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The PopMatters Film Blog
Cliches Clog ‘Express’ Story of Success
Sports films can no longer function as mere history or information. Thanks to the mandates of the mainstream, which sees allegories in all manner of athletic competition, physicality must match ideology like poorly drafted teammates to a star. If it works - and it rarely does - the stereotypical set up reveal layers of dimension and universal depth. If it merely motors along on talent and persuasion, like the new film about Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis The Express, the journey is enjoyable if slightly stilted. As the latest in a long line of race related travails, the history here is loaded with confrontation, outrage, and acceptance. But even with a strong handle on the situation with segregation, the movie can’t manage to overcome its predetermined purpose.
When he was young, Ernie Davis learned to run. It was a necessary survival skill in a small town where segregation and racial hatred ruled. Later, as he grew, Davis learned to use said talent to become an All American athlete. When colleges came calling, he had two choices - the University of Football, otherwise known as Notre Dame, or upstate New York school Syracuse. With an undeniable legacy left behind by a graduating Jim Brown, Davis soon found himself under the tutelage of no nonsense coach Ben Schwartzwalder. After an uneventful Freshman year, the newest Orangeman soon becomes a national name, leading his team to a National Championship and the first ever Heisman Trophy for a black player. Success in the NFL seemed certain - that is, until something unexpected came along to shatter his dreams.
The Express in nothing more than a less successful Brian’s Song set in the days of Jim Crow and unconscionable white supremacy. With trailers that give away one major reveal, and a narrative which foreshadows the final plot twist, this is an amiable if predicable portrait. Directed by Gary Fleder (Thing to Do in Denver When You’re Dead) with all the faked flash of a Tony Scott knock-off, we understand almost immediately where this story of struggle is going. Davis is introduced as a decent little kid picked on horrifically by a band of bullheaded boy bigots. Within seconds, his fleet footed abilities are revealed, and soon the shift is away from prejudice and onto pre-college success. When Dennis Quaid enters the picture as Ben Schwartzwalder, the equally pigheaded coach from Syracuse, we sense a confrontation ahead.
But in one of the few surprises in this otherwise routine biopic, our fabled football sage isn’t a raging extremist - unless you’re talking about football. Then, Schwartzwalder is as old school as George Halas and Vince Lombardi. His is a hard work and waste nothing ethic, the kind of aggressive approach that made Jim Brown into a legendary figure in the NFL. We see the fabled running back as he readies to play with the Cleveland Browns, and his active recruitment of Davis is one of the film’s few sparkling sequences. Otherwise, Brown is held up as a kind of compare and contrast with his protégé. Big Jim gets the concept of social isolation and fights to rise above it. Ernie is as sincere as his name suggests, shocked when faced with separate drinking fountains and restricted hotels.
Part of the pleasure within The Express is watching Schwartzwalder and the team respond to the growing controversy caused by their newest recruit. At first, there is lots of contention and chest puffing. One player in particular makes it his personal cause to give Davis nothing but ethnic oriented grief. But as he starts shining, and by example bringing the team into the national limelight, the differences cool. Soon we see a united front against the ridiculous laws and ways of a pre-Civil Rights South. A trip to Texas for the National Championship game is especially illuminating, since almost everything that happens both before, during, and after the contest speaks volumes for the misguided way of America circa the ‘50s. Had there been more of this material, The Express would play like a leatherheaded Malcolm X.
But Fleder knows that audiences won’t indulge in a film that spends most of its time in controversy and anger. So The Express offers up some moments of minor romance, and the typical non-erotic comedic male bonding that sports tend to mandate. In the lead, Rob Brown makes a convincing Davis. Not required to do more than play proficiently and look iconic, the Finding Forrester co-star fits the bill. Much better is Omar Benson Miller as the larger than life lineman Jack Buckley. Like an overprotective father to Davis’ ill-prepared novice, he’s a gentle joking giant and jester. Some ancillary support comes from Charles S. Dutton (as Davis’ ‘blink and you’ll miss him’ Grandpa) and Soul Food‘s Darrin Dewitt Henson as Brown.
As for Quaid, he’s the film’s toughest fit. While Schwartzwalder was in his late ‘40s when Davis first stepped onto the Syracuse campus, his big screen reflection feels too young for the part. Quaid can give convincing curmudgeon, but his boyish good looks keep getting in the way. Even when Fleder gets in close to accentuate the star’s crow’s feet, the 54 year old’s sunny disposition belies his (and the character’s) age. Besides, we expect more sour mash sass from a man who took a small university and built it into a strong athletic contender. Quaid tries to gruff up his gumption, but it never comes across as organic. And in a film which needs that strong outer source, Schwartzwalder is an incomplete core.
