"There's not much chance of coming out clean."
What makes a noir movie? Is it a dark atmosphere? Is it the sharp, quick dialogue that we all wish we were cool enough to spit out? Is it the hard-boiled anti-hero leads? Whatever it is, BRICK has it.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Brendan Frye, a tough-as-nails, intelligent teen gumshoe. The record can not go without saying that Gordon-Levitt is a blistering force, bringing energy and grit to a character that needs plenty of it. Brendan goes to a high school where corruption is life, and the authorities play no part. Brendan's girl Emily (Emilie De Ravin of LOST) turns up dead two days after asking for his help, something he can't live with knowing. He decides there is nothing to do but find out who's behind it, even if that means dirtying his hands.
He uses The Brain (Matthew O'Leary), the kid who knows all that goes on in school without actually ever being in class, as his source of information. Various players enter the scene as Brendan digs deeper and deeper, and the more chaotic it gets, the better BRICK becomes.
This is director Rian Johnson's first time writing, and he utilizes obvious talent to pay his homage to film noir of old. This is a film that Wilder, Houston, and Hawks would love. The lead is a smart, cool, calm guy who can handle any situation thrown at him, with the possible exception of The Girl. The film's only real blatant flaw is setting its story in a present-day high school, and while the delivery of dialogue is smart and quick, it never happens in the real world. One of the funniest quotes of the film is probably the most realistic piece of dialogue throughout its entirity:
-Oh yeah?
-Yeah.
-Oh yeah?
-Yeah.
-Yeah?
-There's a thesaurus in the library. Yeah is under "Y". Go ahead, I'll wait.
It should be a testament to how good BRICK is that its one real flaw is completely justifiable and maybe even fitting to the type of story Johnson is trying to tell. By centering around a modern-day high school and injecting true-to-life happenings as sex, drugs, crime, and love and also staying true to noir's most basic elements, BRICK is both paying homage to the genre's past and trying to give it a new life.
A-
"There's undercover, and then there's 'Which way is up?'"
Gone are the pastel suits. Gone is the alligator. Gone is the camp. This is the real MIAMI VICE.
MIAMI VICE is a film that demonstrates what an artist can do when he has full control over his work. In the 80s, producer Michael Mann put the wheels in motion to turn a pilot script penned by Anthony Yerkovich into a full-time television show. Mann did this because the script was so gritty, raw, and real-to-life in his opinion that he believed it deserved an audience. The script was called MIAMI VICE: BROTHER'S KEEPER.
As time went on, Mann remained the producer of the show while establishing a formidable career of his own as a film director with works such as MANHUNTER. The show, however, began to lose its edge as a story of crime. It's characters, Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, became overshadowed by the actors who played them, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. The substance of the storyline started losing out to the style of the show, which had been dubbed "MTV Cops".
Twenty years later, Mann is back as the director and writer of the film version of MIAMI VICE. The name and the two lead characters are pretty much the only elements remaining from the show, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx have filled into the shoes that were once occupied by Johnson and Thomas. There is no alligator and lapels are nowhere to be seen. If that displeases you, this isn't your movie.
Mann's vision has finally been realized. The film is as stylish and sexy as the show was, but in a different way. The neon coloring is gone, replaced with exotic locations and beautiful night filming, with the still relatively new DV-type cameras taking much of the responsibility (these are cameras that can shoot incredibly clear footage with little to no light). Where most action films are filled to the brim with visual effects, Mann actually shoots where the script calls for. The budget ballooned to over $135 million on account of the crew scouting and then flying out to the exotic locations in South America and Southern Florida that were needed, not because of unneeded and distracting special effects. The style, however, isn't overshadowing the story any more.
The purpose of this film isn't to reincarnate an series that has lost most of its luster and age as time has gone by. Mann's goal is to delve deep into the world of drug trafficking in Southern America, and he succeeds beyond all expectations. His story is told at a searing pace, and he doesn’t care if you keep up or not. It starts out midway through a drug bust gone bad in a nightclub on the Miami strip. Crockett and Tubbs, as well as the rest of their strike team have received bad information and are unknowingly part of an inter-agency sting operation involving the Miami Police Department, the DEA, and the CIA. This botched deal, however, has led them in to an oppurtunity provided by the head of the CIA team (Ciaran Hinds, last seen in MUNICH) and their captain, played by Barry Shabaka Henley (who has collaberated with Mann in COLLATERAL and ALI).
