‘Contraband’ A Totally Trite Crime Film

 Well, after having seen back-to-back 10s in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “War Horse” the past two weeks, it was back to reality at the theater this weekend as “Contraband,” a new action thriller starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale, opened nationwide. Unfortunately the film is a cut below mediocre, and, in fact, many current TV shows are better than this big-screen snoozer.

The film actually is a remake of a movie from Iceland titled “Reykjavik-Rotterdam,” and interestingly enough Baltasar Kormakur, who was the lead in that movie, is the director of this one. I’m just wondering whether or not the Icelandic version was better than this lackluster film.

Whalberg plays Chris Farraday, who once had the dubious distinction of being the best smuggler in the business. But Chris gave up his life of crime years ago, and now he has a beautiful wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale), and two sons. Before he decided to settle down, Chris’s exploits as a smuggler were the stuff legends are made of, but now that he has a family, he is perfectly content with living the safe life in New Orleans.

Yes, Chris obviously made a wise decision, but his brother-in-law, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) isn’t as smart as Chris, and he becomes involved with a ruthlessly vicious drug kingpin named Tim Biggs (Giovanni Ribisi). And as someone who works for a scumbag like Tim, poor Andy commits the unpardonable sin of screwing up a big job. Now he is a world of trouble, and he needs to figure out how to smuggle $15 million in counterfeit money out of Panama into the United States so that Tim won’t kill him.

Of course only one person can pull off a massive assignment like this, and Andy throws himself on the mercy of Chris, who feels obligated to help the guy out because he is Kate’s brother. Thus, against his better judgment, Chris puts together a team to help him and heads to Panama in an attempt erase Andy’s debt to Tim.

Predictably, however, things don’t go as smoothly as Chris intended, and he soon finds that he has put the lives of his wife and sons in danger, and he has to figure out a way to get back to them before Tim gets hold of them.

If you are looking for anything original or imaginative in this crime drama that you haven’t seen in other such films of the genre, you can forget it. The movie is riddled with clichés from every heist film you’ve ever seen. How many times have we seen the guy-leaves-his-wife-to-commit-a-crime-only-to-have-the-wife-end-up-in-the-hands-of-the-bad-guys scenario? And that’s exactly what we have here.

Even the action scenes are so hackneyed that they lack any real punch, and the film doesn’t manage to build and sustain any sense of suspense and mystery. It also lacked any particular intensity that is necessary for a good thriller. Never once was I on the edge of my seat, and I actually had to work at staying awake.

The acting in this movie wasn’t anything to brag about either. Wahlberg just seemed to be going through the motions, but at least Beckinsale appeared to be interested in her part. It was Ribisi, however, who turned in the best performance. He made a very creepy villain, and he ratcheted his voice up to such a pitch that it made you want to do something drastic to shut him up. In the film’s production notes, he referred to his character as “the bogeyman” when he described Tim.

“He’s the guy you don’t want knocking on your door at night. He just spent five years in Angola, and he’s your worst nightmare. I feel like Balt (the director) stretches the boundaries of ordinary filmmaking because the film is so steeped in reality. He doesn’t glamorize smuggling; he shows the reality of it.”

With both “War Horse” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” playing at the theaters, don’t waste your money on a second-rate action movie like “Contraband,” which earns a final score of five. If Ribisi hadn’t been so good, who knows what its grade would have been? And if you are planning to wait for the DVD of this movie to be released, I wouldn’t pay for it. You might want to consider hiring someone to smuggle it into your house for you.

“War Horse” Indescribably Exceptional

Every once in a long time Hollywood turns out a film so perfectly made that available adverbs and adjectives don’t really do it justice, but I’m going to take a crack at it. “War Horse” is a breathtakingly beautiful, majestically magnificent, sensationally stunning, visually mesmerizing, hypnotically engrossing, and gorgeously picturesque film.

Based upon the 1982 best-selling novel for young adults by Michael Morpurgo and directed by incomparable Oscar winner Steven Spielberg, “War Horse” tells the heart-wrenchingly touching story of the relationship between a boy and his horse set against the backdrop of World War I in England. Anyone who doesn’t like this wonderful film needs to make an immediate appointment with the Wizard of Oz for a heart installation.

