Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews

The Insider: Russell Crowe fights Big Tobacco in real-life thriller *****

 

A whistleblower (Russell Crowe) forces Big Tobacco to reveal the dangers of cigarette smoking in the fact-based thriller The Insider (1999).

With non-stop suspense, the film follows tobacco scientist Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe) and CBS news producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) as they create a 60 Minutes expose. Wigand faces death threats and loses his job and family. Bergman challenges the network and legendary newsman Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) to air the segment despite litigation.

Director Michael Mann’s film is in the spotlight this week as five tobacco companies filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday. They are challenging part of the 2009 law which imposed federal regulations on the tobacco industry. The F.D.A. has mandated that they print graphic warning images on cigarette packages as of September 2012.

The Insider is an iconic look at American journalism. Like All the President’s Men (1976), it explores moral dilemmas in journalism and in life with outstanding character development and pacing. The relationship between a journalist and his source is intimately explored.

Wigand reluctantly tells his story and is sued by Big Tobacco for breaking a confidentiality agreement. Bergman assures Wigand that he is making a tremendous difference by speaking out. According to HealthNews.com, “Tobacco smoke contains a deadly mixture of more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds, of which hundreds are toxic and at least 70 cause cancer. Smoking causes more than 85 percent of lung cancers. . . . One in three cancer deaths in the U.S. is tobacco-related.”

A whistleblower on the edge of nervous exhaustion, Wigand cannot ignore the serious public health hazard. Before speaking with Bergman he warns a tobacco company executive about “ammonia chemistry.” He’s incredulous when the company chooses profit over safety.

Crowe’s acting is raw and fully dimensional, foreshadowing his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Dr. John Nash in A Beautiful Mind (2001). Wigand loses virtually everything: his career, his reputation, his wife and children, and his home.

Crowe becomes the consummate hero as The Insider never flinches from looking at personal agony and danger. Wigand rails against Bergman. “I have to put my family's welfare on the line here, my friend! And what are you puttin' up? You're puttin' up words!” he shouts.

 

Pacino is a pit bull here as Bergman fights to air the 60 Minutes interview. “You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. . . . Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No. Because he is telling the truth.”

Privately, Bergman worries that his source has sacrificed in vain. His wife (Lindsay Crouse) prompts him to re-examine his personal and professional values. Forced to take a leave from work, Bergman walks along the beach near his vacation home. Ocean waves roll in. It’s a timeless image of a man with all the perks of success pausing to breathe and re-evaluate his career. This is one of Pacino’s many memorable characters, reminiscent of Lt. Vincent Hanna in Heat (1995) and Arthur Kirkland in … And Justice for All (1979).

Plummer portrays Mike Wallace as ego-driven and power-hungry, a journalist whose will to investigate powerful special interests is compromised. Plummer conveys charisma and gravitas as the 60 Minutes star. Wallace objected to how he was portrayed when the film was released.

Diane Venora (who played Al Pacino’s wife Justine in Heat), gives a brief but moving performance as Liane Wigand. Philip Baker Hall plays legendary investigative journalist turned CBS executive producer Don Hewitt. Hewitt died in 2009.

Finally the full interview appears on 60 Minutes, but only after The New York Times reveals CBS’ financial motives to suppress the story. The Wall Street Journal clears Wigand’s name after a tobacco industry smear campaign. Wigand reveals that the manipulation of ammonia causes addiction as nicotine is more rapidly absorbed into the lung. This boosts its affects on the brain and central nervous system, he said.

Mann wrote the excellent screenplay with Eric Roth. Dante Spinotti’s cinematography is superb, especially during a scene where a suicidal Wigand sits alone in a hotel room. In a panoramic shot, the mural-covered walls swirl around the hero. Music is used as dialogue to convey deeper meanings.

The Insider was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor (Crowe) and Best Director. Wigand went on to teach high school science and was nationally recognized for his work in the classroom. Bergman became a producer for the PBS show Frontline. He’s also a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

If you like The Insider, you might enjoy: Page One: Inside the New York Times; The Soloist.

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The Insider     1999  /  R  /  2 hours, 35 min

Cast Overview:  Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Michael Gambon, Diane Venora, Bruce McGill, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Gina Gershon

Director:  Michael Mann

Genre:  Thriller, Drama, Biography

 

Forks Over Knives ****

 

More energy, weight loss, longer lifespan and lower risk factors for heart attack, stroke and cancer are the benefits of a vegetarian diet according to Forks Over Knives.

