T2 Trainspotting

T2 TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle, 2017)

Twenty years after stealing money from his friends in TRAINSPOTTING and absconding to Amsterdam, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to Edinburgh, Scotland. The death of his mother in T2 TRAINSPOTTING brings Mark home after such a long time gone, but he decides to revisit his old pals while he’s back in town. The intervening years have not treated them well. Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner) continues to struggle regularly with a heroin addiction. Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) has switched up the drug that has him hooked these days, and he indulges in it in the time between running a failing pub and blackmailing the men he entraps with the help of Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova), a Bulgarian woman who sees herself as more business partner than girlfriend. Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is serving a long-term prison sentence, which is to Mark’s benefit until the volatile Scot escapes. Despite what he says, Mark’s life isn’t substantially better than theirs.

Although Mark provides restitution to Simon for what he took two decades ago, Simon still smarts at the betrayal. He intends to gain his revenge by rekindling his friendship with Mark, teaming up on a business venture, and then ruin him. Mark’s reunion with Spud resulted in saving him from killing himself. Now Mark hopes to supplant his friend’s harmful addiction with a healthier one. Meanwhile, Begbie returns to his old ways and looks forward to having his son join him in his illegal pursuits.

In TRAINSPOTTING twentysomething junkies Mark and Simon talked about the brief window in life when you have “it” and then “it” is gone. They’re speaking in regard to musicians, actors, and athletes, but they could just as well be referring to their future selves. Their lives were certainly nothing spectacular then, but through the gloom of their unsatisfactory present in T2 TRAINSPOTTING and the fog of nostalgia, that period looks like their heyday. As a young adult Simon believes that everyone accumulates years and can’t hack it anymore. He’s correct in the sense that if you choose to live by such a philosophy, what a drag it is getting old.

So the characters wallow in their self-pity and self-destructiveness, striving to regain what mostly wasn’t so great the first time around. They return to bad habits, make many of the same mistakes, and, incidentally, have their share of good times. In both films director Danny Boyle shows what could attract them to such wasting-away lifestyles and sets their zonked-out bliss to pulsing soundtracks. It doesn’t look like my idea of fun, but Boyle succeeds at showing the attraction even as he offsets it with ample scenes illustrating the high costs.

T2 TRAINSPOTTING isn’t as joyful as its predecessor and appropriately so. However misguided, there’s more romance in youth being careless than middle-aged men behaving the same way. While this lot has often decided poorly, Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge place these choices within the context of the economic limitations in their surroundings. It’s not an excuse, but it is a symptom. As Boyle does frequently in T2 TRAINSPOTTING, the thrilling final sequence juxtaposes the past and the present. It also bookends the films with Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”. While a lot hasn’t changed for the character as the remixed track roars, there are some differences to give hope that maybe the past won’t always be repeated.

Grade: B+

Jane Got a Gun

JANE GOT A GUN (Gavin O’Connor, 2016)

Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) tends to her bullet-riddled, fur-trapping husband Bill (Noah Emmerich), but it’s only a matter of time until the Bishop Boys find and kill them at their home secreted on the New Mexico Territory’s frontier. In JANE GOT A GUN she hides their daughter with a friend and goes to gunslinger Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) to hire him for protection. Jane and Dan are former lovers who were engaged to be wed when he returned from the Civil War. He still nurtures a resentment after coming back to discover she fled from their Missouri hometown and has taken up with another man. That she replaced him with Bill, whose head carries a bounty from the law and the local gang, wounds him even more grievously. Despite his objections, Dan agrees to assist Jane with fending off John Bishop (Ewan McGregor) and his scurrilous band of men.

To say that JANE GOT A GUN had a rocky road to get into theaters is like comparing traveling by wagon train with flying on the Concorde. Within days of the production’s start it lost two leading actors and the original director. One of the replacement actors eventually withdrew too. Edgerton switched from playing the villain to the hero. The actual release date ended up being almost a year and half after one was announced when the dust settled over cast and crew defections. Plus, a distribution partner went bankrupt.