As the world hovers tenuously on the brink of an all-out war, a financially strapped English farmer named Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan) goes to a horse auction with the intention of buying a solid workhorse to do his plowing. But he ultimately gets into a bidding war with his landlord over a high-spirited colt that looks more like a racehorse than workhorse.

When Ted arrives home and his wife, Rosie (Emily Watson), sees the horse he has purchased and learns that he had to use rent money to pay for it, she is understandably furious. However, their son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine), is thrilled with the animal, names him Joey, and promises his parents that he will take care of taming and training him. And he even vows that he will teach Joey how to plow the fields.

As the ensuing days pass, Albert works indefatigably with Joey, and the two of them form the kind of indestructible bond that only a true animal lover can understand and appreciate. Despite their initial skepticism, Albert’s parents are impressed by his dedication to Joey’s training, and they come to love and respect the animal almost as much as Albert does. Watching the love, trust, and respect between Albert and Joey germinate, grow, and blossom is among the myriad high points in the film.  Then the war begins, and Albert’s world falls apart

Animals, especially horses and dogs, were an invaluable part of World War I, and the horses were used for everything from serving as steeds for the cavalry to pulling ambulance wagons and heavy artillery. Statistics show somewhere between 4 and 8 million horses died during the four-year war, and there were times when the English sent 1,000 horses per day into battle to replace the ones that died. The United States also contributed horses to the effort by sending 182,000 of them into the conflict, which claimed 60,000 of them.

Over Albert’s vehement and futile protestations Joey is sold to begin his varied war career as a vital member of the British cavalry. During his gut-wrenching odyssey through the war, Joey participates in cavalry charges, pulls ambulances across battlefields, brings momentary joy to an ill French girl, and moves cannons up steep hills in the mud. He finally ends up in the area between the British and German lines ominously referred to as “No Man’s Land.”

In the meantime, Albert joins the British forces and vows to find Joey and bring him home safely. But his quest is fraught with the perils of war, and it soon becomes anyone’s guess whether either Albert or Joey will survive the conflict.

“War Horse” has all the elements that make a Spielberg film something beyond special – drama, pathos, love, mystery, and thrills. It also boasts exquisite cinematography from two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kaminski (“Saving Private Ryan”) and a typically stunning musical score by five-time Academy Award winner John Williams (“Star Wars”), whose brilliance as a composer has earned him more than 40 Oscar nominations.

On the acting front, veterans Mullan and Watson are excellent as Albert’s parents, and rookie actor Irvine turns in an outstanding performance as their son.

But the acting in the film is really secondary to the marvelous sets, the lovely English countryside, the superbly choreographed battle scenes, and some stellar special effects.

Most special of all, however, are the magnificent horses superbly trained under the supervision of Bobby Lovgren. Although the part of Joey was played 14 different horses throughout the film, the main star was Lovgren’s own beloved horse, Finder. Anyone who doubts that horses can change facial expressions will be a believer after watching this amazing animal. The scenes between Albert and Joey will melt your heart, and some of the segments where Joey is galloping at top speed across the battlefields will take your breath away. In the film’s production notes, Lovgren explained what makes Finder such a special horse.

“Finder has an uncanny ability to convey his feelings. Two of the trickiest scenes for a horse are when Joey is caught in the barbed wire fence, which was actually made from plastic so as to be harmless to the horses, and when Topthorn struggles and Joey takes the reins to try to pull him up. It was so important to get the emotion of these scenes, but it’s quite hard to do that with a typical horse. I was really lucky with Finder because he has a personality that connects emotionally with audiences.”

Of course whenever a film features animals to the extent this one does, a big concern is for their safety. In order to guarantee that the horses were never harmed or in danger of being injured in any way, Spielberg had Barbara Carr, a representative of the American Humane Society on the set at all times.

In the production notes Carr commented, “Everything was done in the safest, kindest ways for the animals. You could see in Steven that he truly cared deeply about the animals, and that was reflected in the entire production.”

