Normally on this site we try to keep it at a PG-13 for the readers. If it is something I am writing, than I want it to be in my voice and I use vulgar language in a fairly narrow spectrum of circumstances. The trailer above however is an accurate reflection of the vulgarity and coarseness of the interactions in the film we are talking about here, so if you can't guess how the maestro of the "MF" word does in this film, the clip will give you plenty to chew on. Reynold's character actually suggests that Jackson is single-highhandedly ruining the word.
This kind of movie is mostly bulletproof. It is not critic friendly, it will be obvious as to what is going to happen, and it will offend a few people both intentionally and unintentionally. It will also entertain you for a couple of hours while you enjoy a refreshing beverage and some popcorn in a cool theater on a hot day. I prefer my popcorn with a good amount of butter flavoring and then I dump in a box of Hot Tamales to sweeten things up. The popcorn taste, mixed with the sweet but spicy candy is solid, but as the candy gets coated with the butterflavoring it adds an extra texture to the treat. If you are dieting, you should not go to see this film, because it demands that you consume things that are not good for you but taste delicious.
Mosaic electronic poster at Hollywood Achlight
Ryan Reynolds has become a very successful film star, although his most successful film is also one of his most recent. "Deadpool" has a few things in common with this movie, an irreverent sense of humor and a willingness to go for big action, but otherwise they are very different films. Samuel L. Jackson could make this movie in his sleep. He simply brings his usual bravado and colorful vocabulary and supplements it with the kind of gleeful violence we used to get from "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. The premise is simple, a professional bodyguard ends up trying to protect a contract killer that has crossed his path before. This is a bickering buddy film, each character has quirks that make them appealing and repulsive, and we spend a lot of time with the two of them togeteher matching insults.
If there is a pretender to the crown of "Most Colorful Cursing in the Movies", it might be the character played by Selma Hayek in this film, plus she does it bi-bilingually. If you ever feel a bit overwhelmed by the language, let me suggest some Junior Mints to go along with the popcorn. A refreshing mint might take the edge off of the palate enough that you can tolerate a few more curse words, in at least two languages.
Now leaving the snack bar menu for a bit and talking about the movie, I will say there are a couple of things that were nice about the film. The locations for the last act are in Amsterdam and take advantage of the city's quaint architecture and street layouts. There may have been an Alister MacLean film that used the canals of Amsterdam for a chase, I have a vague childhood memory, but it was certainly not as elaborate a chase scene as we get here. The integration of boats, cars and motorcycles made for a terrific sequence. The main problem is that there are at least two more car chase scenes after this and neither is as exciting. Gary Oldman is in this thing collecting a paycheck and playing another evil villain. His part is so underwritten that when he gets to the big moral equivocation his character launches into, we are already laughing before Samuel Jackson does.
Mostly, I'm just filling space here. There are some moral qualms you can have about using genocide as a plot point in a comedy, and the use of vehicles as terror weapons may be offensive as well. This movie is too silly to take seriously. Go get a refill on your Dr. Pepper or other beverage of choice. Don't worry about missing anything while you are gone, they will still be cracking wise and shooting crap up when you get back. As a matter of fact, you might want to go to the bathroom as well.
Since I have been under the weather this last week, fresh material is unavailable. I will continue to upload the lost posts from Fogs Movie Reviews, this originally was published in the Fall of 2013.
To
a large degree this could properly go into the category, "Movies That I
Want Everyone to Hear", because much of the joy in this film derives
from the fantastic soundtrack and fresh delivery of the titular band
that is the focus of this movie. All the way back to the 1930s, kids
were getting together musical acts and putting on a show as the plot of a
movie. "The Commitments "shares a lot in common with Mickey and Judy,
as long as you ignore the sex, poverty, drug use and the 145 times in
113 minutes that the F-bomb gets dropped.
The
premise is incredibly simple. Jimmy Rabbitte is a small time hustler
living in the poverty stricken sections of Dublin. He gets by selling
pirated videotapes and music out of his bag wherever he can find a
receptive audience. His dream however is to manage a big time music act.
With a core of friends that he poaches from a wedding band that he
helps get gigs for, they begin to search for other like minded
musicians. The plot follows a simple trajectory. The band comes
together, it finds it's musical heart, it is tested by internal
conflicts, and it largely succeeds artistically, for a short period of
time until the inevitable personality clashes take their toll. There is
not a great deal that is new here, or was new even in 1991.
What
is new is the perspective of the band members and the music they want to
make. Jimmy dreams of a soul band, modeled after the likes of Wilson
Pickett or James Brown. It is the rejection of most of the contemporary
music of it's time that provides several bits of humor. Girls who
audition for the band in their Madonna styles get hustled off as soon as
Jimmy gets a good laugh. Heavy Metal musicians are considered but
rejected because their style is
so at odds with the image Jimmy has. Punks and Boy George wanna be's
get the door slammed in their faces. This is a musical film, set in the
period of U2, Sinead O'Conner, Guns and Roses that rejects all of those
musical styles. This band is going to ape the soul classics of the early
sixties, not the punk aesthetic of it's time. An early sequence in the
film has all kinds of musicians showing up at the Rabbitte house, and
Jimmy's Dad is mostly bewildered by what he sees. Jimmy's Dad is an
Elvis man, and he finds much of what passes for music blasphemous, just
as Jimmy does but for different reasons.
At times some of the
characters are a little hard to take. Some of them have pretensions
about their music skills, some become megalomaniacs when they discover
some hidden talents, and almost all of them are young. Young in the way
that the heart can be pulled apart or the ego can blind us to our best
interests. However, for every cliche of emotional upheaval or youthful
intransigence, there is a music sequence that bounces along and sweeps
us up with enthusiasm. When the three girls recruited to sing backup are
practicing amidst the laundry hung out to dry, it is a moment of
musical and visual heaven.
The
band members begin to steep themselves in the soulful music of their
inspirations while Jimmy scrounges up gear and rehearsal space. When
rehearsals start the kids are not quite in sync but they are willing to
keep working. The oldest member of the band Joey "The Lips" Fagan , a
supposedly professional side man who played on records that everyone
would know, begins to mentor some of the band. He provides some
inspiration but also is the catalyst of some of the personal problems
the band faces. All of the characters get a moment or two to connect
with the audience.
Although the surroundings are grim, the story
isn't. Half the band is on the dole, some work to support their
families, all of them live in cramped quarters and struggle for a little
privacy at times and a bit of the spot light at other times. Every
rehearsal gives one of our characters a chance to step up and show
something. When the time comes to get on stage, the idea of a band, one
that merges diverse parts and components is well illustrated. What is
also noticeable is when the band isn't fitting together. There is always
the music to carry us through. When the singing starts it is
infectious, even when things are not going well.