Lee Fulkerson writes and directs the film which advocates empowering ourselves by taking a preventative dietary approach to health.  Skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and cancer in the U.S., despite a huge investment in healthcare, point to the effectiveness of dietary change.

Nutritional scientist and former dairy farmer T. Colin Campbell believes that health care costs in the United States could be cut by billions if Americans switched to a whole foods, plant-based diet.

 

Campbell authored The China Study, where comprehensive research reveals that “degenerative diseases like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented — and in many cases reversed — by adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet.”

A renowned surgeon who heads the Breast Cancer Task Force at the Cleveland Clinic, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., found that “many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.”

Fulkerson plays guinea pig as he consults the team of Matthew Ledderman M.D. and Alona Pulde M.D.  After just a few months on their whole foods, plant-based diet, Fulkerson saw tremendous improvement in his test measures of good and bad cholesterol, blood vessel inflammation (associated with heart attack and stroke risk), and blood pressure.

Several inspiring case studies are featured. Ruth Heidrich (then in her 40’s) successfully reversed her breast cancer (which had metastasized) by joining John McDougall, M.D.’s clinical study and going on a low-fat vegan diet.  She continued aerobic and weight-bearing exercise. Today the 70-something athlete competes, writes and teaches.

San’Dera Brantley-Nation, a mother diagnosed with diabetes, works with Esselstyn and his wife to change her diet. Keeping a journal, Nation achieves impressive weight loss and reverses her diabetes.  Ironically, she works in an endocrinology office and faces the skepticism of her own medication-centered physician.

Processed foods, touted in the U.S. since the 1950’s, act as a “pleasure trap” that only partly fills one’s stomach. Triggering the body’s sensors with natural and artificial stimulants, they induce a low-grade addiction, according to Terry Mason M.D., a Chicago urologist and, until recently, Chief Medical Officer of the Cook County Health and Hospital System. Eating natural foods which are much higher in bulk would alleviate these effects, he added.

An added benefit of the vegetarian way is a significantly lighter footprint on the earth’s environment.  The clearing of much of the Amazon forest to make way for cattle grazing is shown as a case in point.

While some criticize such plant-based diets as too extreme, Forks Over Knives can be seen as too conservative.  For instance, the differences between organic and conventional food supplies are not detailed. If one is eating pesticide-treated vegetables in abundance, wouldn’t that increase one’s risk for cancer?

The widely reported tainting of U.S. wheat, corn, soybeans and canola with pesticides and genetic modification are not mentioned at all here. One eye-opening claim that is offered: erectile dysfunction signals the “first early warning sign” of vascular disease.

Future films in this genre could address the social pressures facing healthy eaters. How does one gracefully bow out while most indulge in the pizzas, birthday cakes and drinks after work that are so integral to our social traditions?

First Lady Michelle Obama is shown speaking about the childhood obesity epidemic. More of a “wow” factor could have been achieved by including cameos of the many movie stars who espouse vegetarian, vegan and/or whole foods diets. For instance, Russell Brand, President Bill Clinton, Steve-O and Anne Hathaway are now finalists for  PETA’s Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities List of 2011. Demi Moore, Madonna, Clint Eastwood and The Beach Boys all drink an organic apple cider vinegar (ACV) drink, according to the website of author and educator Patricia Bragg, N.D., Ph.D.

Forks Over Knives can inspire viewers to renew their commitment to a healthy diet, and even begin the shift to vegetarianism. This documentary joins a number of recent films on whole foods and diet, including Food, Inc.; Food Matters and The Beautiful Truth.

If you like Forks Over Knives, you might enjoy:  The Beautiful Truth; Happy; I Am.

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Forks Over Knives     2011  /  PG  /  1 hour, 30 min

Cast Overview:  Lee Fulkerson, T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.

Director:  Lee Fulkerson

Genre:  Documentary, Health, Mind and Body

Everything Must Go *****

 

Nick Halsey is getting fired. It doesn’t matter that he’s been top dog in his sales district. His brawl with an important customer, and arrest for a DUI, show that he’s lost his grip. Will Ferrell stars in the deadpan comedy Everything Must Go.