With an ending that attempts to balance triumph with tragedy and a feeling of incompleteness overall, The Express ends up being more and less of the same simultaneously. Anyone with even a minor degree in narrative predictability can see where all the nose bleeds and blurred vision is going, and the link to the classic 1971 weeper is undeniable. Besides, if we didn’t already understand Davis’ place in sports history, his lack of professional stature still wouldn’t be so surprising. When it sticks to the issue of race and how the Syracuse players responded to same, the movie makes us think. The rest of the time, however, The Express suffers from the same creative cruise control that has long since sunk the spotty sports genre.
—Bill Gibron
12:00 am
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DiCaprio Only Reason ‘Lies’ Succeeds
Ridley Scott used to make daring, original movies. No matter the subject matter - outer space alien invasion, magical sword and sorcery adventure, revisionist Roman peplum - he’d place his visionary signature on every frame of film. Sure, he dabbled in pseudo realism, taking on the crime genre with Someone to Watch Over Me and a female facsimile of the buddy picture with Thelma and Louise. But when his name was attached to a project, we expected something innovative and outsized. Yet with his latest, Body of Lies, we get nothing more than a journeyman thriller. Even with a big named cast and intercontinental setting, Scott simply shows up and sets things in motion. The results are uninspired, to say the least.
Roger Ferris has been working undercover in the Middle East since the War on Terror took hold. He is usually a very effective agent, that is, when office jockey intelligence director Ed Hoffman isn’t interfering. Playing most missions for maximum political effect, the Washington based overseer manages to mess up many of Ferris’ best laid plans. While working with the government of Jordan, the young gun uncovers an Al-Qaeda safe house. Approaching Hani, the Minister in charge of security, Ferris sets up a deal to take down the terrorist cell from the inside. Naturally, Hoffman steps in and screws things up. This sours his agent with the Jordanians, the local population, and the evildoers he is charged with destroying. Soon, everything - and everyone - is threatened.
Anchored by an amazing performance by Leonardo DiCaprio and little else, Body of Lies limps along for over two hours, never amounting to more than a decent, if derivative nailbiter. While it may sound like beating a dead cinematic mare, we expect more from Scott. Clearly, his fixation with Australian antagonist Crowe has been a dull spot in his otherwise bright career. Gladiator was no great shakes (Oscars be damned) and A Good Year and American Gangster prove that tying your fortunes to a single signature actor is not always a guarantee of DeNiro/Scorsese success. Here, Crowe is reduced to a supporting player, a piggish US bureaucrat with his Southern drawling mug so far up his buttocks that he can’t see the reality of how ineffectual his efforts really are. It’s an interesting turn, but nothing more.
DiCaprio, on the other hand, succeeds in drawing us into this material, making his sympathetic spy - especially when it comes to the non-terrorist elements of the region - incredibly inviting. Looking a little rough around the edges, and dropping most of the mannerisms that highlight his still budding youth (he’s only 34), the superstar steals everything in Body of Lies - the performance points, the moral compass, and the entertainment value. While Brit Mark Strong offers an equally smart turn as Hani, the Jordanian heavy, this is Leo’s film from beginning to end. Had Scott simply settled on one of many fresh faces craved from the cathode that pass for big screen talents today, nothing here would work. As it stands, with DiCaprio’s Academy worthy turn, we can tolerate the rest of the redundancy.
Indeed, Body of Lies is nothing more than The Kingdom with more talking, Rendition with less torture - unless you count the convoluted screenplay by William Monahan. Still suffering from the careful clockwork plotting necessary to make The Departed ebb and flow, his adaptation of David Ignatius’ novel seems far more complicated than need be. Because Crowe is out of the locational loop most of the time, the forward motion of the story is shuttered so Hoffman can phone up and get his bungling and barbs in. And since we see how Hani sets up his own brand of insurgent infiltration, we can more or less guess the outcome - especially with Scott foreshadowing the denouement several times within the finale. In fact, Body of Lies suggests both Monahan and the man in the director’s chair got a little lost while bringing this project to life.