Jimmy
and his family are the string that holds the story together. The book
that the movie was based on follows the Rabbitte family and there were
two more books turned into movies that shared the same family. Jimmy
does not appear in the other films but his Dad does. The Dad is played
by the very recognizable character actor Colm Meaney. His early
skepticism and then his gradual acknowledgement of the quality of the
music is a subtle way of putting something more into the story. It is
not dwelt over but occurs in a brief moment during a concert
performance.
Watching
the band come together and seeing the way they begin to feel about
themselves reminds us of the power of music. Jimmy has imaginary
interviews with the music press as he soaks in the tub or lays in bed.
Joey may or not be what he claims but he certainly lives like he is.
Some of the band make sacrifices and others are unwilling to. The usual
strains begin to surface but the girls are singing well, the lead singer
has a great soulful voice and the instrumentals are constantly getting
tighter. The question becomes whether the band will reach it's potential
before everything implodes. Most of the young folks in the band were actually musical performers
before they got involved in acting. Glen Hansard who plays guitarist
Outspan Foster goes on to star in the movie "Once" for which he wrote
the Academy Award winning song "Falling Slowly". You can see when the
musical sequences are playing that they feel involved and Committed. The
story has bits of humor and character development but it really isn't
about the plot.
A long concert sequence is the climax of the
movie. The band and the audience are in sync when they are on stage and
Jimmy appears to be on the brink of getting the band a professional
music contract. Backstage things are not solid. The band members have
rivalries and jealousies that tear at them. This particular night they
were supposed to jam with Wilson Picket himself. It was all arranged, at
least according to Joey. When The night is ending and Picket has not
shown up, all hell breaks loose. There is one final climatic singing
sequence and then the story plays out as it inevitably would.
The
director of this film was Alan Parker. He made films like "Mississippi
Burning", "Midnight Express", and "Angel Heart". What I think is
surprising is that he also made musicals. "Fame", "Pink Floyd's The
Wall", "Bugsy Malone" and "Evita" are on his resume. This was a modestly
successful import film for the American market. The Irish accents
almost qualify it as a foreign language film (much like "Snatch" or
"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"). In the U.K however it was the
most honored film of that year, receiving the BAFTA Awards for best
editing, screenplay, director and film. It may be the setting that kept
it from being a bigger hit or as well remembered as it deserves to be.
Anyone who loves good soul music however will take this film to heart
and if you like the story of the kids putting on a show, this updates it
and makes it feel real. Joey: Look, I know you're hurtin' now, but in time you'll realize what you've achieved. Jimmy Rabbitte: I've achieved nothing! Joey:
You're missin' the point. The success of the band was irrelevant - you
raised their expectations of life, you lifted their horizons. Sure we
could have been famous and made albums and stuff, but that would have
been predictable. This way it's poetry.
Richard
Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While
embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write
about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the
glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as
well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.
So Steven Soderbergh has returned from his self imposed retirement to add another heist film to his resume. Having already directed the three "Ocean's" film, why he felt compelled to make another in this genre is not really clear, but we can be thankful that he made that choice, "Logan Lucky" is a cleverly structured film with a lot of humor but it is indeed a straight heist movie and not a parody. It is loaded with surprise complication, twists in the plot and enough offbeat characters for two other movies as well.
Channing Tatum and Adam driver are brothers Jimmy and Clyde Logan. They are a couple of sad sacks that have a reputation in their family for failure. Jimmy was on his way to the NFL when he blew out his knee and Clyde lost a hand in Iraq serving his country. They have some small time juvenile crime behind them, but when Jimmy unjustly gets fired from his job, he begins planning a robbery. Heist films usually develop in one of two ways, either we see all the planning and then watch the execution (usually go wrong) or we get a minimal amount of information on the plan and we see it play out in front of us, (usually with lots of surprises). This film falls into the later category. Most of what we see of Jimmy's plan is a list of stupid things not to do during the crime. Everything else is fresh to the audience.
Because the brothers are forced to use some help that is not exactly hitting on all cylinders, you might get the idea that they are not to bright and this is going to go in the direction of a Cohen Brothers movie, where we follow the idiots trying to make their plan work. While there is humor and some of it is based on a shortage of IQ, the main thrust of the movie is about how well planned the robbery actually is. Of course there are detours and complications, but those are the things that add to the value and entertainment of the film.
Daniel Craig steals most of the scenes he appears in. His bleached hair and motley collection of tattoos place him in a stereotype of hillbilly criminals, but it turns out he understands chemistry pretty well. One of the big laughs in the film comes when he basically conducts a lecture on explosives in the middle of the heist. If you like prison break films, this movie has a plot line that includes some clever misdirection and it gives Dwight Yoakam a chance to shine as an officious Prison warden. There are a half dozen other characters that probably deserve to be mentioned, including the cute as a button Farrah MacKenzie who plays Jimmy's daughter Sadie. Riley Keogh is the bother's little sister and she plays a pretty big role in the heist as well.
We are getting to the end of summer and that usually means that the films coming out are just trying to make some bucks off of the lack of competition. "Logan Lucky" does not have anything to apologize for, it is well put together and entertaining. You will care about the characters and you hope it all goes well, but what fun would there be if everything goes off like clockwork?
[ This essay was originally Published on the deleted site "Fogs Movie Reviews" in the Fall of 2013]
Hollywood
in the Golden Age, Nazi Commandos, Gangsters, Young Love, Air Speed
Races, Howard Hughes, is there anything that is not found in this Walt
Disney Picture from more than twenty years ago? I can't think of
anything they could have added to make this movie better. The story is a
clever adventure which mixes real world events with science fiction
elements and puts it in the backdrop of one of the most romantic times
and places in film history. "The Rocketeer" was a modest success and not
a break out hit that would justify a sequel. The movie harkens back to
the serial adventures of the 1940s but is based on a racy 1982 graphic
novel/comic, which has enjoyed greater literary success than it's
cinematic cousin. There are some obvious changes made in adapting this
to the big screen. The biggest change was altering the character of
Jenny Blake. Instead of the somewhat seedy "party girl/stripper" she is
in the comic, she becomes a more wholesome ingenue. She is an innocent
young actress, trying to break into the movies by playing in the crowd
scenes in the movies being manufactured at the Hollywood Dream Factories
of the Golden Age.
Jenny's
boyfriend is Cliff Secord, a barnstorming pilot trying to get his new
plane ready for the national air races. Southern California was in a
growth spurt when it comes to aviation. By 1939 more than half the
planes in the country were made in the state. Aviation was a glamorous
venture, which made heroes of Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and
Howard Hughes. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has an extensive
collection of the "buzz bomb" type planes used by the racers of the
time.
