Burnt

BURNT (John Wells, 2015)

After a few years in the proverbial wilderness doing penance for his substance-abusing and womanizing past, chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) turns up in London determined to earn a prestigious third Michelin star. He burned a lot of bridges in the Parisian culinary world, but by drying out and swearing off booze, drugs, and women, Adam hopes to be able to redeem himself. His composure and ability to escape a troublesome history are in question in BURNT, but his talent never is. It’s why he can appear years after making a mess of things for himself and colleagues and still be granted the opportunity to do something great.

Adam persuades his former maitre d’ Tony (Daniel Brühl) to let him take over the kitchen at his father’s hotel restaurant, even if it means submitting to a weekly blood screening to prove he’s living cleanly. He assembles a dream team of former associates willing to let bygones be bygones, including sous chef Michel (Omar Sy), and newly discovered top talent like Helene (Sienna Miller). Adam senses a kindred spirit in Helene, which is why he has no qualms about being merciless in criticizing her work when she initially fails to live up to his high standards.

BURNT plays like a dramatized version of one of the many reality cooking shows, particularly those involving volatile chef Gordon Ramsay. He’s a chef consultant on BURNT, which presumably means Ramsay suggested the fine dining dishes that are lovingly filmed rather than gave Cooper lessons on how to yell and throw food in the trash. Adam demands perfection and barks at those in the kitchen like a dog with its nose pressed against the glass as its explosive cries try to intimidate passing cars. That the staff tends to treat Adam as some bulletproof genius they’ll go to the mat for seems somewhat absurd based on temperament and history.

Cooper brandishes the chef’s swagger with gusto. Whether he’s getting in a jab at a competitor’s interior design or smashing plates bearing unsatisfactory food, he’s entertaining in his cockiness. Casting Adam as a tragic figure by his own hand doesn’t work as well. Adam’s backstory is often hinted at but never fully elucidated, which makes him an empty vessel for a redemption tale. The character’s trials and tribulations seem rote, if present at all, leaving Adam to rely entirely on Cooper’s charisma to feel for him.

Adam speaks of wishing to cook food so satisfying that it makes the consumer want to stop eating. BURNT is more like potato chips, something that is appealing enough to eat mindlessly but is otherwise insubstantial. Director John Wells and screenwriter Steven Knight keep events moving along briskly. They are most successful in detailing and depicting the workings of a kitchen and the trends that run through the business. There’s more drama in the contemplation between using the frying pan or sous vide than in Adam’s pursuit of his profession’s highest honor.

Grade: C+

Wet Hot American Summer

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER (David Wain, 2001)

Hormones and emotions are running high at Camp Firewood on the last day of the summer of 1981. In WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER the teenage counselors and adult administrators are looking for love, especially if it’s been elusive during these muggy months, while their pre-teen charges are sad over the imminent separation from their new best friends.

Camp director Beth (Janeane Garofalo) has her eye on vacationing astrophysics associate professor Henry (David Hyde Pierce). Shy counselor Coop (Michael Showalter) is infatuated with Katie (Marguerite Moreau), but she’s dating resident bad boy Andy (Paul Rudd). Big-talking Victor (Ken Marino) is desperate to score with a ready and willing Abby (Marisa Ryan), but being assigned to take some boys a couple hours away for whitewater rafting may thwart his chance. Susie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) are preoccupied with organizing the evening’s talent show. Arts and crafts teacher Gail (Molly Shannon), whose marriage is in shambles, is about as stable as a macaroni art project.

Written by The State’s Showalter and David Wain, who also directs, and featuring other members of the sketch comedy troupe, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER unfolds in short episodes from the final day of the season. It begins as a straightforward spoof of late 1970s and early 1980s camp films, programming seemingly in heavy rotation on pay cable movie channels in the mid-’80s. (MEATBALLS, a clear inspiration for this film, is the most prominent example.)

True to The State’s absurdist style, the film evolves into something much weirder and more unpredictable. The humor is rooted in intentional continuity errors, non sequiturs, and montages riffing on films with no relevance to camp comedies. There’s a distinct hit-and-miss quality to the various ideas they’re playing with, but enough of these strange jokes connect for WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER to succeed. For instance, a pep talk before and team response to a big game subverts expectations. Rudd behaves like a petulant toddler when ordered to clean up the mess he makes in the cafeteria.

The execution and exaggeration of the counselors going on an over-the-top bender during an infrequent opportunity to go into town make the montage sufficiently funny, but what elevates the scene is how it reflects real camp life. The same goes for the talent show scene and its host Alan Shemper (Showalter), a Catskills comedian who hasn’t written a joke too hacky to tell. The gag is that none of what hits the camp stage is funny, but the insular community and campers starved for entertainment eat it up. The outsized reactions serve as the punchlines.