Thankfully, DiCaprio keeps us grounded - and interested. One of the movie’s biggest mistakes is assuming that American audiences, deadened as they are to the bumbling Bush policies of the last eight years, still have a rooting interest in seeing Arab bad guys biting the dust. Unlike the aforementioned Peter Berg actioner, which gave us characters and concerns to champion, Body of Lies is more insular. The focus frequently shifts from the big picture and the overall goal to Ferris and Hoffman’s high school style one-upmanship. Scott tries to countermand the contentiousness by cutting to shots of things blowing up. Yet like much of the movie’s context, these sequences play as sidelights to more cellphone conversations between name celebrities. We want action and intrigue. We are stuck watching Crowe spewing epithets during his daughter’s soccer game.
Basically, Body of Lies is one of those “who cares” productions. Aside from DiCaprio (and to a smaller extent, Strong), there is little else here that is compelling. Competent? Sure. Commercial? Who knows? Last year’s spite of Gulf War efforts failed because screenwriters decided that American soldiers should be recast as the bad guys. Scott and Monahan avoid this, yet they toss in the kind of surreal Executive Branch stratagem that also makes citizens want to revolt. Apparently, we need white hat/black hat simplicity when it comes to something as multifaceted as the War on Terror. If anyone could have made such a one-note approach work, it’s Scott. Sadly, whatever imagination and originality he possessed 20 years ago has all but disappeared. Body of Lies represents Ridley Scott Mach 2, and as upgrades go, it’s not successful.
—Bill Gibron
12:05 am
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Serious Flaw Threatens ‘Appaloosa’s’ Excellence
When the Western died, it did so because of two distinct reasons. First, the media had so saturated the audience with as many warmed over oaters as possible that even fervent devotees screamed “enough”. In addition, the Europeans were deconstructing the genre, picking out its more operatic elements and leaving the spaghetti fed horseplay for another day. While filmmakers throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s tried to revive the cinematic category, it wasn’t until a further artistic reevaluation (begun with Clint Eastwood’s amazing Unforgiven) proved that post-modern sensibilities could merge with old school saddle sores. Actor turned filmmaker Ed Harris wants to go back to the days of simple sagebrush storytelling, and with one major exception, everything he does in his adaptation of the novel Appaloosa is nothing short of brilliant.
The tiny Western town of Appaloosa is having a hard time with one of its more menacing citizens - ranch owner and troublemaker Randall Bragg. After killing their sheriff and his deputies, the city fathers see no other choice than to hire professional lawman Virgil Cole and his sharpshooter sidekick Everett Hitch. Within a very short time, the duo restores order and puts Bragg in his place. The arrival of pretty piano player Allison French changes everything once again. While Virgil is instantly smitten, Everett is suspect of her ways. Sure enough, she locks onto Cole, but lets her eye wander toward other men in town. When a witness is willing to testify that Bragg killed the previous sheriff, a trial is held. The arrival of hired guns Ring and Mackie Shelton suggest something is amiss. Sure enough, Bragg is convicted, and the mercenaries use Cole’s emotions to mandate his release. It’s up to the old partners to put things right, or ruin their reputation - and camaraderie - forever.
It’s such a shame that Appaloosa contains a massive, almost irredeemable flaw. It’s heroic and moving, a meditation on personal friendship and professional duty. It contains one of Viggo Mortensen’s most mesmerizing turns. We could follow his enigmatic Everett Hitch for a whole other movie. The way he dresses, the way he holds himself both in and out of conflict, the way he responds to Harris’ characters needs, its non-erotic male bonding at its best. At its core, Appaloosa is a buddy film, albeit one where the heroes are too tired to trade on their bravado. Instead, Hitch and Cole come into a locale, lay down their law, and wait for the bad guys to show off and step in it. A quick bit of gunplay later, and frontier justice is restored.
Some could complain that laidback lawman Cole is as big a problem as the film’s main mistake. He is a reluctant regulator, the kind of man who wears every kill on his worn and wrinkled face. Harris the director gives Harris the actor plenty of time to brood. Some may think it too much, but in a narrative that is trying to take on the mythos of how the West was won, it works wonderfully. Besides, Harris surrounds himself with such an amazing cast that we forgive his frequent indulgences. Jeremy Irons is so ornery and officious that his random acts of extreme violence seem perfectly suited to his stature. B-movie fave Lance Henrickson shows up an hour in as a hateful hired gun, and he rides his weather beaten ways directly to a sensational showdown. From Timothy Spall as a harried city official to Harris’ father Bob as a curmudgeonly judge, the supporting cast is excellent.