This was the golden age of aviation and it crosses paths in our story
with the golden age of Hollywood. Cliff and his mechanic mentor Peevy
discover a rocket pack, hidden in their old bi-plane by gangsters trying
to escape from the FBI. The crooks substitute an old vacuum cleaner for
the rocket and when their car explodes, destroying Cliff's racing
plane, the feds believe the rocket was destroyed as well. So Cliff and
Peevy look to the Rocket as a way of making back some money to restore
their dreams of racing in the Nationals.
It turns out that the gangsters are seeking the rocket pack for a
Hollywood star. In 1980, celebrity biographer Charles Higham published a
book that claimed that Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling star of "the
Adventures of Robin Hood" was a Nazi spy. The book was widely criticized
by scholars and reviewers for the slipshod reasoning that Higham used
to reach his conclusions. In fact, Flynn's family sued, but since Flynn
had died in 1959, the courts tossed the case on the legal premise that
the dead can't be libeled. Flash forward ten years and the slander is
now being used in a slightly disguised manner. The film Jenny is working
on stars Neville Sinclair, a character clearly based on Errol Flynn.
The confluence of events and setting creates a truly entertaining story,
that anyone who loves movies should appreciate.
The look of the
film is outstanding. The airfield out in the valley is stocked with old
bi-wings and hopped up racing planes. The wooden bleachers used at the
airshow and the hanger where many early events take place give a genuine
feel for the aviation industry of the period. Not too far from the
airfield is a diner that caters to the pilots and mechanics. It is
modeled after a real food joint here in Los Angeles at the time.
The interior is a lot more spacious than the exterior would allow, so a
little movie magic has to be forgiven. One of the nice touches in the
set is the wall near the telephone where at one point the bad guys
discover the phone number for Jenny, the girl they are at that point
trying to track down.
There are dozens of little touches like this that make the film feel
incredibly authentic. In the Hollywood sequences, there is a large set
for "The South Seas Club", an upscale nightclub and restaurant, run by
Eddie Valentine, the mobster being employed by Sinclair to obtain the
rocket. The Front of the club is clearly on a backlot street but the
interior looks luxurious and ethereal. The big band singer makes her
appearance rising out of a giant clam shell. The tables, booths and
dance floors remind us of a hundred art deco sets from 1930s era films.
Only here the lighting is colored in dramatic flourishes of green and
blue.
When Neville leaves Jenny at their table to go and speak to Eddie in
his office, you can see a mermaid swimming in a large fish tank behind
him. As Cliff sneaks into the club, he hides in the laundry room,
labeled with a nice deco font on the sign. Everywhere, there is
attention to the kinds of details that might be ignored in a lesser
production.
Howard Hughes and the FBI ultimately track down Cliff,
and reveal to him the importance of the rocket pack. There is a
brilliant one minute propaganda piece done in simple animation that
conveys the breadth of the danger that "The Rocketeer" must prevent.
Suddenly, the story takes on broader implications and you can see why
Cliff has to try to save Jenny, because otherwise she could be
sacrificed in the interests of a bigger world. The Hughes scenes are
some of the best in the film because they feature the actor Terry
O'Quinn who has been making everything he appears in better for the last
thirty three years. The famous "Spruce Goose" plane that had been part
of a wartime project mired in controversy, makes an advance appearance
here in model form. There is a fun little escape bit that features the
plane and O'Quinn has a line that foretells some of the later
controversy. Since I have mentioned one of the supporting players, it
would be a little unfair to ignore the other actors that help bring this
piece of romantic pulp to life. Alan Arkin was playing old way back in
1991, his character Peevy is the wizened mentor to our hero. His line
delivery and general demeanor are solid as always but he adds a twinkle
in the eye whenever the aviation mechanics get discussed, making his
character a lot more interesting than he would otherwise have been. John
Polito, a ubiquitous presence on TV and in movies plays Bigelow, the
smarmy manager of the airfield and show that Cliff moonlights for. The
sight gag concerning his character's resolution is funny but a bit
disturbing. An actor I have always appreciated, despite the fact that he
never had a role that allowed him to be front and center is Ed Lauter.
He plays FBI agent Fitch with a sneer that he could trademark. When the
tommy guns come out on a couple of occasions, you can see the glee in
his eye as the tough guy gets to do what he does best.
The three
leads of the picture are cast perfectly. The luminous Jennifer Connelly
is Jenny Blake, and she sparkles as the damsel in distress. She is a
love interest that would clearly make both men stop and take notice. Her
character is also a lot more engaged in the plot than simply being the
object of rescue. She links the characters together and her soft line
delivery keeps the character from becoming shrill like others in similar
roles have become. The scenes where she engages in a uncertain
seduction sequence with Neville Sinclar after being drugged by him are
incredibly sexy without being vulgar.
The switch in character might be off putting to fans of the comics, but
it made the love angle much more effective in the movie. While we might
have enjoyed seeing her as a Bettie Page stand in, her character is
more interesting with the change and it helps broaden the appeal of the
movie. Billy Campbell was a stalwart hero type, with an eager manner and
a handsome face. He brought a certain naivete to the part of Cliff
Secord. The pilot is so caught up in the aviation issues that he doesn't
always see how important his girl is to him. When he sees the
propaganda film, it is like he awakens from a being a frivolous
adventurer to becoming a hero. He had of course done heroic things
earlier in the movie, but usually without much thought. His decision to
escape the FBI and go after the Nazi spy ring himself is based in part
on Jenny but also on the seriousness of the threat. When he evaded the
gangsters at the South Seas Club, it is almost comic..
When he escapes the clutches of the Nazi's, he grabs a gun, something
he had not done before. The shot of him on top of the Griffith
Observatory, with the flag waving behind him as he launched toward the
airship, is the moment he is branded "HEROIC".
The final piece of
the puzzle is the great Timothy Dalton. Denied an opportunity to
continue as James Bond, this was his next major project and it is a
solid indicator of the quality actor that the Bond franchise lost.
Dalton plays Sinclair as hero, villain, clown and threat. He is oily
smoothness when he tries to seduce Jenny in an attempt to locate the
rocket. He plays the "star" on the movie set, both as a real actor and
as a Prima donna. When he banters with Paul Sorvino playing gangster
Eddie Valentine, you can detect the disdain this big movie star, secret
agent feels for having to consort with hoods. When he responds to
Jenny's accusation near the end of the film that "everything about you
is a lie", you can hear the ego come out in his retort "It wasn't lies
Jenny, it was acting."
"The
Rocketeer" is rousing piece of nostalgia. It combines Hollywood and
aviation at the height of their romantic periods and presents us with a
credible love story to boot. The mixture of real characters with
fictional representations of real characters and finally fictional
characters, works to build a fun and exciting adventure story. Even if
you can't get behind the story however, there is amazing production
design that will evoke the era in a thousand ways. The director Joe
Johnson revisits this territory in the recent Marvel Super Hero flick,
Captain America: The First Avenger. Johnson has the right touch for this
time period. The nightclub sequences and the stunt show all reflect
careful planning. Just as an illustration of the love Johnson seems to
have for the period, listen to the big band singer. She performs for a
longer period than needed to set the tone and her arrival is special
despite the fact that she is merely scenery. Listen to the James Horner
score and see how it is used to set the tone so frequently. The dialogue
is filled with 30's slang and aviation jargon and the gangsters look
like the crooks in the movies, even if real crooks don't look like that.