In addition to being a visual banquet, the film also delivers an important message about courage, relationships, and love as Spielberg explained in the production notes.

“Courage is what keeps Joey and Albert going through four danger-filled years apart, and it is courage that becomes a theme woven through the entire texture and fabric of the film. I think “War Horse” has a lot to say about courage and about doing things not just for yourself but for the sake of those you love. That theme comes through in many different ways.

“Albert and Joey have a tenacious belief in one another. It all begins when they attempt together to plow this impossibly stony, infertile field in Devon before the war. That creates such a synergy and empathic collaboration between horse and boy that when they are separated by the war, I think the audience senses that at some point there is going to be a date with destiny. And when that date occurs, you see that, out of the chaos, something wonderful happens.”

“War Horse” (It gets the highest 10 on the scale.) makes something wonderful happen on the silver screen, and it is a true testament of filmmaking at its finest. Don’t miss it.

“Dragon Tattoo” Worthy Of Oscar Nods

 Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist who was just 50 years old when he suffered a fatal heart attack on Nov. 9, 2004, after climbing seven flights of stairs to his office because the elevator in the building was out of order.

Among the things Larsson left were three completed manuscripts for novels comprising the Millennium series, which have joined the ranks of the bestselling books in the world. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” are three remarkable crime novels that tell the story of the relationship between a financial reporter named Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant but bizarrely eccentric investigator, who join forces to solve a fascinating crime. Books this good inevitably make their way to the silver screen, and Swedish filmmakers already have crafted outstanding movies of all three of them.

But the American version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” just opened nationwide a few weeks ago, and it is so good that it should be a lock for a number of Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actress. In this riveting mystery, Daniel Craig portrays Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist who is the managing editor of “Millennium” magazine. The main purpose of Mikael’s publication is the exposure of financial corruption, but he recently overstepped his boundaries in a story and has lost a major libel suit. Therefore, he decides to take a break from work until he can get things straightened out in his life, but he doesn’t have much of a vacation because Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), an outrageously rich businessman, contacts him and summons him to his estate on an isolated island located on the frigid Swedish coast.

When Mikael arrives at Vanger’s house, the old man explains that his niece disappeared about 40 years ago, and he thinks she was murdered. He is willing to pay the journalist handsomely to investigate the situation and see whether he can bring any closure to the matter. Mikael accepts the assignment, and he ultimately ends up hiring an assistant named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), who was hired to do a background check on him. Lisbeth’s outrageous physical appearance, complete with multiple face piercings, belies her razor-sharp mind and her uncanny skill with computers.

As Lisbeth and Mikael proceed with their investigation into Harriet’s disappearance, they soon realize that they have uncovered the existence of serial killer who has preyed on a number of young women throughout the years, and as they learn more about this monster, they find that their own lives may be in danger.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a fascinating film on a number of different levels. It’s an outstanding mystery, a strange love story, a horrifying thriller, and a superb tale about the epitome of investigative journalism. Anyone interested in journalism should love this movie because Mikael’s search for the truth about Harriet’s disappearance unfolds like a giant jigsaw puzzle. He painstakingly makes his way through countless photographs and stories about the family before he finally discovers something in one of the pictures that proves to be a key lead. And Lisbeth’s research is just as intriguing because she manages to uncover the thread connecting a number of female murder victims.

Now while we are on the subject of Lisbeth, we must point out that in creating her, Larsson has given us one of the most interesting heroines in literary history and subsequently a great movie character. She has no parents, and when her beloved guardian suffers a stroke, another one is assigned to her, but he is a sadistic sexual predator who subjects her to an unspeakable experience in his house. But Lisbeth is one tough young woman, and her revenge is swift, creative, vicious, and violent. And it will make you want to stand up and applaud.

Mara is simply brilliant in the role of Lisbeth, and I will be shocked if she doesn’t receive and Academy Award nomination for her incredible performance. In fact she already has earned a Golden Globe nomination as best actress for her work in the film. The role of Lisbeth is an unbelievably demanding one from both an emotional and physical standpoint. In the film’s production notes, Craig explained what he thinks makes Lisbeth such a great character and why moviegoers will admire her.