That’s why the sudden appearance of the strewn and superfluous Renee Zellweger almost ruins everything. Up until the moment she arrives in the title town, the film is following a standard pattern of standoffs and machismo. We anticipate the arrival of a love interest, a Claudia Cardinale type to bring a little lilac and lace to the proceedings. But with her Dr. 90210 expression and inability to properly position her little lady lost, the Oscar winner becomes a dead-end detriment. Whenever she is onscreen, we cringe at her spun sugar stereotyping. Then she starts throwing herself at anything in pants and the critical gloves come off. There is never an explainable motivation for what Allison French does. Mortensen tries, saying that maybe she just always “needs a man…any man”. By the time she’s trapped Cole and cavorts naked with Henriksen’s callous cowpoke, you start running through the remaining townsfolk, wondering who she’ll cling to next.
It’s not just the sexual speciousness that aids French’s undermining effect on the film. Zellweger’s character is the standard catalyst, someone that comes in and instantly destroys decades of friendship, professionalism, and purpose. Harris goes from cold eyed lawman to weepy school boy in the matter of a single scene, and before we know it, he’s forgotten everything that made him the highly respected lawman he is. Mortensen’s Hitch doesn’t dissuade him, since the soft touch of a non-whore is something quite rare in the Old West. So French is supposed to be something worth dying for, something worth wasting everything that came before to cling to and appreciate. And she shows her dowdy dedication by lunging at anything with a penis.
Some might say this is too harsh, that to blame the actress for Appaloosa‘s staid storytelling and ambitiously long sequences is grasping for easy excuses. But Harris does so many things right here that, with a different female lead, it would all end up a clear contemporary classic. Instead of drawing out the firefights like epic confrontations between able bodied men and ammunition, the gun blasts are quick and efficient. The politics of the town play as much a part in the confrontations with Bragg as the villains need for power. Hitch’s secret honor helps deliver us from many of the more mannered sequences, and when the truth is finally revealed, the matter of fact manner in which Harris treats the romantic treason is wonderful to watch.
Had an evocative foreign femme fatale been inserted into the Allison French role, an actress who could effectively sell modern promiscuity as some kind of clash of cultures, we’d celebrate the performance. But in a movie of palpable pluses, Zellweger proves once again her resemblance to the mathematical null set. She singlehandedly turns something masterful into a well-meaning almost-miss.
—Bill Gibron
10:47 pm
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Fable Feels ‘Blind’ to its Own Illogic
Before Star Wars, serious science fiction survived on the allegorical. Take a typical situation, instill it with some sort of out of this world premise, and watch as humanity races toward its own prophetic self-destruction. Children of Men did it with infertility. Soylent Green offered up environmental catastrophe, food shortages, and roundabout cannibalism. And now comes Blindness, offering the title affliction as yet another way of undermining the social order and illustrating the standard dystopic notions of power corrupting basic moral principles. One expects more from City of God/The Constant Gardener filmmaker Fernando Meirelles, and the source material (from Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago). Sadly, what we wind up with is a puerile, preachy mess.
In a nameless metropolis, random citizens begin to go blind. The government’s reaction is swift and uncompromising. While scientists gather to investigate the cause, the afflicted are rounded up and placed in an abandoned asylum. There, they must fend for themselves, creating their own sense of order and means of survival. In Ward One, an optometrist and his wife find themselves caring for a ragtag group of individuals. They have a secret from the others, however. She can still see. As civility devolves into chaos, the patients in Ward Three, led by a power mad bartender, begin demanding servitude from the others. At first, it’s financial. Soon, it’s sexual. As anarchy reigns, it is up to the only person with sight to strategize a way out of this living Hell. If she can’t there may be no hope for humanity after all.
There is a precise moment when Blindness goes wonky, a single sequence that shows how unrealistic Meirelles plans on playing with this metaphoric material. As the asylum slowly fills up, the director dissolves between a shot of a scruffy hallway, and a corridor riddled with urine, feces, and other types of human waste. It’s the before and after, the shocker that provides the first indication that this movie is not going to pussyfoot around the realities of the civilized losing their grip on the basics of being people. As unnamed characters wander in and through their own filth, the notion that all sense of hygiene and propriety would be lost is sledge-hammered over our head relentlessly. By the time a fat lady is shown lounging, pimply body bereft of a single stitch of clothing, we’re supposed to suspect the worse. This is how the world ends - in a river of offal.