This is a great family film and I can't imagine that anyone out there
with kids over the age of eight, wouldn't be thrilled to share this
inventive big screen adventure with them. Don't be surprised if they
start running around with pots on their heads instead of cape. This
movie can inspire that kind of childhood imagination.
Richard
Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While
embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write
about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the
glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as
well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.
There are dozens of crime thrillers that reach the marketplace every year. Most of them are forgettable, sometimes there is a prestigious director or novel behind the film, but it takes something unique to pull me into a theater to see those films. The small ones usually slip by and that is sometimes unfortunate because there might be something worthy in them that I just don't know about. I still need to catch up with "Sicario" from two years ago, a film that was written by the writer/director of this movie. I did see "Hell or High Water" the most recent of Taylor Sheridan's screenplays to get made intro a film. It was my favorite film of last year, a position it took over the more I watched it. That film is the first reason I drove the 35 miles down to Hollywood to see "Wind River".
Mosaic Electronic Poster at the Hollywood Arclight
A second reason I was intrigued by the film is that it is set in a location that I have visited frequently over the last few years. Lander, Wyoming is a small town in the middle of the state, it is surrounded by the Wind River Indian Reservation. While I have been to the two tribal casinos in the area, I have no first hand experience with life on a reservation, and the problems that the native American populations have to face. One of my friends who lives in Lander does know something of this because the school program she is a director for has numerous children from the reservations attending. They often come from homes where there are drug problems. My contact is superficial but I do know the terrain a bit, and even though my visits have all been in comfortable weather, I can see how the desolate areas can be foreboding in the chill of a snowstorm or long winter. I have often said to my friends when we visit, that their home in in the middle of nowhere, and you'd have to drive two hours to find a location that you can see somewhere from.
With that background, let's talk about the story briefly and consider some of the themes that it presents. A young woman is running a best she can through the night, in the cold of Wyoming near the end of Winter. Her body is discovered by a Department of Fish and Wildlife hunter, who works eliminating predators which threaten the agricultural industry from the area. Jeremy Renner is a face people know, he is an accomplished actor and has some star power that he brings to the film. It may be that because he has been in the "Avengers" films, people forget what a fine actor he really is. He was solid in last year's "Arrival", but Amy Adams was the star of that film. In this movie he is extraordinary playing a man who is fairly ordinary, except for the job he does so well. The part also starts us at one of the points this film is making. It is hard to get some things done when you have multiple governmental agencies involved and the jurisdictional questions sometimes seem to outnumber the real problems that people face. The County Law Enforcement Agency is limited because the woman who died was found on the Indian territory. This makes it a Tribal Police matter, but there are Federal Crimes that might be involved as well and those help bring in FBI Agent Jane Banner, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Olsen is also a veteran of the MCU, and she is relatively young which cuts two ways. Her youth suggests limited experience, a complaint about the Federal help the Tribal police get. Her young age also strains credulity somewhat, since it seems she might not come across as the kind of person to be a special agent in charge. If I have a criticism of the film, it is the way in which her character has been written. She is out of her depth and makes significant mistakes, which basically repeat twice in the course of the investigation. It is also her attitude about the circumstances that provides heart to the story. She reacts to events they way many of us outsiders might; with confusion, pity and a sense of frustration.
The procedural elements of the story are not complex and the effort to track down the perpetrators does benefit from Renner's character's expertise at tracking in the desolate countryside. The mismatched and slightly awkward partnership is found in a thousand of these crime based films. This however is not really a "buddy cop" movie. The point of the story concerns the lack of control that any of the characters face in an official capacity contrasted to the degree of control they have in their professional expertise. Jane banner is limited by Federal guidelines, Graham Green who plays the Tribal Police Chief is constrained by the jurisdiction of the Reservation, even the medical examiner is limited in how a death report can be summarized. The environment has clearly created the situation where a death such as the victim faced, might not ever get an answer. The frigid open spaces and narrow bureaucratic red tape ultimately is going to be conquered by Renner, the one person who is not a law enforcement agent. Cory Lambert, Renner's character, does have his own motivations for helping out, and those parts of his back story are a couple of the spots where his acting skills get a chance to shine.
If you want tension and action, let me tell you there are two excellent sequences that have plenty of the violence and brutality that you seek. There is also a scene that explains what happened which is cleverly inserted as a non-sequential insert at just the right spot, be forewarned though, it is unpleasant to witness. Olsen's character may have some flaws as written, but the emotions she reflects are just right. Her ability to empathize with the victims and her recognition that sometimes she is culturally in over her head, are both believable because of her performance. Two Native American actors that have become very familiar over the years also bring some heart and reality to the film. Graham Greene has played police officers before, but his Tribal Officer in this film is low key and world weary, but still has a sense of duty and humor. Gil Birmingham, who starred with Greene in some of the "Twilight" movies plays the distraught father of the woman who died. His role is not as significant as his co-starring turn in "Hell or High Water", but he has some very solid moments that also tell us about the frustrations of the culture these characters inhabit.
The other star of the film is the great outdoors. The spectacular vistas are wonderful to see but we also know how deadly the places can be. There is loneliness everywhere and the ennui that surrounds the inhabitants of the sparsely populated areas here can be overwhelming. Town is one thing, but most of these people are not in a town, they are trapped in spaces that are too small for the vastness of the wilderness around them. Whether this conditions drive you to violence, drug addiction or hopelessness, there is a very clear double edged sword that the environment presents. This film is getting a fairly small release, but if word of mouth is good, it is likely to be expanded and maybe the film will get an opportunity to grow. I hope you make an effort to see this picture and that you encourage others to do so as well. This is the sort of film making which needs a little TLC.
The Lambcast Draft of 1987 is underway and you may have already voted for the fine slate of films I managed to nab during the podcast. If you were uncertain in any way as to the quality of my selections, I thought I'd provide a brief rundown and justification for each of the five films. You can then go the The Lamb and vote your conscience. The video above will also give you a 42 second justification for my choices.
Robocop
In truth this needs no justification, everyone knows how amazing this Paul Verhofen film is. It is simultaneously an action film, science fiction story and political satire. There are moments of extreme violence and there are sections where you may find yourself laughing at things you would never have imagined being funny. The special effects are a combination of stop motion, make-up and animation that are solid for 1987 and were not improved on by the remake a couple of years ago. The film is held together by two outstanding performances. Peter Weller is Alex Murphy, the police officer who becomes Robocop. His story line is surprisingly poignant and it is accomplished while wearing a heavy costume and uncomfortable make-up. Kurtwood Smith is the over the top villain of the piece, Clarence Boddicker, a drug dealing murderous thug with a flare for self importance that we wait a long time to see taken down. Other performers are great as well, and I recently attended a Tribute Screening in honor of Miguel Ferrer who has a key role in the film.