“I think what is interesting about her is that even though she is a victim of sexual violence, she never psychologically becomes a victim. Her strength and the way she can take a knock, get up, and carry on is something I think people really hook into.”

Also in the production notes, Mara spoke about the how difficult the sexual abuse scenes were and how she and Yorick van Wageningen, who plays her abusive guardian Nils Bjurman, made the scenes work.

“The scenes were intensely challenging, both physically and psychologically, but also key to understanding Lisbeth’s impetus to help Blomkvist ferret out a murderer of women. The scenes with Bjurman tell you the most about Lisbeth. The abuse drives her, and the rest of the story to follow, in so many ways. Those were the scenes I was always thinking about.

“I always knew those scenes would be hard, but they were even harder than I thought they would be. Yorick is like the sweetest guy ever, but I stayed away from him because I didn’t want to be thinking about how sweet he is. It was better for us not to talk too much, but to just go into the room and see how things unraveled.”

Craig also is outstanding in his part as the stubborn journalist who refuses to be deterred from his assignment even when his life is threatened. He brings a perfect blend of persistence and class to the role of Mikael, and the way he portrays the character is exactly the way I had him pictured in the novels. In the production notes, Craig explained what he admired about his character.

“I like his attitude, I like his politics, and I like the way he’s all mixed up but in interesting ways. He’s fighting the good fight, trying to uncover corruption and to be an influential journalist, if that’s still possible.”

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” gets an unequivocal 10. It is superbly acted, beautifully photographed, and brilliantly directed by two-time Academy Award nominee David Fincher (“The Social Network.) Be forewarned, however, that it is not for the faint of heart because some of the scenes are dare so graphic that they are quite disturbing. Nevertheless, it is one of the best mysteries I have seen for a long time, and I hope both Craig and Mara will agree to reprise their respective roles if the two other books in the trilogy make it to the big screen. I can picture no one else in those parts.

New “Mission Impossible” Best One Yet

Good day, dear reader.

The man you are looking at is Tom Cruise, one of the highest-paid actors in the world.

Recently his newest movie opened nationwide to generally favorable reviews. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to the theater, see the film for yourself, and determine once and for all whether the myriad praise for the movie is indeed justified. As always, should you or anyone who accompanies you to the cinema complex be reprimanded by the manager or ejected from the theater, the movie gods will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This message will not self-destruct in five seconds because I don’t know how to do that. Good luck, reader.

Yes, after a five-year hiatus Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is back for the fourth installment of the “Mission Impossible” series on the big screen. Based upon the popular CBS television series that ran from 1966 to 1973 and on ABC from 1988 to 1990, the films have enjoyed immense popularity, and “Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol” should be no exception because it’s the best one yet.

As the film begins, we find Ethan incarcerated in a Russian prison after the IMF Secretary disavowed his actions in the wake of an explosion in the Kremlin. Of course Ethan was innocent of any wrongdoing, and now he and his makeshift IMF team comprising the beautiful but tough Jane Carter (Paula Patton), technical genius Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and agent William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) have to undercover to reestablish their reputation, thus the terms “ghost protocol.”

Shortly after Ethan meets his team, he approaches a pay phone, presses the buttons, and receives the following message.

“Welcome back, Ethan. In your absence, IMF has learned that Cobalt is or was a level-one nuclear strategist for Russian intelligence. Therefore, the only way to uncover his actual identity is to infiltrate the Kremlin itself. In order to get past the checkpoint, you’ll be impersonating General Anatoli Federov. We believe Cobalt will do everything he can to destroy any record of his identity. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to penetrate the highly secured archive inside the Kremlin and retrieve Cobalt’s file before he can destroy it. New intel suggests Cobalt is already en route leaving you four hours and 52 minutes to infiltrate. To save time, we have chosen your team for you, agents Carter and Dunn.  As always, if you or any of member of your team is caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Ethan.”