In addition to the actors already mentioned, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER also features Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Meloni, and Michael Ian Black. Like FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and DAZED AND CONFUSED, the cast is a remarkable assemblage of future stars. Many are now bigger names than those top-billed during the film’s 2001 release.

With a cast decked out in ringer tees with iron-ons in Cooper Black font, tube socks, puka shell necklaces, muscle shirts, and midriffs, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER evokes warm memories of movies that likely weren’t very good. Oddly, the film plays better when thinking back to it than it necessarily does while watching it. That quality likely owes to the scattershot nature of the humor, but it also indicates that like the best comedies, it improves over time and repeated viewings.

Grade: B-

Silver Linings Playbook

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (David O. Russell, 2012)

Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has resided at a Baltimore psychiatric facility for eight months when his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) arrives to see that he is discharged in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  Diagnosed with a bipolar disorder after beating the stuffing out of a man having an affair with his wife Nikki (Brea Bee), Pat is better than he was before being admitted.  He’s lost a lot of weight and talks about having a positive mental attitude, but his improvements cover up the fact that he’s still struggling to control his explosive anger.

Pat moves into the attic of his parents’ Philadelphia home eager to fix what his violent outburst ruined.  Although Pat is laser focused on repairing his marriage with Nikki, everyone else doesn’t seem to think it’s such a good idea.  For one, she has a restraining order, so Pat isn’t supposed to communicate with her.  His friend Ronnie (John Ortiz) tries to set him up with Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), an emotionally damaged widow, but Pat thinks she’s even more messed up than he is.  He reconsiders getting to know Tiffany when his therapist points out that helping her as a friend would be good for him too.  Also, Tiffany says she can get a letter to Nikki for him.  The catch is that in return Pat must be her partner in a dance competition.

On the surface SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a raucous romantic comedy, but its real interests are superstition and delusion.  In a world that can be senseless and cruel, dealing with pain and disappointment through irrational beliefs or rituals can provide comfort and order.  Pat puts his trust in the self-improvement system and psychotherapy.  His father Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), running books to make ends meet since he was laid off, casts his lot with obsessive-compulsive behavior and sports and combines them when it comes to rooting on the Eagles.  Donning a favorite team’s jersey doesn’t help them win, and wearing black while in mourning won’t bring back a loved one. Religion isn’t explicitly mentioned, although both Pats wear necklaces bearing the face of Christ.  Dressing in these ways can give relief, though.  

Whether or not one sees putting faith in any of these spots as silly or meaningless, they aren’t necessarily problematic unless they harm others or cause self-incapacitation.  Of course, that’s where the delusion comes in and the source of these characters’ struggles.  Pat can’t fully recover until he accepts that his wife may not want anything to do with him again and that he ought to stay on his meds.  Serial flings won’t grant Tiffany the freedom to shed her grief.  The tension and confusion pinging inside these characters’ brains have them poised on the knife’s edge.  Writer-director David O. Russell emphasizes their jittery mindsets and boundary issues through editing and camera placement and movements that indicate manic depression.

From the taboo scenario in SPANKING THE MONKEY to the protagonist’s combative family in THE FIGHTER, Russell’s films feed on chaos and relationship dysfunction. The humor in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK flows from unfiltered words and deeds. Cooper and Lawrence’s scenes crackle with their blunt and hilarious assessments of each other’s neuroses.  Both give excellent comedic performances that avoid playing mental illness as a colorful quirk.  While there’s a lot of brutal truth telling in their exchanges, tenderness and vulnerability underline the sharpness.  

The romantic comedy formula often contends that people being horrid to one another masks a deep, abiding affection that will eventually emerge.  It’s a crock but nevertheless that’s what gets stressed time and again.  The difference in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is that presenting abrasive personalities is a distancing technique for scared people struggling to recognize their willingness to love and be loved.

Grade: B+

Hit & Run

HIT & RUN (David Palmer and Dax Shepard, 2012)

The choice Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard) faces in HIT & RUN is tough but simple. He can support his girlfriend Annie (Kristen Bell) and move with her to Los Angeles, where she is virtually assured of getting her dream professorial job if she makes the scheduled interview, or Charlie can let her go and end a meaningful relationship so he stays safe and secure 500 miles away in witness protection in Milton, California.  She’s willing to sacrifice the opportunity to remain with him, but he can’t allow that to be an option.