The Untouchables
For a ten to fifteen year stretch, Brian DePalma was my favorite director. His films were hypnotic to watch but they often dealt with psych sexual concepts that kept them from being mainstream hits. The Untouchables broke that barrier for him with a straight forward gangster story that had a group of law enforcement officers as the heroes rather than a Cuban gangster (i.e. Scarface). The good guys were played by newly anointed star of the moment Kevin Costner, longtime character actor Charles Martin Smith, newcomer Andy Garcia and the winner of this years best supporting actor award, Sean Connery. The part of Al Capone was originally going to be played by Bob Hoskins, but when Robert DeNiro became available, Hoskins was paid off and another bigger than life star was added to the film. Hard as it is to believe, DeNiro was upstaged as the bad guy by the skeletal Billy Drago, who is memorably escorted to the car by Elliot Ness. The facts may not have been straight but the story was pretty terrific with several amazing set pieces that stand up to scrutiny today.
The Living Daylights
While my competitors on the podcast seem to mock my choice of a Timothy Dalton Bond film, all the real 007 fans out there know that Dalton was the real deal. He did not get much of a shot at playing the world's greatest gentleman spy. This was his first shot and the film was never tailored to his strengths. You can detect a little of the flavor left over from the Moore era Bonds, but the story did make the circumstances more real. Dalton looked the literary part more than any other cinema persona, even the true Bond Connery. This entry in the franchise features an excellent fight sequence and Bond is not even in it. The double crosses in this movie are more believable than those in a dozen other spy films, and the stunts continued to be the high spot in the 007 outings of the 1980s. Two years ago, as we were anticipating the most recent Bond picture, I did a series on my 007 favorite things about each film, "The Living Daylights" entry is here for your perusal. This was also the final Bond film for the long tenured composer John Barry.
The Hidden
This may be an obscure one for some of you. It was a low budget action film with stars who were not big names but were reasonably well known. The concept is the thing that sells this movie. In reality it is a science fiction chase film. Aliens have arrived on Earth, one is chasing the other. Now before you start having visions of Dolph Lungren in your head, the Aliens can take over a human body and use it to move around. The evil alien does this several times in the film, killing a series of otherwise law abiding people but turning their remains into blood-thirsty killers and thieves. There are some nice practical effects that show the parasite moving from one body to another. The L.A. Cop and the FBI Agent who are trying to track the perpetrator down are played by Michael Nouri from "Flashdance" and future otherworldly FBI Agent Kyle MacLachlan. This film features Agent Cooper before Twin Peaks, and we get an explanation as to why he is so odd. It is full of chases set in the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s. By the way, all the construction you see on the streets then, is still going on. There is one scene set outside a strip club that is located next to Miceli"s Restaurant in Hollywood. It is across from a newsstand that I frequented before the internet, it is long gone now. The parking lot where the alien screws a guy to death is still there however, and the car they occupy is in a spot that I still park in when I go to the Egyptian Theater. This is 96 minutes of shooting, car chases, improbable plot developments and well known character actors getting a chance to strut a little bit. This film has the most bang for your buck in 1987.
Ishtar
Most people who ridicule this movie have not seen it. "Ishtar" was an attempt to recreate the film style of the Hope/Crosby "Road" pictures of the forties. Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty are cast against type, with Beatty as the flummoxed, tongue tied romantic and Hoffman as a self assured ladies man. Neither of the characters has it right but the two stars do all they can to sell it. Jack Weston is a New York talent agent who manages to get them a booking, and he is tired from the first to the last of his scenes. It is however Charles Grodin who steals the picture as a CIA man, trying to use the two musicians in a plot to control the government of a non-existent Middle Eastern Country. The two lead encounter spies, terrorists, a mysterious woman and a blind camel. Writer/Director Elaine May had her directing career stymied by the results of this film, but she continued to be an important comedy presence of the big screen and is responsible for some great film scripts in the 90s. Legendary songwriter Paul Williams worked out a number of "bad" songs for the duo to performs, most of which have just a couple of lines used. However, if you can appreciate the theme "Dangerous Business" you will know what kinds of laughs we missed when the planned album of Rogers and Clarke was cancelled.
I own this two poster set, it is a great image that highlights a funny part of the movie.
I know it is a bit of a risk, but if any of you watches "Ishtar" as a result of my choosing it for the draft, even if I don't win, I will feel some vindication.
This is the one you have all been waiting for, the 1987 Movie Draft on the Lambcast Podcast.
Four other Lambs and I compete to create the best slate of five movies from 1987. The show is a blast, as there is trash talk, reminiscences and general enthusiasm for this 30 year old time frame. You can listen to the show on the link below but more importantly, you can vote for a slate of films on the second link below that. Of course as a follower/reader of my site, I expect you to support my team. The only caveat is that I did include an outlier choice in "Ishtar". Next week I will put up a mini-review page with comments for each of my selections. If you need to wait for that before you vote, I understand. Those of you who trust and love me however, should go vote now. My films are highlighted in the picture above. You cant go wrong with Robocop, Sean Connery and James Bond. "The Hidden" is a not so widely seen Science Fiction/Action film featuring Kyle MacLachlan. "Ishtar" is popularly thought of as a bomb, but it contains a lot of big laughs and an amusing attitude throughout.
Voting can be done here:
LAMBCAST #385 1987 DRAFT:
It’s time for another year draft! To celebrated Jay’s upcoming 30th
birthday we’re taking the opportunity to look at films from his birth
year, 1987! Jay competed against Dylan, T…
http://www.largeassmovieblogs.com/2017/08/lambcast-385-1987-draft.html
MovieRob, the host of Acting School 101 on the Lambcast, invited me to join him for a discussion of the films of Sean Connery. Anyone who has been here before certainly knows that I think Connery IS James Bond so I was thrilled to participate. We countdown our own top five performances by Mr. Connery and have a good time talking about toupees and other acting tools.
In preparation for the podcast, I went through my laserdisc collection and put up a wall of Connery features. Four of my five picks can be found here. Try to guess what they are before you listen to the podcast. Have fun everyone.
Set in 1989 as the Berlin Wall is about to come down, "Atomic Blonde" is a Cold War Spy thriller with a kick. The twist is that instead of James Bond we have Jane Bond, so all those people who have made that casting suggestion to EON Productions can now all cool their jets. Director David Leitch comes off of a long career as a stunt coordinator and he previously was an uncredited director of "John Wick". He clearly has an eye for action scenes and stages some brutal fights for star Charlize Theron to kick ass through. From a shoot em up perspective, this is a fairly successful film. However, as a spy thriller with delusions of franchisehood, it leaves a bit to be desired.