Nick’s day gets worse. He arrives home to find all his possessions – clothes, old records, trophies – dumped on the front lawn.  His wife is gone. The locks have been changed. Nick leaves a message on her voicemail. “Can’t this happen another day?”

Based on the Raymond Carver short story Why Don’t You Dance?, the film develops beautifully the modern day loneliness of Carver’s characters. Ferrell (Stranger Than Fiction) nails it with an open, vulnerable performance. Writer director Dan Rush keeps it unsentimental, following Nick’s plodding and occasionally delightful progress.

Marooned on his front yard, his car repossessed and bank account frozen, Nick is forced to take stock and embark on an odyssey. Luckily it seldom rains in Phoenix (although there are lawn sprinklers to contend with). He settles back in his leather easy chair, gulping his way through two six packs. An unexpected ally Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace of Notorious) shows up, riding his bike, asking questions.

Kenny is a chubby neighborhood kid, smart, enterprising and fatherless. Samantha (Rebecca Hall of The Town) is Nick’s pretty, pregnant new neighbor, a good listener who’s waiting for her husband to arrive from across the country. Delilah (dynamic Laura Dern), with her exquisitely pained smile, is the soulful, empathetic high school friend who signed Nick’s yearbook.

 

Nick’s A.A. sponsor Frank Garcia (Michael Pena), a police detective, can keep him out of jail for five days as long as Nick calls his situation a yard sale. He’s losing patience with his friend’s on-again, off-again sobriety.

Nick consoles himself by breaking into his own back yard and pissing in his wife’s fishpond of Japanese koi. He watches home movies outdoors. His father was a mean drunk. His mother did love him. Nick bumps into his kinky neighbor (Stephen Root, hilarious) and his ex-boss (Glenn Howerton, textbook obnoxious).

Are we friends? Nick’s turning point is teaching Kenny baseball, embracing “a little less me and a little more we.” Eventually he faces the truth: he’s got to let go of his possessions, the debris of his life. He hires Kenny to help him with the yard sale.

“Give the customers what they want,” Nick coaches Kenny. “Make it easy for them to buy.” It turns out that Kenny has a knack for people pleasing and making sales. Soon he’s reading The Sales Bible, negotiating the best deals and slowly clearing the front yard.

Lashing out at sweet Samantha one day, Nick realizes how difficult he can be. Still he yearns to win back his wife, who we never meet. Visiting Delilah, Nick sees her making the best of raising two kids on her own. “You have a good heart, Nicholas. That doesn’t change,” she tells him.

There’s no grand epiphany in Everything Must Go. Change is ongoing, sometimes maddeningly slow. Friends can help.  

If you like Everything Must Go, you might enjoy:  Solitary Man; Barney’s Version; A Serious Man.

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Everything Must Go     2010  /  R  /  1 hour, 36 min

Cast Overview:  Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Michael Pena, Christopher Jordan Wallace, Glenn Howerton, Stephen Root, Laura Dern 

Director:  Dan Rush

Genre:  Indie Drama, Dramedy, Dark Comedy

 

Win Win *****

 

Win Win’s comedy reminds us of The Blind Side minus the melodrama.  Paul Giamatti plays a struggling storefront lawyer and wrestling coach who learns about honesty from a teen sports prodigy.

Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) crosses a moral gray area early in the film. It happens so quickly that it goes unnoticed. Weighing the demands of home and family, Mike chooses a compromise. Being the breadwinner has become dicey in a changing economy.

Mike takes guardianship of elderly Leo (veteran actor Burt Young, touching and emotive). This will garner $1500 a month for his family.  Caring for Leo, who is in the early stages of dementia, will not be easy. Mike sucks on a single cigarette behind a dumpster each day, throwing away the rest of the pack.

Golden Globe winner Giamatti is known for his characters who live through their own private hells. In his breakthrough role as comic book artist Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, Giamatti explored despair. The Yale drama grad brought his earnestness to more transcendent performances in Barney’s Version and John Adams.

In his impressive acting debut, Alex Shaffer is perfect as Kyle, a deadpan runaway whose mother is in drug rehab.  After a few beatings from his mom’s boyfriend, he flees to see Leo, the grandfather he’s never met.