While Annie knows her boyfriend is under the watch of bumbling U.S. marshal Randy Anderson (Tom Arnold), she doesn’t know the extent of Charlie’s past.  He was a getaway driver who testified against his friends and accomplices.  He’s been away from L.A. for four years and now goes by an assumed name, but returning to his old stomping grounds could still be dangerous.  Charlie throws caution to the wind, eases his 1967 black, custom-built Lincoln Continental out of storage, and sets out for the big city with his best gal.  

The car is in impeccable condition.  It’s also the one thing that can connect Charlie to his history.  Annie’s jealous ex-boyfriend Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) has long been suspicious of Charlie, so when he sees him leaving town with her in the Continental, he calls in the license plate number to his police officer brother Terry (Jess Rowland). From the license plate Gil learns Charlie’s real name, which he uses to dig up news of his old partners in crime and inform dreadlocked Alex Dmitri (Bradley Cooper) that his turncoat pal is coming their direction.  What was to be an inconspicuous return trip becomes a chase, with Gil, Alex and associates, the police, and exasperated fed Randy on the lookout for Charlie and Annie.

There’s no mistaking HIT & RUN as a showcase piece for co-director, writer, and co-lead Shepard, but it’s not the one expected from its set-up.  He’s made a chatty romantic comedy with bitchin’ cars and coarse humor rather than the action movie it might be mistaken for at face value.  Shepard grants equal respect to the mechanics of relationships and automobiles in accommodating the unknown history that comes with being involved with a new person or a used vehicle.  Unlike a lot of relationship-based films, this one understands the need for accepting the mileage that can’t be rolled back.

While the discursive nature of the screenplay can stall HIT & RUN a little too often, the conversational detours often rate as the best parts.  Charlie and Annie’s pillow talk in the opening scene performs spectacularly in establishing their personalities and vulnerabilities.  While on the road their discussion about what he considers an inoffensive use of a slur and her objection to it beautifully and humorously dissects language and intention.  Alex’s shared opinion and object lesson on dog food stands among the comedic highlights while giving shading to the film’s ostensible villain.

Shepard has consistently proven to be a funny but often underappreciated contributor in supporting roles.  His performance ought to draw attention to the appealing, offbeat actor he is.  As a writer and director Shepard proves to be generous with the other actors. (Co-director David Palmer surely deserves credit in this area too.)  Bell, his off-screen partner, receives one of her best roles since VERONICA MARS ended.  HIT & RUN’s Annie is more than a stock girlfriend who needs to be saved or is holding back the male protagonist.  Bell’s timing is sharp in the comedic give and take, and she sells the equality and emotional stress in her relationship with Charlie.  Cooper does weird and funny work without running wild.  HIT & RUN isn’t always a smooth ride, but the quirks and misfires make it as distinctive as the actor behind many of the film’s creative choices.      

Grade: B-

All About Steve

ALL ABOUT STEVE (Phil Traill, 2009)

In ALL ABOUT STEVE crossword puzzle creator Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) grudgingly accepts a parentally-arranged blind date with cable news videographer Steve (Bradley Cooper). Upon seeing her handsome date Mary becomes hot to trot, but her intensity and incessant chatter lead Steve to cut short their time together. His job provides the convenient excuse of a breaking news assignment out of town. Steve politely but insincerely says that he wishes Mary could accompany him.

Instantly obsessed with Steve, Mary misreads the situation and decides that fate is telling her to follow him around the country. The situation worsens when Steve's co-worker, pompous news reporter Hartman Hughes (Thomas Haden Church), encourages Mary's seemingly delusional actions.

ALL ABOUT STEVE is constructed as a romantic comedy, but Mary's tireless, stalker-like behavior suggests that this ought to be a horror film. There's that and the matter of ALL ABOUT STEVE being dreadfully unfunny. Hartman feeds her delusions, but Mary's inability to decode social cues and her ceaseless cheer are intended as cute quirks, as though she's an innocent venturing into the world for the first time.

Bullock plays Mary as a sweet savant with no concept of how demented she is. Twinkly tics and all, Bullock's performance is an irritating one, to say the least. It's as if Poppy, the positive thinking main character of HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, wandered into this movie and lost all self-awareness.

Propagating ALL ABOUT STEVE'S spectacular misconception is its drumbeat of up with the unusual, down with the press. There's a touch of Billy Wilder's ACE IN THE HOLE to ALL ABOUT STEVE'S media criticism, although if that parallel was intended, director Phil Traill and screenwriter Kim Barker missed that the gathering gawkers and carnival building up around a rescue site were not positive developments.

ALL ABOUT STEVE is an atypical romantic comedy, but different for different's sake doesn't automatically equate to good.

Grade: D