Let me give you a little background on the literary character of James Bond as a prelude to discussing Lorraine Broughton, the English spy played by Theron. After Ian Fleming died, the literary 007 lay fallow for a few years. there were attempts to revive the series in the late sixties and seventies, but they never paid off. Sometime during the 80s, the publishers got their crap together and found a new author to pen Bond novels for several years. John Gardner had success in this field on his own, but the Bond Franchise would certainly be a jewel in his crown if it succeeded. Gardner wrote a more than a dozen Bond adventures, but he had too obvious a formula after a while. Inevitably there would be a double cross by one of the characters and occasionally there would be a triple cross. That is what is happening in this film. Double and triple crosses, however without the clarity of a narrative context. In other words, these things just happen out of the blue without much set up and certainly no trail that would allow an audience to participate in the process. Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman made it work in "No Way Out" because there was a ticking clock, and mixed motives that distracted us. "Atomic Blonde" doesn't bother to clarify anything. The end of the movie is a head scratcher and I was able to make sense of the first "Mission Impossible" film.
James McAvoy is the suspected double and at the end of the story, you need to be able to clarify why he has acted in the manner that he did. It's almost impossible to explain because it makes no sense. We know he fits a particular type but we are not clear on his motives or why any of this had to go down the way it did. The film is structured like a police procedural, where the suspect is telling a story that we get to see, but it it interrupted by side tracks and events that the subject would not have been aware of. "The Usual Suspects" made an effort to tie things together with bits of information in the background of the interrogation, this film does no such thing. So watch this for the action and style and forget about trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Theron is ice cold as a blonde killing machine, and she plays the part of a spy being debriefed with the right amount of frustration with her superiors. Toby Jones is the MI-6 section supervisor who cross examines her and they have a couple of nice testy moments. John Goodman is a CIA advisor that she is reluctant to speak in front of, but we don't know why until the end of the film. It also makes no sense but at least it counteracts the bad taste that another twist was going to leave in our mouths. Sophia Botella was in "The Mummy" earlier this summer and in "Star Trek Beyond" last summer. She gives a solid performance as a French operative in over her head, and interestingly as a romantic interest for Theron, even though her part is mostly meaningless. Between Theron and Botella, fishnet clothing may end up in short supply in the European markets.
The look of the film is good and the style choices for the lead are interesting. I appreciated that when a character had been in a fight, that there were signs that a fight had taken place. The degree of punishment for the fight participants, whether winner or loser, is never quite believable because it is so over the top, but I suppose that is what makes it a fantasy spy film rather than a leCarre' story. It is a cool film, but not as cool as you want it to be given the trailers. Once again, all the best stuff is in the ads and there is not enough saved for the film.
If you watch the trailer for this film, you will not be expecting a horror movie. The tone of the preview clearly outlines that this is a meditative film about the afterlife and not a Halloween fright flick. The impression the ad leaves you with is that this movie is going to contemplate the emotions of grief and loneliness. It turns out however, to have bigger things on it's mind, although what those things are is not entirely clear to me. The tagline on the poster says "It's all about time." So if you are in the mood for a slow moving, abstract story about the metaphysics of death, her it is.
The above introduction might give the impression that I did not like the film. On the contrary, there are a number of things that the film does that are intriguing and thoughtful. Writer/Director David Lowery clearly has things on his mind, but he is taking his time getting them into ours. I thought the film he made last year, the re-imagining of "Pete's Dragon", was wonderful. There are quiet moments of beauty that get lingered over and many shots are clearly carefully composed. The reservation I have is that the point of it all is more opaque as the film goes along. The mediation of grief is one of the shortest elements of the film. The widow is shown in despair and coping in very mundane ways. Her story though disappears halfway through the film. At one point the "Ghost" in the story essentially commits suicide. Yeah, I know that does not make much sense but none of this is supposed to be taken literally, my hesitation is that It's not very focused on how we should try to digest it. The turn involves a switch in time, from the future to a past maybe a century earlier. When the past starts to replay itself, I guess we are to see existence as an infinity mirror. The closest we get to any explanation of why is the pontification of a beer guzzling philosopher at a house party that the "Ghost" lingers through.
The deliberate pacing worked for some scenes but in others I found it very off putting. Two examples can help illustrate. First, when the couple featured in the story first hear a sound in the middle of the night, after they check for it's source and return to bed, they cling to each other very intimately. It's not a sex scene or any kind of exposition, it is just a few moments of silent hugging, kissing and nuzzling, much as any couple might engage in when both are awake and want the other to know that they care. It goes on for a few minutes but it leads to nowhere. As a character moment I think it tells us something about their relationship that we might not have know. The second extended scene involves the widow, sitting on the kitchen floor, alone, eating a pie. We see every bite and the mucus dripping from her nose as she is grieving, but it is all too much and too long. Lowey is making a film where the camera rarely moves. The shots are static because that's the way he wants us to perceive time. Unfortunately it also tries our patience when it happens repeatedly.
This year's Academy Award winning actor, is the star of the film, but he appears in maybe five to ten minutes of the film. Casey Affleck is fine in those scenes, but there is nothing to suggest that the spirit, embodied by a hospital bed sheet, is in any way the actor we know. The performance that dominates the movie is a pantomime by an image of a child's version of a ghost. This is the accomplishment of the director and not the actor. I doubt that Affleck stayed on set to sit under a sheet and not move for long stretches of time. Jack Nicholson famously told Michael Keaton when they made "Batman" to let the costume do the acting. That is exactly what happens here. Rooney Mara fares a little better but her part is also almost without dialogue. The way in which she is displayed sitting on the bed or the floor, or looking out a window, is all a directors choice and it largely works. The two leads have faces that are not used very vividly in the movie, and the rest of them is minimal as well.
I suspect that this experimental type film will be attractive to fans of existentialism. I prefer narrative and character, but I was intrigued by the ideas in the film, at least up to the point where the issue of the infinite became the focus. This is going to be one of those films that when written about, says more about the reviewer than anything else. I hope this commentary does not make me appear to be too shallow, but I do want to appear to be honest. I sort of liked it, but I was also irritated at times. Frankly, you will have to make up your own mind.
What looks like is going to be a Gothic horror set in the Civil War period, turns out to be a psycho-sexual drama with a slightly demented finish. I was not fooled by the trailer or other marketing, because I'd seen the original version of the story from 1971. There are a few changes in the film which were supposed to alter the perspective from the soldiers point of view to that of the women in the story. I guess that would be the justification for remaking a film that was not particularly compelling the first time out. Let's just say for the moment that they may have altered the perspective some but they have not overcome the issue of the film lacking a need to exist in the first place.