Crockett and Tubbs are to infiltrate mid-level Columbian cocaine dealer Jose Yuro's operation from the inside in order to shut it down completely. This is where the plot, the script, and the character development thickens. Simply from the way they are written, Crockett and Tubbs are men of action, not words. Farrell and Foxx give impressive performances considering the amount of emotional, not physical, expression needed. In one of the most intense scenes of the movie, Foxx proves why he is one of the best and most exciting actors working today, going from ragingly furious to tender to helplessly shaken.
Crockett and Tubbs' love interests are played by Gong Li and Naiomi Harris. There is a beauty and real emotional connection between the two couples, who know that the line of work that the men are in is dangerous and that any time they spend with the other could possibly be the last.
Foxx and Farrell may be the leads in MIAMI VICE, but Michael Mann is the star. He has taken what was already a culturally significant and influential television show and made it all killer with no filler. What made the show so gritty and intense, the true-to-life violence and intensity that comes with the line of duty, has been carried from one medium to another. There is no guff though, and this isn't another self-referrential adaptation (a la STARSKY & HUTCH), but a re-invention. It's also one of the best crime films in the last twenty years.
A
"We prepared for everything, but not this. Not something this size. There's no plan."
How does one re-create an event of the magnitude of 9/11 in any respectable art form and expect to conjure empathy and emotion from its audience? As terrible a day as it was, it will likely be the day that this generation is built around. Nearly every emotion known to man has been experienced on or because of the events that happened on that black day.
Director Oliver Stone does, in his WORLD TRADE CENTER. Stone is a notoriously exploiter among the Hollywood crowd, and an odd choice as the pick for a movie of such importance and societal impact. It's a wonder that he doesn't bring the political agendas and conspiracies that have molded a stellar career into such a massive arena, where he has the chance to voice whatever opinions he may have about 9/11-related issues to audiences around the world though. The most controversial aspect of WORLD TRADE CENTER may be its simplicity. It is a film without an agenda or despicable means for being.
At its heart, WORLD TRADE CENTER is about the experiences of a few groups of people in and around New York on September 11th, 2001. Over 139 minutes Stone chronicles the tale of two Port Authority Policemen, John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña), their wives Donna (Maria Bello) and Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and the two marines (Michael Shannon and William Mapother) who climb through the rubble of the fallen towers during the night to rescue the men, pinned under twenty feet of debris.
When the movie hits, it hits as hard as any other film this year. The scenes where Jimeno and McLoughlin are pinned under the wreckage of the fallen towers, unable to see anything other than the concrete and wiring that is threatening their lives, the film shines. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, and the performances by Peña and Cage are restrained (they physically have to be), but emotional. These scenes wander off only once, where in Jimeno sees a vision of Jesus that restores his faith and reason to live. Whether or not this is true, nobody will ever know other than the real Jimeno. It just didn't work for me, something so off-the-charts weird in such a straightforward film. For the most part though, these scenes are the best of the film, and offer some of the best moments of the year. It is simply two men trying to keep each other alive against almost unfathomable oppression and opposition.
Stone makes one large fault in the film. He widens the scope of his story too far. In a sense, he is handicapped to do so. Without the stories of the policemen's wives in the outside world, the audience would have a much harder time feeling for the men without a sense of emotional connection. The scenes though disrupt the film's intensity, and portions of dialogue come off as sappy, trite, and forced. Give Bello and Gyllenhaal all the more credit, I say. The film's script is not a good one, choppily weaving back and forth between the men trapped in their own world under the debris and the hellish world outside, but the two actresses give truthful, emotional performances. I can't imagine what it would feel like if someone I loved and cared for was in a situation where the odds are they would be dead, but Bello and Gyllenhaal can, and they express it on-screen. Bello does especially well, conveying a sense of urgent anger at herself for not loving her husband more, overshadowed by nearly uncontrollable fear at the thought that she doesn't remember what the last thing she said to him (which could have been their last exchange of words), while trying to maintain her composure around her sons. It was almost criminal that Bello wasn't nominated for an Oscar for her performance in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE last year. Hopefully she will receive her due this time around.
Overall, WORLD TRADE CENTER hits a lot more than it misses. The bad notes; a very bad closing note and some faulty dialogue are overshadowed by Oscar nomination-worthy performances by Peña and Bello, Stone's direction (which thankfully doesn't veer into conspiracy land) and the emotional power that will probably be present in any movie about 9/11 that will ever be made. Earlier this year I predicted this would win Best Picture, simply from the impact and connection audiences would feel with the events that have defined this decade so far. Since seeing UNITED 93 and the box office failure and surprisingly quick forgetfulness audiences have felt toward it,I feel that statement won't hold true. WORLD TRADE CENTER however, is still a terrific movie.
A-
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