And it’s game on for Ethan and his team as they race frantically to recover from an assassin the codes capable of launching a nuclear attack that could virtually wipe out the United States. The IMF team’s pursuit of Cobalt takes them from Los Angeles to Moscow to Prague to Dubai to Mumbai to Vancouver, and the unrelenting action is constantly fast and furious.

Although there are those who are not enamored by Cruise, I maintain that he is one of the best actors in the business, and if you have any questions about either his range or ability, get a copy of “Born on the Fourth of July” and tell me when you have ever seen a more impressive performance. And I can’t think of anyone better than Cruise to play Ethan. In the film’s production notes, the actor explained his affinity for the series.

“I loved the show when I was a kid. I felt that, as a film, it could take us to different locations, have pulse-racing action sequences and smart, innovative tech. It was the first film I ever produced. As a filmmaker and as an actor, I’m always thinking about the audience. I want to entertain them and give them a new adventure every time.”

He certainly has succeeded in doing that with this film because the fight scenes and the stunts are absolutely spectacular. Of course we have some obligatory car chases, but the really impressive scenes are the escape from the Moscow prison, Ethan’s fight at the end of the scene where he attempts to obtain the briefcase containing the precious codes. He does something at the end of this scene that defies description.

But the stunt to top all of them occurs on the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (2,716.5 feet), which towers over Dubai. At one point Ethan has to get to a location of security control without anyone seeing him, and the only way he can do this is to scale the outside of the building. As one who hates heights, I can tell you that my heart was in my throat during this sequence. And the word is that Cruise eschewed the idea of filming this sequence on a set and opted to dangle outside the real building instead. If this segment doesn’t leave you breathless, you may want to ask someone to check whether or not you are alive. In the production notes, Patton remarked on her reaction to this scene.

“We were shooting a scene where Brandt catches Ethan’s leg, and then I catch Brandt, and we’re pulling him back in through the window. I saw him hanging there, outside the Burj Khalifa, and he just looked at me and said calmly, ‘Hey, Paula,’ and I’m, like, ‘Hi.’ I looked down and realized I had inched my way outside the window somehow. It was astounding to be looking out that building. In many ways, you are overcome by the beauty of the city. I couldn’t believe I was doing it.”

If this chapter in the “Mission Impossible” series has a weakness, it is that it asks viewers to suspend their disbelief too much, but when you consider other action sagas like “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard,” you realize that all films in this genre require a high suspension of disbelief.

“Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (Give it an eight.) is the best film in the series so far. Fans of Ethan should love it, and I’m already for the next one because I find not enjoying these films completely impossible.

“Hugo” Excellent Family Entertainment

I really can’t remember the last time that I was moved to use the word “magical” in describing an entire film, but that is simply the best adjective for “Hugo,” the most wonderfully appealing family movie I’ve seen in a long time.

Based upon Brian Selznick’s bestseller titled “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” and directed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorcese, this marvelously filmed and superbly acted film should charm just about everyone regardless of age. Forget about “Alvin and the Chipmunks” because “Hugo” is everything a holiday movie should be and more.

The film is set in Paris, the year is 1931, and the hero of our tale is 13-year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), whose father (Jude Law) was a clockmaker before his untimely death that left Hugo an orphan to be cared for by his alcoholic Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone). Uncle Claude was in charge of winding the massive clocks in the Gare Montparnasse, a huge train station, until he simply disappeared one day, and then Hugo took over the job of keeping the clocks running.

Hugo makes his home within the walls of the train station, and he manages to steal food from the vendors in the station. In addition to keeping the myriad gears of the clocks oiled and running smoothly, Hugo’s main project is the attempt to restore to working order an automaton that his father had been working on before he died. In order to obtain some of the parts he needs, Hugo steals various springs and gears from a toy store owned and operated by an old curmudgeon named Georges (Ben Kingsley). One of Hugo’s most prized possessions is a book of sketches his father left him, and Hugo believes it holds the key to fixing the automaton.