Sophia Coppola is a director that many admire but I have found most of the films by her, that I have seen, to be cold and disengaging. They are beautifully shot and "The Beguiled" is certainly beautiful. Set in Virginia during the last year of the War between the States, the story concerns a wounded Union soldier taken in by a girls academy. The school is run by matron southerner Nicole Kidman. She is assisted by a younger woman played by Kirsten Dunst and they are in charge of five young women and girls who are being educated in a traditional form for young ladies. As they learn French and penmanship and sewing skills, their life is disrupted by the war around them. The introduction of Corporal McBurney (a solid Colin Farrell) into their island of antebellum etiquette throws things into a tizzy. Since it is a Sophia Coppola film however, it is done at a languishing pace with each frame posed as if it were a still life being painted for the wall of another plantation.
The pacing of the story is so agonizingly slow, but still interesting, because of the mores and cultural rules the people of that time operate in. Even when he is being chastised by Kidman, the dialogue between the two consists of polite and well thought out vocabulary. The inflections and tones contain the reprimands more than any word does. McBurney slowly courts the Dunst character and again it is done in a manner reflecting the times. In the original film, Clint Eastwood is much more clearly manipulative and he is wooing multiple women simultaneously. Farrell's version of the character seems sincere in his approach to Edwina, but Kidman's Miss Martha is also drawn to him and Elle fanning as the recalcitrant Alicia is the most brazen of the girls who have sexualized the Corporal in their heads. The little girls are fascinated by him as well but it is his Irish Charm and status as a Union soldier that holds their interest. As the story gets closer to the dramatic elements, it feels like it wakes up in a burst of energy and tries to accomplish everything the movie set up in the first ninety minutes in a two minute segment. There is a betrayal on a couple of levels, but those come rapidly and are followed by a resolution that seems to have been arrived at capriciously. The film feels like it is missing the second act.
Farrell and Dunst are the two standout performances. They are tentative and then passionate and frustrated and anguished in very effective moments. Kidman seems a little miscast. She is older but certainly desirable rather than repressed and desperate. Her delicate bathing of Farrell when he first arrives was the strongest part of her performance but in the manner she shows herself during the rest of the film, she feels a little stiff. The biggest unpleasant surprise from the actors comes from Elle fanning, an actress that i thought was special in Super 8, but here she looks like she is play acting and although she is an aggressive flirt, she does not give off the impression of lustfulness that would justify the Corporal's behavior.
The only way I see this film as being a more feminist version of the original is that only one of the women completely falls under the sexual power of the man, and he is the one who is manipulated by two of the other women. That's about it. This is a good film but not a great one. It retells the original story but without much justification for doing so. It also makes the languid pace of the original seem frenetic by comparison. The only music in the film occurs on screen when the girls are singing or performing, with the exception of an occasional synthesizer note held for a long period as a prelude to a couple of moments near the end. That may be another reason the fil feels longer than it should, without a melody it feels plodding. This is a film for Coppola Completists or someone who has missed the original and has already seen everything else playing. I am largely indifferent on it.
Sometimes, in the heat of the summer, on a sweltering day when relief from the sun would be welcome in any form, you get a chance to have a Popsicle. It is cool and sweet and has no nutritional value except that it is full of sugar and it will energize you. That's exactly what I wanted "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" to be. Disposable summer fun that I could savor for a couple of hours before getting back to chores, work or other family obligations. Well, it did not quite work out that way. Sometimes that "Big Stick" Popsicle is more slimy than you anticipated, or the "Bomb Pop" has watermelon flavor instead of cherry in the red, white and blue version you eyed in the back of the freezer compartment. It's still cool and sweet but instead of satisfying, it disappoints.
"Valerian" is a technical marvel to look at. There are creative and inventive ideas in every frame and the movie is a wonder to behold. The best things about this movie can all be seen in the visuals shared in the trailers. The graphic novel that the film is based on may have originated some of these concepts, I don't know because I am completely unfamiliar with it. The director Luc Besson, is the guy who brings it to life here and you can tell his vision is a big part of the film because so much of it feels familiar from the Besson film "The Fifth Element". The backgrounds are overstuffed with details, the aliens are grotesque and oddly beautiful at the same time. Images are mixed and layered on one another in deep and interesting ways. When people write about "world building" in films, this is a place they can go to for an architectural lesson. The problem is that it is all form over substance. We have no idea why things work they way they do or how any of it might matter. If you thought Chris Tucker was the best thing in the "Fifth Element", than maybe this film will make sense to you. I still am unsure why a three headed character with distinct bodies, knows anything about what is going on, but if a clue or exposition moment is needed, these duck-like refugees from Jar Jar Binks gene pool will show up and provide it, arbitrarily.
That's the thing I find so frustrating about this movie. It is arbitrary in the story telling and character development. Valerian and Laureline are partners, but are they romantically involved? They may be, but it could just be that this is coming up for the very first time. We get no context and Laureline seems irritated at the mere suggestion that it could be the case, and then proceeds to act as if they have a deep romantic relationship anyway. The characters bond with tactical partners momentarily, but when those creatures or people die, there is often not even a shrug of the shoulders to indicate that there was any connection at all. The only one that does get a half moments consideration is the character of Bubble, played by Rihanna. After a completely unnecessary showcase for the talents of Rihanna and the visual effects team, that character is disposed of as soon as the plot deems it unnecessary. Imagine if after dropping off Luke and Obi-Wan, Han Solo exited the story never to be heard of again. That's the kind of thing that keeps happening here.
The young leads are not up to carrying the film, in spite of their looks and credits. Maybe the director is to blame, but if Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman had not held together the weirdness of the now cult classic Fifth Element, the movie would just lie there. That is what happens here, the movie is in front of us, and there is action going on, but no one cares because the characters are not really interesting or fun. Valerian seems to be a James Bond type without the self awareness to be depreciating. Dane DeHaan never seems to know that he should be self mocking and play it lighter than air. If he had the charm of Han Solo he could carry off the swagger, the problem is he does not. Cara Delevigne as Sargent Laureline is pretty and physically tough, but her only facial expression seems to be a scowl. Clive Owen appears but does not bother to act in the picture. For a European film directed by a Frenchman, the movie lacks any Joie de vivre. It runs through its paces and introduces characters but rarely seems to have any fun with them.
If the film had matched the first ten or fifteen minutes during it's entire running time, it would have been great. The problem is that the film goes on for another two hours without the same kind of character development or empathy. Once the David Bowie song is finished and the planet Mul is gone, the rest of the film feels like a clockwork orange, designed to be clever but accomplishing nothing but dreariness. If you turn off the sound and play some Pink Floyd or Vivaldi for the rest of the movie, i think you will find it a lot more tasty. As it is, after a couple of bites you will realize that this is not the ice cream treat you wanted and buyers remorse will settle in. When is Guardians Vol. 2 available for home video?