And that’s exactly what Blindness delivers - 30 minutes of basic bookend apocalypse followed by a middle 90 of nauseating repugnance. Coping skills cranked down to zero and left to rot by a republic hellbent on playing concentration camp, all allusions are tossed aside for endless sequences of sleaze and self pity. Julianne Moore, relegated to a saint in sighted garb, does all the dimensional duty here, while cast mate Mark Ruffalo (as her eye doctor husband) gets to feel severely sorry for himself. Both Meirelles and author Saramago have stated that the title illness is not meant to be taken literally. Instead, thanks to its described milky whiteness, it’s supposed to suggest the loss of detail and definition, not a plunge into total darkness.
Yet that’s exactly what this movie does, time and time again. Desaturating the image to suggest the sterility of contemporary life as San Paolo steps in for Anywhere Earth, our director begins things with a criminal taking advantage of our first victim. Soon, a hooker is humiliated as her nakedness is ignored by those looking down on her profession. By the time we get to the loony bin, and Gael García Bernal has turned into Jack from Lord of the Flies, everything is dim and grimy. Even the mass rape scene, with the ward women submitting in return for promised food, is photographed in deep shadow - perhaps for ratings reasons, or to heighten the imagined horrors in the mind’s eye. Meirelles clearly wants the audience to experience what his characters are going through. Unlike the controlled artistry of Julian Schnabel’s similarly styled The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, however, Blindness has no rationale for its scattered stylistic approach.
Indeed, the entire film reeks of the illogical. No one ever comes to the detainees’ defense. Their quarantine might as well be a human landfill. The rest of the world disappears so rapidly that you wonder why some nation didn’t just nuke everyone else as a precaution. When they finally escape, our refugees face little threat from the outside mayhem, as if only in the closed confines of their camp would power mad people try and control everyone else. And let’s not even discuss the moment when our heroine and her husband discover their home - clean, untouched, and capable of a certain level of creature comforts. You can tell Saramago had a lesson to teach with this material. Blindness may have been a screed against finding meaning through your eyes only. But Meirelles messes it up so badly, we can’t support the sophism.
In truth, it all becomes a matter of acceptance. There will be those who find this film as insightful about the human condition (and its easy of corruptibility) as anything since the aforementioned William Golding masterpiece. Others will sniff out its implausible pretensions and grow aggravated quickly. Perhaps a more subtle hand would have helped sell this literal lesson in the blind leading the blind. Maybe no adaptation could bring to life what Saramago suggested on the page. Whatever it is, Blindness cannot succeed as either entertainment or epiphany. Instead, it’s an unpleasant experience magnified by the arrogance inherent in its sense of self-importance. Currently, there is controversy over the depiction of the sightless in this film. Those who dismiss the claims forget one thing - the most reprehensible character in the entire third ward is someone who was actually born blind. That they ‘overlook’ such symbolism is par for this movie’s preachy, distasteful course.
—Bill Gibron
10:46 pm
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‘Religulous’ Mocks the Mockable
There are certain unwinnable arguments in life, debates where no one side can claim clear victory. Argue over abortion, and see how staunch either position becomes. Discuss race and prejudice and the majority and minority never see eye to eye. While it’s always been a bit of a hot button, religion has become an even bigger sticking point over the last few decades. Call it the Moral Majority effect, the Neo-Con crusade, or the Islamic fundamentalist backlash, but Christians are chastising the non-believer and taking names - at least politically. Even in the face of clear First Amendment protections, the new faithful want Jesus and those who chronicled his life and time making policy.
There are a few people who find this as morally reprehensible as those on their principled high horses. Journalist Christopher Hitchens’ book god is not great takes a frank and honest look at how, in his words, “religion poisons everything”. And now noted political humorist and TV host Bill Maher is out to back the side of the blasphemer. With Religulous, his new documentary, he teams up with Borat director Larry Charles to travel around the world, interviewing various religious individuals. That’s it - no skits, no spoofing, no fake characterizations or commentary on American values. Just a razor sharp wit sitting around with devout believers, our host letting his subject’s own words systematically undermine their professed positions.