None of that matters in terms of determining if the finished film is good or not, but it helps to explain why JANE GOT A GUN feels so ragged. The film is often at odds with itself. Director Gavin O’Connor attempts to incorporate the feminist point of view and lyrical style with the traditional western plot but comes up lacking a distinct perspective, poeticism, and narrative fluidity. The nonlinear structure does the story no favors as it ping-pongs between 1871 and the recent past for the characters. With minimal scenes McGregor’s Bishop gets lost in the shuffle, standing in as a monstrous villain known for the fearsome way he’s spoken of more than any impression he leaves. The tension between Jane and Dan suffers as well. Rather than flashbacks adding to the sense of tragedy in their relationship and the triangle, the scenes from a few years before merely fill in the blanks that the film has left unanswered until those points. The ending definitely does not seem earned.

Although afflicted with dullness, the film revives momentarily with Dan’s ingenuity in trying to level the fight between the vicious attackers and the badly outgunned and the initial outburst on the Hammond homestead. Still, as so-called cursed films go, JANE GOT A GUN is notable for being so ordinary in its flawed realization.

Grade: D+

Mortdecai

MORTDECAI (David Koepp, 2015)

MORTDECAI features a type of comedy that has fallen out of fashion in mainstream American cinema. Although this farce doesn’t lack broad humor and innuendo, it prizes light silliness and suggestion over blunt vulgarity. Recurring jokes rely on the protagonist’s unusual and unreciprocated fondness for his curly facial hair than scatology. In fact, this is the mildest R-rated comedy to hit theaters in who knows how long, and it probably contains less objectionable content than many PG-13 films. Screenwriter Eric Aronson, adapting a Kyril Bonfiglioli comedic novel, seeks laughs through wordplay and the gentrified class’s out of touch behavior. Director David Koepp dresses the film in a Continental style and attitude, linking it more with 1960s comedies than contemporary lowbrow entertainment. While MORTDECAI’s mystery-solving husband and wife don’t work together much on screen, Koepp may also be trying to draw a line from THE THIN MAN films of the 1930s and ‘40s to the loving couple in his movie. If only MORTDECAI were funnier.

Mustachioed, gap-toothed Lord Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) owes £8 million in back taxes and is on the verge of insolvency when a last ditch opportunity to make an enormous sum of money without selling any possessions presents itself. A restorer in Oxford has been murdered, and the Goya painting she was working on has been stolen. Mortdecai’s connections to the seedier side of the art collecting world means that old school chum and MI5 inspector Alistair Martland (Ewan McGregor) must turn to him for assistance in locating the painting. If successful, Mortdecai stands to make a substantial amount for his efforts.

The task comes with its share of danger, as terrorist Emil Strago (Jonny Pasvolsky) is suspected of murder by crossbow and art thievery. While Mortdecai and his manservant Jock (Paul Bettany) bumble their way into trouble and upon various clues, his wife Joanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) conducts her own investigation by exploiting Martland’s lengthy infatuation with her to learn key information. All parties know the missing Goya is valuable, but they come to learn that it could be a long-lost masterpiece also rumored to have a code to Hermann Göring’s Swiss bank account scrawled on the back. If this is indeed the case, it is worth an unimagined fortune.

The preponderance of mustache-related humor represents a severe miscalculation by the filmmakers. Depp looks suitably ridiculous with what rests above his upper lip, but MORTDECAI goes all-in on with numerous jokes about this characteristic as if the defining hairy growth is so inherently hilarious that it merits quips at its expense with clockwork regularity. Mortdecai encountering Los Angeles hipsters with ornate facial hair marks one of the rare occasions when a follicular jab hits an easy target, but it hardly compensates for all the other failed attempts.