A few months ago, I saw a film that was set in the aftermath of the events of Dunkirk. "Their Finest" was a personal drama set during the London Blitz. Up to this point it has been my favorite film of the year. It has now been supplanted by a film that features the events that are referred to in the first movie. I have been anticipating Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk' for several months, ever since the first teaser trailer showed up on the local cinema screens. I have seen eight of his films and much like the first ten years of Pixar, I was never disappointed. There is however that first time when your expectations will exceed the results. We will have to hold on for another film for that to happen. "Dunkirk" is a dramatic success without strong characters, a tension filled story for an historical event that people know the outcome for already, and a technical achievement that relies on the directors eye more than every special effect in the book.
Let's look at those accomplishments in that order. Fionn Whitehead is starring in his first film, and he manages to give a credible performance without a large amount of dialogue and with no back story. His character is one of nearly 400,000 men trapped against the sea by the enemy forces after a military failure in the early part of World War II. Beyond running and searching for a place to relieve himself, the only way we know anything about his character are his actions. He is empathetic, but also fearful. He manages to get to the front of a line of soldiers waiting to embark on a hospital ship by using his cleverness and his empathy. He wordlessly connects with another soldier as they collaborate ways to escape from the beach. A third soldier enters the picture as they escape from a sinking ship, he is played by Harry Styles, another character that we can only judge from his behavior in interacting with the other two. This is so not a traditional war story designed around characters that we will care about and feel an emotional bond to. These three main characters from the troops trapped on the beach are ciphers standing in for all the other men trapped there as well. No one talks about their girlfriend at home, or reminisces about their dog, or tells a story of their battlefield experience. They unambiguously try to survive and escape. That pretty much sums up everything which focuses on them. The same is true of Tom Hardy's character, Farrier, a Spitfire pilot who joins the battle and has maybe a dozen lines in the story but is on screen maybe more than anyone else. It is another opportunity for him to act while hiding behind a mask. In this film he gets to do more than hook his thumbs in his suspenders but we only see his face at the very end. We know his emotions only through the choices he makes as a pilot in combat. He is heroic, thoughtful and practical. All of that has to be conveyed with few props and no other actor on screen to play off of. The closest we come to characters that we might identify with and care about are the three men heading to "Dunkirk" as part of a flotilla of rescue boats. Mark Rylance is the captain, accompanied by his son and a seventeen year old boy who sometimes serves as a mate on their pleasure boat. Mr. Dawson knows what it is they will be facing. When the three pick up a stranded soldier on a ship that has sunk, there is more dialogue than anywhere else in the film. Because of the interaction and the small amount of background we get, it ends up that the most emotional investment we have in any characters are those in the civilians rather than the troops. That's about as close to a negative thing I have to say about the film characters.
Nolan made a decision to tell three basic lines of story in the film. Each is highlighted early in the film with a title card indicating where and when the events we are watching took place in the context of the experience. What he has managed to do is build stories that have completely different timelines into a single whole where everything synchronizes in the third act. The vessel at sea is a story that takes a full day. The aircraft battles occur in a two hour window. The story of the land bound soldiers occurs over several days. Each story line has small little conflicts and extended moments of tension, but as the climax gets closer, we see those stories intersecting and the brilliant score by Hans Zimmer begins to speed up its pace, For most of the movie it si background music that feels like minutes ticking against a clock. The more time passes, the more tense it becomes. At the climax, the score is more traditional with some of the same themes but accelerated into ticking seconds rather than minutes. The story of the soldiers involves several near misses, both in the sense of death and in being rescued. Those moments play out very much in bursts of energy followed by moments of calm. Most of the time on the small boat is more lethargic and there are brief moments of energy that pass rather quickly. Almost every moment in the plane's cockpit involves aerial combat. Each segment there is brief but filled with action. Nolan mixes these moments expertly to keep the flow of the story going. The characters in each of these scenarios get different resolutions as well. Each outcome feels authentic given the circumstances.
I'm not a film maker or much of a photographer, but I can notice when something is being done effectively in showing us a story. The aviation combat scenes are primarily shot fro a perspective immediately next to the fuselage over the wings of the plane. The only time we see a pilots eye view is when there is targeting and the enemy is being shot at. All of the scenes of the pilots are in close up inside of the cockpit. The vastness of the beaches and the number of British and allied forces hoping for rescue are emphasized with wide shots that put the figures in perspective. The beaches are not crowed but rather they are dotted with need lines of men queuing up for rides that never seem to arrive. The scenes set on the ocean show the ships traveling across the channel, but they are not bunched together until the end. The "Moonstone", the yacht that Rypance captains, is small in contrast to the military vessels that are sometimes sinking in her wake. All of the ships are made more insignificant by the smoke climbing into the sky on the horizon. The deadly action that starts off the film is directed at a frantic pace, with the same high levels of dread that marked "Saving Private Ryan", but without the conspicuous violence. The deadliest moments involve the participants struggles inside of the various craft they board, Fire and drowning are the most pronounced threats in this view to the events. Nolan reminds us that the danger is not simply a bullet or a bomb, although there are plenty of those, but panic and hubris can take a soldier as well.
It is not spin to turn this military failure into a false victory. The expedition onto the continent had failed, miserably. There was however a victory in the retreat that took place. Tacitus said it best, "He that fights and runs away, may turn and fight another day: but he who is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again." These words are not the excuse of a coward but the logic of a realist. The British people were able to see that this successful retreat would enable them to continue to fight. Nolan's story shows the shame on the faces of the soldiers returning home as well as their relief. It is the enthusiastic embrace by the public that makes the event a victory in the long run. "Their Finest" showed how that might be turned into a morale booster in the darkest hour of the war. "Dunkirk" shows us the sacrifice and courage it took to stand this bitter turn of events and grow from it. Later this year we will get a film featuring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill. The film ends with a piece of Churchill Rhetoric, designed to rally the citizens of Great Britain, but also to plead with America. The events depicted in the film give credence to his words.
He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.
Tacitus
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tacitus118925.html
"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have
fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious
apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the
end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall
never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this
Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our
Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would
carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with
all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of
the old."
This is a story that needs to be understood by new generations. Nolan gives the events a context that most of us need and does so with a degree of technical excellence that is superlative. If it is not emotionally wrenching in every segment, it still has a heart that we can all admire.
Mostly, I'm just filling space here. There are some moral qualms you can have about using genocide as a plot point in a comedy, and the use of vehicles as terror weapons may be offensive as well. This movie is too silly to take seriously. Go get a refill on your Dr. Pepper or other beverage of choice. Don't worry about missing anything while you are gone, they will still be cracking wise and shooting crap up when you get back. As a matter of fact, you might want to go to the bathroom as well. 