Kyle reveals nothing about his past. His mellow façade covers anger on a slow boil. He’s an innately good, even sweet kid who might set a new course after Mike finds him on Leo’s doorstep.  

In real life, Shaffer was New Jersey’s high school champion wrestler in the 119 pound class. Kyle is a champion who suddenly disappeared from the headlines. Mike can’t believe his luck as Kyle decides to join the local team while he’s in transition

Director Tom McCarthy and boyhood friend Joe Tiboni wrote the script together, drawing on their own less than stellar high school wrestling days. Win Win is infused with the excitement of high school sports.

“Cool mom” Jackie Flaherty comes to life thanks to talented Amy Ryan. Jackie has mixed feelings about bringing an outsider into their home. When Kyle arrives, she sits him down for some straight talk. Ryan beautifully evokes the New Jersey homemaker and caregiver with a Jon Bon Jovi tattoo. She’s the first one Kyle opens up to.

 

Melanie Lynskey plays Kyle’s mom. Vulnerable but decent, she rediscovers her love for her son even while she grasps at anything to turn her life around. Cindy reunites with her father Leo after a lifelong combative relationship. She seeks forgiveness from Jackie Flaherty and everyone she meets, but most of all from Kyle.

Bobby Cannavale adds comedic flash as Mike’s wild card, divorced best friend Terry. The boyish trio of Giamatti, Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor (as assistant coach) will have audiences laughing while they wince.

David Thompson treats us to true blue Stemler, Kyle’s friend on the wrestling team.

“It’s complicated,” Flaherty says when Kyle confronts him. The film’s turning point is bitter. Kyle, his mother and the Flahertys all arrive at a crossroads in this skillfully balanced story.  

In The Station Agent and The Visitor, McCarthy honed his fine power to mold fully realized characters. Every performance in Win Win shows his mastery.  Watching a McCarthy film, like reading a good novel, draws us in. He discovers shimmering light in the stuff of everyday lives.

McCarthy is also an actor who has appeared in films as diverse as 2012 and Fair Game.

The word “love” isn’t used until late in the movie, but when we hear it we believe it.  Win Win’s ending is redemptive but not sentimental. 

If you like Win Win, you might enjoy:  The Kids Are All Right; Barney’s Version; The Blind Side.

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Win Win   2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 46 min 

Cast Overview:   Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, Melanie Lynskey, Alex Shaffer, Margo Martindale, David Thompson

Director:  Tom McCarthy

Genre:  Comedy, Sports Comedy

 

Limitless ****

 

Imagine getting literally everything you want, a life of ease and power with the world at your command. Bradley Cooper wins love, money and success – for a price – in the fast-paced mind-bender Limitless.    

It happens to struggling writer Eddie Morra (Cooper) one day when he bumps into his former brother-in-law and hears about a designer drug called NZT. Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) gives him a free sample, along with his business card.

Eddie is an ex-junkie, but it doesn’t take long for the bedraggled, down-on-his luck dude to pop the clear disc into his mouth. Nothing is ever the same.

Director Neil Burger (Interview With the Assassin; The Illusionist), known for his meticulous plotting, doesn’t disappoint.  Eddie’s girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) breaks up with him. His editor has been waiting months for a manuscript. The bills are piling high.    

The drug opens a door for Eddie.  His mind is unlocked. Everything becomes clear. Colors brighten. Senses sharpen. Innate abilities surge.

Overnight, Eddie almost completes the novel.  His editor begs for more. Now he can zoom through Manhattan, knowing where he’s going, meeting the right people, connecting every dot.

A super-everyman, Eddie is able to speed read and access a photographic memory.  He learns to speak French, Italian and Mandarin – in days. His hair is styled now, and his trendy suits are fitted.  Lindy notices and decides to see him again.

Cinematographer Jo Willems uses double fish eye lenses to enhance Eddie’s viewpoint as he zips along. The crowds part for him as they would for a king. His leaps and bounds are physical as well as mental.

The downside? Eddie needs more of the drug. The wonder boy seeks out Vernon.  He must borrow from a Russian loan shark (Andrew Howard) to buy enough. Eddie gets his paper bag of money with a warning. Then he finds Vernon with a bullet through his head.