Although Hugo usually is very successful in stealing things from the toyshop, one day he becomes a bit careless, and Georges catches him in the act and takes his book of sketches from him. He threatens to burn the precious book unless Hugo agrees to work in the toyshop for him. Hugo really has no choice, and it is through his new relationship with Georges that he meets Isabelle (Chole Grace Moretz), George’s goddaughter, whom he and his wife have raised as their own.

Hugo opens up a whole world for Isabelle because she has led a very sheltered life and has spent much of it in the library. When Hugo realizes he can trust her, he shows her what his world inside the walls of the train station is like, and she vows to help him get his notebook back from her godfather and to help Hugo get the automaton working.

Isabelle soon learns that Hugo’s existence is constantly fraught with danger because the train station is patrolled by a Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who, with the help of his Doberman, makes it his business to round up orphans and send them off to orphanages. But she also finds Hugo’s life terribly exciting, and when he takes her to a movie, he opens up for her a world she never knew existed.

As Isabelle and Hugo continue to work on the automaton, they discover that it has a very special message for Hugo, and this ultimately leads to a startling discovery about Georges and his past as a famous magician and filmmaker. This surprise is the major twist in the film, and so I won’t tell you who he is, but it makes everything come together beautifully.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association recently released its annual Golden Globe Nominations, and “Hugo” was nominated for Best Motion Picture –Drama, and Scorcese also received a nomination for best director. Because many consider the Globes as a predictor of the Academy Awards, it would not be surprising to see the film also receive some Oscar nominations, and whatever honors this film earns will be well deserved.

The film is beautifully photographed, and the opening scene is nothing short of spectacular. The camera shows an overhead shot of a train approaching the station, and then it zooms in on the people who are boarding or departing from trains and continues into the station until it comes to rest on one of the huge clocks overlooking the huge lobby. And peering out through one of clock’s numbers is Hugo. This scene effectively introduces us to Hugo’s unique world, and from here we go inside the clock to a maze of metal stairs and gears.

In addition to the superb cinematography, the film features some outstanding acting by its two young stars. In the film’s production notes, Scorcese explained why he chose Moretz and Butterfield for the parts of Isabelle and Hugo.

“I was seeing a few young actresses from England. Chloë came in, and she spoke with a British accent, and I thought she was from England as well. At that stage, we started reading actors in pairs for Hugo and Isabelle, and Asa and Chloë just looked right together. There were a couple of other actors, and we switched the pairs, but the looks weren’t right. Not only did they look right together, they sounded right together. They play off of each other very well, and they have very distinctive personalities, very different.”

The chemistry between Moretz and Butterfield is remarkable in such young performers. But they fit together perfectly, and it’s a real joy to watch them. In the production notes, both young stars offered interesting insight into their characters.

“Being 13-years-old, as the characters are, there’s always something that you want to find out,” Moretz said. “There’s always something that you‘re poking and prying, trying to figure out what‘s going on, or how something works. In this movie, Isabelle and Hugo are poking and prying at people.”

“You never know that much about him,” Butterfield said about Hugo. “Loads of traumatic things have happened to him; his father has died; his mother’s died. And he ends up living with his Uncle in a train station, doing a man‘s job. And then his Uncle leaves and doesn‘t come back. By the time the story starts, all that’s happened to him, and he’s just left alone with this robotic figure, the automaton. So he’s quite to himself until he meets Isabelle, and then that starts getting him out of his shell.”

As I watched “Hugo,” I couldn’t help thinking about the film “Rear Window,” that great Hitchcock masterpiece where Jimmy Stewart’s character watches all the people in his apartment building going about their daily lives without knowing someone is spying on them. From his vantage point high about the floor of the massive train station, Hugo also spies on the people who work at the station, and, just as the apartment complex in “Rear Window” became a character in the film, so does the train station in “Hugo.”

“Hugo” (Yes, it gets that elusive 10.) is a testament to the kind of quality films Hollywood is capable of producing when the filmmakers manage to sublimate their seemingly overwhelming desire to churn out movies rife with blood, explosions, gun battles, car chases, and gross humor. This is family entertainment at its finest, and it’s a wonderful Christmas gift from Tinseltown to all moviegoers. Merry Christmas!