At times, Religulous celebrates the rather obvious. Most Christians don’t understand their Bible, nor have they read it enough to ably defend the reality of what it does and does not contain. Maher proves that most believers function within a kind of pocket of propaganda. A preacher explains the Gospels, loosely interpreting passages or parables, and his listeners legitimize it as truth. When pushed to prove their points, they can’t find the Lord’s supposed words to support them. Naturally, this leads to a few angry attitudes. At a trucker’s chapel somewhere along the highway, a stout driver storms out of the converted trailer. He wants no part of Maher’s “mockery”. Those who stay put and argue, however, are treated to the opportunity to make their case - with just a minor amount of derision from our guide.
Some sequences don’t need commentary. When Maher visits a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, the owner’s illogical statements make the point all too well. Even better, a trip to a religious theme park in Orlando Florida (known as “The Holy Land Experience") turns the Passion into a daily ritual, including the parading of a blood soaked Jesus before an audience of teary eyed patrons. In each instance, Maher approaches the material with the same mad twinkle he brings to his other projects. By picking on the extremes, however, he underlines the obviousness of the project. Religion will always have a hard time defending itself. By bringing it out into the open, this documentary may only be preaching to the non-converted.
Still, Religulous deserves mention for what it means outside the tenets of certain dogma. Maher’s bigger message is clearly one of critical thinking. He illustrates how most organized belief systems remove curiosity to claim divine intervention into any unexplainable situation. A pair of ex-Mormons sit down with our host as he discusses the just plain bizarre ideals propagated by the followers of Joseph Smith. When asked why more people don’t question the church and their claims of magic underwear and a Missouri based Garden of Eden, the men are quick to answer. “Family and friends” they say, indicating their status as pariahs for leaving their faith. You lose everything when you leave, they continue, because of the cult like ways of the community.
Since Maher was born to a Jewish mother and a staunch Catholic father (his sister and mom are on hand to discuss the past), the Judeo-Christian ethic gets the most ribbing here. Islam is left for a last minute discussion, while other worldwide beliefs such as Buddhism and Hinduism are rendered relatively unscathed. Even the jokefest that is Scientology (at least from an aliens/thetans/e-meter conceit) is relegated to a brief comic rant in London’s Hyde Park Sunday Soap Box. In some ways, Religulous is meant as a reactionary responsorial to the West’s demonization of the Middle East. That Christians tend to be as extreme as the radicals they rail against really comes as no surprise.
Most of Religulous is oblivious in its outrage. That Maher fails to find a single level headed individual might be a product of the production scheme (even a Vatican condemning Catholic priest winds up on the weird side). Indeed, Charles is more singular in his focus. He intercuts scenes from faith based propaganda films and other cinematic efforts to accentuate points, and while they earn their laughs, they also cut the scholarship attempted. Maher, who clearly finds religion one of the reasons for the world’s muddled state, seems eager to peel back the layers of hypocrisy and argue that all belief is just a way of avoid responsibility and advance magic problem solving. Miracles are nothing more than coincidences, the answering of prayers an indirect self-fulfilling prophecy.
He ends the film at the same place he starts it - on Tel Megiddo, the hill where the Second Coming of Christ is predicted to occur. With Jesus’ return will come the Rapture, followed by several Revelation realities. As he explains the path to Armageddon, Maher makes Religulous‘ most cogent point: The Bible was written by men who at the time had no knowledge of how to destroy each other completely. The notion of wiping mankind off the face of the planet was reserved for a higher power. Now, third world countries have the ability to predicate the Apocalypse. How much of what was written was foresight, and how much was simply a keen insight into the destructive nature of humanity stands as Religulous‘ biggest unwinnable disagreement. Neither side - sacred or profane - can argue their way out of that reality.
—Bill Gibron
10:45 pm
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IMAX makes this ‘Eagle’ Soar
Beware of Big Brother…blah, blah, blah. You can’t pick up a publication nowadays, or listen to any number of broadcast pundits, and not hear about how the Bush Administration is violating rights and the privilege of privacy for the sake of some metaphoric act of patriotism. Granted, the Constitution may indeed be jeopardized in the name of non-provable levels of safety (call it the “tiger rock” syndrome), but Americans are more than willing to buy into the scheme to avoid another 9/11. This fuels Hollywood’s already perverse sense of paranoia, as it has since Nixon went Watergate-boarding. Disturbia director D. J. Caruso has tapped into such technological fear mongering with his latest big screen suspense thriller, Eagle Eye. While not perfect, if you ignore a major plot twist and/or hole along the way, you’re sure to have an edge of your seat good time.