Cooper is terrific as the hero keeps it going.  NZT’s side effects prove deadly for those who are hooked.  The desperate are willing to kill to steal Eddie’s stash.

 

Next Eddie gets entangled with corporate titan Carl Van Loon (commanding Robert De Niro), who showers Eddie with millions as long as he can exploit his visionary ideas on the stock market.

This stylish intrigue captures our imaginations. It warns about prescription drug mania.  It shows the price to be paid for voracious greed.

The upside? We get to see a mere mortal achieve transcendence – and maintain it.

Limitless has been called an Inception for the rest of us. A bit slow early with distracting voiceovers, the thriller takes off when Eddie meets Vernon.

Leslie Dixon adapted the smart screenplay from Alan Glynn’s novel The Dark Fields.

Cooper's real-life breakup with Renee Zellweger, according to published reports,  is attributed to how hard he worked to achieve mega-success in The Hangover and Limitless.

If you like Limitless, you might enjoy: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Inception; The Adjustment Bureau.

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Limitless  2011  /  PG-13  /  1 hour, 45 min

Cast:  Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth, Andrew Howard

Director:  Neil Burger

Genre:  Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Crime

Another Year ****

 

Gerri and Tom visit their English garden when a spring downpour begins. They shelter in an open, abandoned truck. Side by side, they sip hot tea and watch the rain. Their contentment and simple love for each other is clear.  Everyone should be this happy.

Happiness is the subject in Mike Leigh’s warm, wise ensemble dramedy Another Year.  At the heart of the film are co-stars Ruth Sheen (Gerri) and Jim Broadbent (Tom), who with great empathy and patience help anchor several lost and lonely souls around them.

Gerri, a therapist, meets a new patient in clinic.  She questions Janet (expertly played by Imelda Staunton, who starred in Leigh’s Vera Drake). Janet has not slept in a year and wants pills. Sullen and stubborn, she refuses to answer Gerri’s questions. She’s not interested in changing, or in seeing her world differently.  Her affairs are none of Gerri’s business.  She wants a quick fix.

Choice is key for two friends of Gerri and Tom. Mary (Lesley Manville), a secretary at the clinic, has become a regular dinner guest of the couple. As summer begins, she gets to know their family and friends, including the couple’s 30-year-old son Joe (Oliver Maltman). The hard drinking, self-pitying Mary has many woes, including being single and struggling financially. Mary believes that buying a car will help her travel more, even start a new life.

Ken (Peter Wight), an overweight drinker and chain smoker, is Tom’s longtime friend and the male equivalent of Mary. Tom’s eyes light up as he attempts to bolster the long-struggling Ken.  Tom, a geologist, studies the strength of the ground for proposed buildings. He seems grounded while unsteady Ken faces a lonely retirement.

Manville’s screechy travails take center stage for so long that Mary becomes almost unbearable.  Perhaps Gerri has taken on more than she can or should as she calmly listens and offers suggestions. “Life’s not always kind,” Gerri tells her. Their friendship becomes strained when Mary begins to hit on Joe.

Fall is harvest time at Gerri and Tom’s garden. Joe surprises his parents with a new girlfriend Katie (radiant  Karina Fernandez).  When Mary arrives, she is openly rude to Katie, who is just as healthy and vivacious as Mary is ill and self-centered. Katie purposely takes an interest in Mary, seeking to find something in common with her.

 

The dinner invitations to Mary stop that winter. She drops by unannounced one day.  Gerri and Tom are away, but Tom’s brother, the recently widowed Ronnie (veteran actor David Bradley) lets her in. Ronnie is visiting as he heals in his own stoic, uncomplaining way. Ronnie and Mary drink tea as they wait. She talks. He replies with one word answers. Mary marvels at the peace she finds in their home.

Gerri is upset to see her uninvited guest. When Mary bursts into tears, Gerri denies that she is angry but reveals that “I feel you let me down.” Finally, Gerri suggests that Mary receive help from a therapist, and offers to find one for her at the clinic.

In Secrets & Lies, Leigh also examines happiness as a successful black lawyer (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) confronts the white, lower class mother (Brenda Blethyn) who gave her up for adoption.

The happy are ready to take responsibility, to think and act in new ways.  Another Year received a Palme d’Or nomination. Manville was nominated Best Actress at Cannes for this role. 

