antagonist Lloyd Hansen is a psychopath with skills but no off switch. The notion that the CIA deputy director that turns him loose had any idea what was coming, undermines the credibility of the plot. Evans is not required to do much, but his hostile passive aggressiveness, combined with actual torture, will make you hope he gets what is coming to him. As usual, the gravitas of a film he appears in is provided by Billy Bob Thornton, who in the last couple of decades has become one of my favorite on screen performers. 

This film seemed to have a stink on it before it opened. I'm not sure why. It is not great but it is certainly not a terrible picture. It is an action film that goes all in on that avenue and abandons any attempt to make us care much about who gets killed except for the two leads. If you see it in a theater, you will get your entertainment value, but not much else. 

The Irishman

Let me start off with a couple of justifications. This is a Netflix created project, designed to be shown on their streaming service. As such, there are doubts about whether it should be included in my usual project since I try to focus on theatrical material. Last year I participated in some spirited discussions of "Roma" based on the premise that it is not "cinema". This seems oddly ironic given the take Martin Scorsese has on the comic book movies that dominate theaters these days. Unlike "Roma" however, I did see this in a theater and it was an exclusive run before any streaming of it on the home network is available. The major theater chains were unwilling to book this without a traditional window of exclusive exhibition, so I still think my doubts are relevant. There are some mitigating issues however. First, this is a Martin Scorsese project and he clearly sees it as a film. Second, I have made exceptions in the past about what I cover on this site and I have written about documentaries or "films" made for premium channels in the past. I have also covered related material, concerts for instance that are inspired by movies. So my rules are a little flexible. Finally, I think the battle will be lost in the next few years and I will be doomed to be a collaborator in the destruction of the cinema going experience by day and date VOD, so I may as well start kowtowing now to get into practice. I will still scream about it but lets face it, my finger in the dike is will not stop it.

Last night's screening at the Egyptian was sold out, there was not a seat to be had and there were people standing in the wings, the whole time the movie was playing. Anticipation was high and I was quite excited about seeing the film. It is a solid piece of gangster story telling told by the master of that genre, but it is not the masterpiece of his career. The three and a half hour running time is very noticeable, especially in the last forty minutes of the movie. This could easily be broken into two parts for the television mini series presentation it probably deserves. The sprawling story covers five decades and it is told through a series of flashbacks and forwards that also make the pacing seem slower than it actually is. The fact that the finale plays out in one long sequence with the main character in a wheelchair dying of cancer, feels anti climatic although it does contain some of the only moments of emotion that the main character exhibits.

"Mean Streets" was low level street gangsters, "Goodfellas" was gangsters on drugs, "Casino" was gangsters and gambling, "The Departed" was gangsters with police corruption, "Gangs of New York" was historical gangsters and "The Irishman" is gangsters and unions. The same template that was used for "GoodFellas" and "Casino" is found here. We are given a narrator who is telling us the story as we see it play out. There are beats of violence every few minutes and grim humor pops up occasionally to keep it entertaining. The actors are all fine, but this movie lacks some of the grace points of those previous classics. The bravura one take Steadicam nightclub scene in "Goodfellas" was a moment that made that film special. There is no equivalent film making technique here. Joe Pesci was lightning on screen in both "Goodfellas" and "Casino", no such character exists in this trudge through Teamster/Mafia politics of the 60s and 70s. Sharon Stone was a dynamic female character in "Casino" there are virtually no important women characters featured in this story. The pacing of those two movies, especially in the last segments built into a crescendo that made us quickly in hale to try to catch our breath. "The Irishman" does little to keep us from nodding off at the end except hope that we care how Frank manages to reconcile himself with the world.

Joe Pesci came out of semi-retirement to make the movie, but his character could have been done by any number of actors. His unique volatility and vocal delivery is never called upon by Scorsese to make the film sing.  Harvey Kietel is in the movie, but I will be amazed if you remember that at the conclusion of the running time. His character is so far in the background that we only know what he thinks through his orders being repeated by those he supposedly conveyed them to.   Robert DeNiro is the star of the film, and he turns in a credible performance but nothing close to earlier work in this milieu. The character of Frank Sheeran is a cipher in most of his scenes. DeNiro is trying to make a nearly personality free low level thug into an interesting character, but it is only the alleged acts of violence he claims to have carried out that make him noticeable.  The hollow award that the character gets during his time as a union president would be hard to justify given the lack of any outgoing charisma.

The actor who scores best in the film is Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. Having been parodied for years for his throaty overacting in recent films, Pacino is more realistic here. There are a few scenes where the bellicose Hoffa goes off but Pacino plays them in character rather than making him a character. The rest of the time he seems to be a committed and forceful man who was too pig headed to notice that those closest to him were the ones who were the most dangerous. The simple scenes that Pacino plays opposite DeNiro's on screen daughter are the ones that sell us on him as a real person. The contrast in the relationship between Hoffa and Sheeran's family versus Pesci and DeNiro who mimic family love but can't really sell it, that is the best directed part of the film, but it's only enough to make Pacino's character come to life, not enough to make the film do so.

Two other things that I saw as drawbacks to the film include the early de-aging CGI and the musical score. I got used to the CGI miracle after a few minutes, but that does not mean that it worked perfectly. As this technology gets better, I think actors will have to be careful because they could be replaced by AI created performers that might get us to respond to them by reading analytics of audience reactions. The other mild complaint is the score by Robbie Robertson. Maybe it is a good thing that there is no memorable theme or consistent melody running through th film story, but I think that makes it harder to feel the film is memorable. The only bits that were significant to me were the doo wop clips and the background music in particular scenes. Jerry Vale was the musical high note of the film, and while he was a fine vocalist, I don't think that is enough to hang your musical hat on for a film.

In summary, you have seen this before and it has been better done in other Scorsese films, but that does not make this a bad movie. The film is quite good and it almost convinces us that this is the real story. All of the performances are solid but nothing historic that people will look back on and say, "that was a milestone" in that guys career. The history lesson we get of mob infiltration of the unions works pretty well at getting to the heart of the idea, even if the details are invented. There is enough blood and betrayal to clearly mark this as a Scorsese film, but in the end, most of out characters get wacked by cancer and heart disease rather than other mob guys or the cops. It is a little indulgent but a story that is pretty well told using tried and true techniques we have experienced many times before.