On the day that he buries his twin brother, Jerry Shaw suddenly finds himself engulfed in a world of trouble. His grubby Chicago apartment is suddenly overrun with terrorism paraphernalia - weapons, instruction manuals, and bomb making materials - and from his cellphone, a mysterious female voice tells him to flee. Before long, Jerry is in FBI custody, with Agent Thomas Morgan on his case. Joined by Air Force investigator Zoe Perez, the officials hope to stop this potential disaster before it occurs.
In the meantime, single mother Rachel Holloman is informed that her son, traveling to Washington DC on a school band trip, is in danger. Unless she agrees to help the mysterious female voice on the other end of the line, she’ll lose everything. Turns out, Jerry is her proposed partner in potential crime. The pair become pawns in what appears to be a deadly assault on the United States. These reluctant radicals have to follow the instructions of their unseen tormentor, or die trying. Of course, the source of the threats might just be someone - or something - inside the government itself.
Bristling along on one amazing narrative convolution after another, and fueled by fascinating gung ho performances from everyone involved, Eagle Eye is a jovial serving of cinematic junk food. It’s frightfully filling without being intellectually challenging, and appears put together by professionals who know a thing or two about maintaining an audience’s interest. For those looking for mandatory movie references, this is nothing more than Wargames, Enemy of the State, North by Northwest and another famous ‘odyssey’ all rolled into one. To reveal the name of the last cinematic masterpiece riffed on would spoil the secret to the film’s villainy. Suffice it to say that any motion picture from the last four decades, especially ones dealing with spying, science gone sinister, and massive governmental conspiracies, finds a hokey, hackneyed home here. Some just overstay their welcome, becoming the storyline’s sole raison d’etra.
As with his homage to Rear Window, director Caruso casts messageboard separator Shia LeBeouf as his everyman, and for someone so hated by a good percentage of geek nation, the actor is very good here. He’s not required to do much - a great deal of this movie is mechanics and manipulations to a deadly denouement - but in the quieter scenes, he shows subtly and nuance. This is not quite the grown-up role the pseudo-star needs - Jerry is still carved out of post-millennial slacker shortcuts - but as the innocent mark turned reluctant hero, he holds things together quite well. Michelle Monaghan is another issue all together. Her overwrought mother is horribly underwritten, complaining about her bastard ex-husband and her lousy paralegal’s paycheck…and that’s about it.
Thankfully, costars Billy Bob Thorton and Rosario Dawson pick up the slack. He’s a manic FBI agent not sure which side of Jerry’s story he believes. She’s the Air Force attaché who uncovers a key piece of evidence explaining the forces behind the threat. One has to say that, if you buy the premise and the antagonist involved, Eagle Eye takes on a sly, almost mischievous sense of social commentary. Positioned directly in the War on Terror times we live in, the film’s obvious jabs at the current White House and the incomplete intelligence that led us to invasion offer waves of wiseass recognition. If anything, Caruso appears to be anarchic in his advocacy. His position gives “We the People” a whole new meaning.
On the small screen, the frenetic action scenes and hand-held hysterics would clearly get lost. The editing typically takes a mashed up moment and amplifies it unnecessarily. But blown up 70mm on an IMAX screen, Eagle Eye becomes a crackerjack nailbiter. The car chases have a real logic and flow, and the foot races reveal both clever choreography and a true sense of space. Chicago looks luminous during the various aerial shots, and when CG takes over to establish the “omnipresence” of the Federal bureaus, the graphics look great. Like Beowulf inside the 3D domain, Eagle Eye needs to be experienced in the larger theatrical format. The detail in the image helps make up for some of the tried and true tricks the director uses to create breakneck cinematic chaos.
Even with its occasional lapses into illogical miscalculation (like the ability to control elements like electrical lines???), Eagle Eye is a great, goofball thrill. It’s the kind of film you can get lost in, forgetting the fallacies streaming across your subconscious as you sit back and savor another sequence of veiled threat and vehicular mayhem. Certainly, the story is not meant to mean more than the basics of the genre, and any references to masters past remain securely on the side of the alluded to auteurs. But D. J. Caruso and Shia LeBeouf prove a potent combination, especially in the realm of easy to swallow suspense films. If you go in expecting The Conversation meshed with a sideways Manchurian Candidate, you’ll be easily underwhelmed. But not every entertainment needs to engage the brain to guarantee success. Check your head at the ticket counter and you’ll enjoy this wickedly wild ride - especially in IMAX.
—Bill Gibron
9:47 pm
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