If you like Another Year, you might enjoy: The King's Speech; The Young Victoria; The Kids Are All Right.

Another Year  2010  /  PG-13 /  2 hours, 9 min

Cast Overview:  Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, Oliver Maltman, Peter Wright, David Bradley, Martin Savage, Karina Fernandez, Michele Austin, Philip Davis, Imelda Staunton

Director:  Mike Leigh

Genres:  Dramedy, Indie, Romance

Casino Jack ***

 

Kevin Spacey’s one man show as lobbyist Jack Abramoff makes Casino Jack a vivid if depressing leap into pay-to-play politics and governance in the United States. Spacey earned a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for the role.

Spacey’s megalomaniac Abramoff is so larger than life that every character around him fades, save for Barry Pepper as his sidekick Michael Scanlon. Even their partners (Kelly Preston as Jack’s conscience-ridden wife and Rachelle Lefevre as Scanlon’s revenge-driven fiancee) seem little more than greedy hangers-on.  Who could blame them?

The perks and woes of wealth are many for Abramoff and Scanlon. Jack buys a new school for his kids (he’s dissatisfied with the quality of their private schools).  He splurges on mansions, private jets, and a political junket to the Marianas even as his home mortgage payments go delinquent. To support their lifestyles, the pair begin to bend laws and ethical guidelines, charging exorbitant fees to their Indian casino clients.

The structure of the film reflects Abramoff’s world view.  He’s the star, surrounded by a society of mediocre drones who work 40 hours a week and just scrape by. Not him.  He’s a smart visionary whose job is to influence politicians. “I will not allow my family to be slaves!” he shouts at the mirror during his daily pep talk.

Despite a plot that gets bogged down in complex dealings, Spacey soars as a superlobbyist who thinks he’s a vital cog in Washington’s machinery. Lobbyists research, inform and guide elected officials, he says. They make sure pols vote “correctly” (according to the wishes of mega-bucks corporations and conglomerates). 

When Abramoff opens the only kosher restaurant in D.C., it seems more a ruse to hook new clients and get his picture on the front page of the business section rather than a reflection of goodwill. Jack does have a few redeeming virtues.  He’s a family man (for brief snatches of time) and an observant Jew.  He loves movies. Spacey delivers dead-on impersonations of Ronald Reagan and Al Pacino.

 
Abramoff’s grilling before John McCain’s Indian Affairs Committee becomes a montage of factual retelling and the scene that could have been.  Senators behind the microphones are cast as compromised buffoons who wheedle on the same level as the man they’re scapegoating. Several members of the House (including Tom DeLay) were convicted in the wake of the investigations.

When Scanlon sells him out for a lighter sentence, Abramoff tells his partner in sleaze he’ll miss him over a final game of racquet. It’s predictable that prisoner Abramoff expounds on political affairs, typing frenzied letters to U.S. presidents. He lectures fellow inmates on the Torah as illustrated in movie themes.  

Jon Lovitz delivers a comedic take on Abramoff’s frontman Adam Kidan afloat on a rollicking casino ship. Graham Greene plays a determined Saginaw Chippewa tribal council leader.

Director George Hickenlooper died several months after Casino Jack’s filming.  Abramoff recently completed his four year sentence for fraud, corruption and conspiracy.  

If you like Casino Jack, you might enjoy: Fair Game; Greenberg; Please Give.

Casino Jack  2010  /  R  /  1 hour, 48 min

Cast Overview:  Kevin Spacey, Barry Pepper, Jon Lovitz, Graham Greene, Rachelle Lefevre, Kelly Preston, Hannah Endicott-Douglas, John Robinson, Spencer Garrett, Jeffrey R. Smith, Christian Campbell

Director:  George Hickenlooper

Genres:  Biopic, Docudrama, Drama

 

The Fighter ***1/2

 

A dysfunctional mother and son take center stage in The Fighter, based on the true tale of Lowell-born prize fighter Micky Ward. 

The Fighter is being released on DVD this week.

Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are so powerful here that their dysfunction eclipses Micky’s triumphs in the ring.  Both supporting actors won Oscars and Golden Globes.

Mark Wahlberg’s muted rendition of the main character is less than memorable, although he is in peak physical condition. Wahlberg worked out and practiced boxing for four years in preparation.

