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Minority Report (2002)

Eye candy, but with little to call its own

[24 June 2002]

There's a scene in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" in which cop-turned fugitive John Anderton (Tom Cruise) disguises himself by altering the appearance of his face using a silver-colored metal rod that, well, that changes the appearance of one's face, in the year 2054.

The prop master of "Men in Black" should check the stock, because that movie?s high-tech rod -- you know, the one the alien-hunters use to induce amnesia in anyone who has seen something they shouldn't -- has been pilfered.

How about the pursuit, during which Anderton is chased through the city by a squad of high-tech cops while trying to avoid retina scanners and other police-state-type identification devices? And the central plot engine of frame-up and betrayal? Think "Total Recall."

These are but two examples of how heavily "Report" has borrowed from futuristic films that went before.

Minority Report, in fact, is a great-looking pastiche of concepts and devices from other movies. Unfortunately, it has precious little to call its own.

True, the meld of CGI imagery and live action is perhaps done as well as it has ever been done and the story moves along at a nice, action-filled pace. The plot, however, is paper-thin, and turns on a logical paradox that -- although it's acknowledged as such in the movie -- still leaves a hole in the story big enough to fly a jetpack through.

"Report's" biggest sin, however, may be the utter lack of that element that invested "Total Recall" and "Men in Black" with much of their charm -- humor.

OK, so there is that mild chuckle afforded by the eyes in the plastic bag, but this is a movie that takes itself 'way too seriously.

If Spielberg thought that the tragic plot line of an abducted child and controversy over a legal system that punishes people for what they MIGHT do (shades of post-Sept. 11 angst) would elevate this offering above familiar sci-fi fare, he was wrong.

And while the script is workmanlike, it may be notable for the absence of even one memorable line, such as Leon's chilling, "Wake up, it's time to die" in "Blade Runner."

Minority Report is slick and fun, and about as substantial as cotton candy which, considering it's a product of Steven Spielberg's undeniable skill and a whole whack of money, makes it a major disappointment.

Sweet and Lowdown (1999)

Off-key biopic not worth the trouble

[12 September 2000]

There are, it says here, two types of biographies: one centres around a character whose exploits merit recounting; the other features a figure whose life may not have been extraordinary yet presents the biographer with the opportunity to offer the audience insights into the human spirit, psyche or behaviour.

Insight isn't always easy to come by. In life, there are people who diligently mask their feelings and motivations, who shield themselves from attempts at examination or explanation, whose pasts remain opaque. Sometimes, the subject is sufficiently important, or the person's life sufficiently interesting, to justify a biography even though meaningful insights into the subject's character are scarce.

Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown seems to centre on such a subject. He is Emmet Ray, a 1930s jazz virtuoso whose guitar playing is sublime and whose life is a train wreck. Named after a little-noted 1944 Benny Goodman vehicle, Sweet and Lowdown presents Ray as a man whose musical genius is offset by character flaws so numerous as to comprise an entire catalogue of inadequacies and pathologies.

Ray may be the "second-greatest guitarist in the world," but he is also a kleptomaniac and a drunk, childishly irresponsible and egocentric. He is arrogant although insecure, socially inept, emotionally inaccessible -- sometimes even cruel -- to his wives and lovers. He is a braggart and a boor and, finally, self-destructive and self-defeating. A fool with magic fingers. But interesting.

Or, rather, could have been interesting.

The problem with this picture is that Emmet Ray is fictional, a product wholly of Allen's imagination.

This would be fine, had an effort been made to offer even a glimmer of insight into the processes that could have produced such a singular character. He doesn't, although the pseudo-documentary style of the picture, complete with "talking head" reportage from various "experts," including Allen himself, gave him ample opportunity to do so.

Other than Ray's offhand, post-coitus admission to his lover that his father used to beat him, the viewer is denied any glimpse into whatever may lay beneath the annoying exterior of the man, and therefore denied the pleasure of experiencing the sympathy that comes with understanding.

If there's any reason at all to invest time and money on this film it's to see the performance of Samantha Morton as the mute Hattie, which is every bit as good as they say. Sean Penn as Ray does an admirable job portraying the kind of out-of-control and slightly berserk character that's his specialty. Both efforts are ultimately wasted.

There is simply no excuse for creating a vivid, complex character and then declining to offer a clue as to how he got that way. There's enough of that in real life.

Magnolia (1999)

A prime example of why one should distrust the critics

[10 January 2000]

The problem with "professional" film critics is that they are aware they are writing for history as well as for their employers. Any critic writing for a mass audience knows that his or her reputation depends in part on how often his or her judgment jibes with that of the public, which is the real and final arbiter of a film's success or failure. Every critic writing must be wary of sharing the wretched fate of those 1939 pundits who panned, say, the Wizard of Oz, or Gone With the Wind, or the scribes who in 1941 turned thumbs down on Citizen Kane. So when there appears a movie which bears all the signs of being a "big" film -- big budget, big stars, hot director, contemporary subject matter -- critics get curiously pusillanimous about reporting the flaws that may ultimately be identified as having turned that "big" production into a big turkey. This phenomenon, I believe, explains why the critics have been raving about Magnolia -- a film so arrogant in its ambition yet so confused and inept in its execution that the appellation turkey hardly does it justice. Other critics in this forum have already competently catalogued Magnolia's myriad shortcomings and I do not propose to cover the same territory. Suffice to say that when I saw this thing the other night a number of people walked out long before it splattered to its long-delayed and eagerly sought conclusion. There is the judgment totally independent of history. I stayed until the end, but I envied those who didn't.

The Chase (1966)

A dated but still powerful film

[17 January 1999]

Much sexual water has gone under the bridge since the 1960s, and more than a few installments of "The Playboy Philosophy." So now, at the millennium's turning, a tale in which the prejudices, cynicism and sexual infidelities of a small southern town's dissolute ruling class figure prominently seems dated, even quaint. Yet such is the terrifyingly plausible spiral into anarchy depicted in 1966's The Chase that Arthur Penn's controversial film remains a disturbing piece of cinema. A thinner (but still imposing) Marlon Brando plays Sherrif Calder, a lone, laconic voice of reason in a town rapidly going insane on a hot summer's night. E.G. Marshall is Val Rogers, bank president and town monarch, suitably surrounded by fawning lackeys such as Ed Stewart (Robert Duvall, uncharacteristically loathsome as a milquetoast cuckold aching for revenge). The spark for the climactic firestorm is the return of "Bubba" Reeves, who has escaped from prison after being sent away for joy-riding in a stolen airplane. Everyone assumes he is coming back to avenge himself on Rogers' son, who has been keeping company with Reeves' wife Anna (Jane Fonda). The film's weakest performance is, arguably, turned in by Robert Redford, who is much too pretty and soft-spoken to be convincing as the fugitive hellion, Bubba. Overall, however, The Chase features some memorable performances, including those of Brando, Duvall and Janice Rule as Duvall's slutty wife, Emily. In addition to the fearsome inevitability of its violence, The Chase is notable for the horrific realism of the beating inflicted on the sherrif by a couple of corporate good 'ol boys - almost certainly the most graphic beating Hollywood had ever dared to put on film, and possibly unrivalled to this day for its sheer ferocity. Critics may have made much of the film's flaws, but as a study of a dysfunctional society poised to explode, The Chase still stands up as a sobering and powerful movie experience.