Bale and Leo’s formidable pair are complemented by the punch of Amy Adams’ tart barmaid Charlene, who becomes Micky’s girlfriend and insists that he surround himself with smart, healthy manager and staff. With Micky’s presence an afterthought, The Fighter lurches, disjointed.

Bale plays Dicky Eklund, Micky’s crack-addicted half-brother and onetime “Pride of Lowell” who supposedly knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard.  Dicky has been Micky’s hero since childhood.  Leo (so electric in Frozen River) becomes Alice, a Black Widow Spider of a mom. Her performance is nothing short of Oscar worthy.

Bale became skeletal for the film. Dicky hangs out in a dilapidated crack house with drug-addled friends, leaping from a back window more than once to flee the tirades of his enabler mom.  Dicky barely makes it to Micky’s practices, even though he is supposed to be his trainer.  After his prison release later in the film, Bale strides down the middle of the street, a store bought “welcome home” sheet cake in his arms. It’s one of two pivotal moments in The Fighter.

Chain-smoking Alice presides over a household of nine adult children, with a creepy band of seven sisters that can rival the entire Addams Family clan.  Her husband George (Jack McGee) dodges his wife’s iron skillets and verbal jabs.

Alice is Micky’s longtime manager, and bands with Dicky to urge him to accept the last-minute substitution of a heavier, stronger fighter (“Otherwise no one gets paid.”)  Clearly mom favors Dicky, barely noticing the brutal beating that Micky has taken after the lopsided match.

 

Charlene believes in Micky more than he believes in himself. She shows up on his doorstep after the humiliated fighter stands her up for their first date.  Adams (Doubt; Junebug) continues to display her impressive range, facing off against Leo and the sisters. Her explosive confrontation with Dicky is the film’s second turning point.

Micky finally gets his due in later fights, although his name isn’t even spelled correctly on his warm-up jacket. The film’s boxing scenes are bloody but not too visceral.

The best that can be said of Wahlberg’s performance is that it is understated. Wahlberg’s Micky is meant to convey a strong, centered man who learns to believe in himself as the craziness of his family plays out around him.

The real Micky and Dicky appear in The Fighter’s closing credits with evident brother love. Perhaps Ward’s contentious family did help him become a great junior welterweight pro boxer.    

The toxic family that stays together has been featured in recent films like Winter’s Bone (2010) and City Island (2009). In Rocky II (1979), Sylvester Stallone moved on to start his own family.

If you like The Fighter, you might enjoy: Conviction; Winter's Bone; True Grit.

The Fighter   2010  /  R  /  1 hour, 54 min

Cast Overview:  Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Amy Adams

Director: David O. Russell

Genres:  Drama, Thriller

True Grit ****

 
 

Ethan and Joel Coen’s remake of the 1969 classic True Grit sparkles with dark humor and lovely cinematography reminiscent of John Ford westerns. 

Top billing should go to Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross.  True Grit is her movie.  The rest of the cast complements her admirably.

It’s 14-year-old Mattie who hires Marshal Rooster Cogburn to avenge the shooting death of her father.  He is the angriest if not the best bounty hunter, she is told.  He has grit, the determination to get the job done.

Kim Darby was 22 when she portrayed Mattie in the original.  Steinfeld (who was 13 during filming) commands the screen as a determined, fast-talking Arkansas girl who insists on tracking down the felon Tom Chaney. She is all spunk and emotionally direct.

Jeff Bridges updates John Wayne’s Cogburn as an ominous rascal with a heart of gold. Yet Bridges may have relied too heavily on Crazy Heart’s Bad Blake as his inspiration.  This Rooster is sloshed a bit too often. Ultimately though, Bridges delivers a grittier, warmer performance than the Duke’s.

Matt Damon plays Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (pronounced “LaBeef”) with deadpan self-importance.  Damon is pursuing Chaney for his own reasons. A hefty bounty awaits him if he can return the killer to Texas, where he killed a senator.  Damon’s rough and gentle flirtation with Mattie adds interest.

The legendary, one-eyed Rooster isn’t about to let LaBoeuf outdo him.  The two decide to travel together, then apart, in pursuit of Chaney.  Neither wants young Mattie tagging along. 

 
 

Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn and LaBoeuf into Choctaw territory.  She wants to capture Chaney alive and bring him to justice for her father. Dramatically, she fords a river on horseback to keep up with the two men.  The scene is marred only when Mattie confronts the pair on the opposite shore – completely dry.  

Josh Brolin does well in his brief appearance as sly, desperate and slow-witted Chaney. On the run, Brolin has been traveling with Lucky Ned Pepper (originally played by Robert Duvall, brought to life here by scraggly-bad Barry Pepper). Chaney underestimates Mattie at his peril.

The Coens relied on the novel True Grit by Charles Portis to evoke the period.  Each character’s voice reflects Portis’ rich dialogue. The words are chosen thoughtfully. Characters describe their world with flair, rage, or bemused wonderment. Words like “remonstrate” and “depradations” add aural richness and dimension. These heroes do not use contractions.

True Grit evokes a sense of camaraderie among strangers. In pioneer times, each encounter was savored. Conversations hold weight and significance. The faces of the film's extras convey all the hardship and valor of the era. The Coens' editing keeps lumbering action moving along with purpose.

Roger Deakins provides rich, evocative cinematography, most beautifully in a scene shot beneath a brilliant night sky. At a public hanging in the town square, Mattie looks on amidst the assembled townsfolk.  In an iconic scene Cogburn, reins in his teeth, rides directly into a phalanx of criminals, his two guns blazing.

Mattie’s fall into a snake-filled cave provides another symbolic moment.  The fates of Cogburn, LaBoeuf and Mattie are finally revealed.

If you like True Grit, you might enjoy: The Fighter; Conviction; Winter's Bone; Crazy Heart.

True Grit  2010  /  PG-13  /  1 hour, 50 min

Cast Overview:  Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Genres:  Drama, Western, Adventure

 

The Runaways ***

 

"Girls don't play electric guitar."  The much-anticipated coming-of-age punk drama The Runaways captures the vibe of an all-girl rock band smashing gender barriers in the 1970s.

Dakota Fanning (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) plays Bardot-lookalike Cherie Currie, and Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the born punk rocker Joan Jett. Both fully realize their roles as rebels who come from troubled Los Angeles families.

Writer-director Floria Sigismondi’s music video talents are apparent here. Fanning and Stewart sing.

Just 15, Currie is a drama queen chosen for her looks by sleazy promoter Kim Fowley (over-the-top Oscar nominee Michael Shannon). She allows herself to be used as the group’s front girl in exchange for stardom.

Currie drinks and pops pills, then poses for a soft porn photo shoot in her backyard at Fowley’s request. Finally, her grandmother runs out with a broom and beats the camera man.

The real Joan Jett, as executive producer, worked closely with Stewart. We see Jett smolder, brimming with creative zeitgeist. She believes in her future as a rock star and perseveres. In a funny early scene, she razzes a conservative guitar teacher.

 

Willingly, the girls harden themselves in a culture of drugs, sex and rowdy groupies. “We’re selling sex, violence and revolt,” screams Fowley.  

The first hour of the film is powerful, with an inside look at creativity and star-making. Fowley sends the girls out for gigs with scant food money. He calls them “dirty pussies” while they rehearse in a rundown trailer. He hires boys to pelt them with garbage to toughen them.

Finally he signs them with Mercury records. The Runaways are seen in their heyday and on their successful Japan tour.

A sexual encounter between Currie and Jett is sensitive and tentative, bathed in the white light of a drug high. The next morning, we see that Currie wore her roller skates to bed.

The Runaways becomes a downer as Currie and Jett split.  Currie walks out of a recording session.  She struggles through detox and holds a day job. Jett lolls in a bathtub writing new songs. We see her jumping on a mattress as she belts out the future chart-topper, I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Partly based on the memoir Neon Angel by Currie, The Runaways strings together many great moments in the rise and fall of a pioneering rock band.

Closing notes reveal that Currie counseled addicts and is “a chainsaw artist.” Superstar Jett financed her own comeback with the Blackhearts. She continues to perform in the U.S. and internationally.

 

The Runaways  2010  /  R  /  1 hr, 49 min

Cast Overview:  Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Stella Maeve, Riley Keough, Scout Taylor-Compton, Tatum O'Neal 

 Director: Floria Sigismondi

 Genres: Drama, Drama based on Real Life, Biopic, Movie Based on the Book, Music, Rock