Depp, seemingly in Peter Sellers mode, can be amusing playing clueless privilege, as when he mistakes a hotel key card for a credit card, although too often he counts on the mustache to generate comedic delight. He’s more successful revealing the character as an overgrown child, such as the time when he touches a cactus’s spine and exclaims in pain, as if there could be any other outcome. MORTDECAI also needs more sly, witty exchanges like the one in which Joanna asks Martland if he thinks she could keep a secret about having an affair and then dismisses it as pointless when he suggests she could get away with it. MORTDECAI perks up in those moments when given over to its fizzy nature, but returning to those mustache jokes and getting bogged down in plot in the third act flattens what mild charm bubbles to the surface.

Grade: C

The Impossible

THE IMPOSSIBLE (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012)

THE IMPOSSIBLE dramatizes one incredible true story to emerge from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the deadliest natural disaster of its kind on record.  Like many others, Henry and Maria Bennett (Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts) and their three boys have come to Khao Lak, Thailand for Christmas vacation.  They’re relaxing by the resort’s pool when the tsunami hits the southeast Asian coast.

Maria and her oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) surface from the floodwater near each other.  He’s scraped up but otherwise in good shape.  She’s received large wounds in her leg and side but, with her son’s assistance, is able to hobble to the safety of a tree. They suspect the rest of their family is dead.  Their own survival is also a question.

Some locals eventually discover them and provide help.  Maria is taken to the hospital, but her injuries and a staff overwhelmed by the number of patients mean that she’s far from being in the clear.

Director Juan Antonio Bayona stages the tsunami as though an enormous monster has risen from the ocean.  The birds are spooked, and in the distance trees in its path are toppled like blades of grass by a lawnmower.  Then the wave spills into the resort, casting people aside like rag dolls and smashing the buildings.  In the even more terrifying sequence that follows, survivors are desperate to keep their heads above water while being swept across the flooded landscape.  Potentially dangerous obstacles bob along the surface while even more hide below.  With heart-stopping immediacy, Bayona plunges into the midst of the disaster while making it seem unimaginable that anyone could make it out alive if near the shore when the giant wave first reaches land.

The challenges in the disaster’s aftermath are anything but minor, yet once the survivors reach safe ground, THE IMPOSSIBLE loses dramatic urgency.  For as tragic and horrific an event as this was, the Bennetts have a relatively easy time of it in retrospect. At least that’s how the screenplay frames their experiences, especially in comparison to the hardships of their fellow tourists and the mostly ignored Thai residents.  The post-tsunami period brings chaos of a different kind, but the protagonists manage to navigate it as though it’s but an inconvenience.

Few actresses suffer as expressively on screen as Watts.  In THE IMPOSSIBLE she beautifully conveys a mother’s will to endure her suffering for the sake of those she loves.  Holland does good work as a kid who is forced to be strong in an unthinkable situation.  THE IMPOSSIBLE doesn’t turn a blind eye to the physical and emotional devastation, but the comparatively uncomplicated path it follows to arrive at a reassuring conclusion minimizes the impact.

Grade: C+

Cassandra's Dream

CASSANDRA'S DREAM (Woody Allen, 2007)

Again using London as a backdrop, Woody Allen continues his exploration of the evil that people do with CASSANDRA'S DREAM. Working class brothers Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) manage to get by, but like most people, both want just a little bit more. First it's a small sailboat they can't afford until Terry wins a sizable bet at the dog track. They name the boat Cassandra's Dream after the dog that brought them the unexpected windfall.

Terry's hot streak continues at the poker tables. While he vows to stop before getting in over his head, Terry is seduced to continue so he can rake in enough to buy a home for himself and his girlfriend Kate (Sally Hawkins). Inevitably his luck ends with disastrous consequences.

Ian, though, is in no position to bail out his brother. He also needs money. He fantasizes about investing in California hotels that could give him the financial freedom to ditch the drudgery of working in his father's struggling restaurant. Ian speaks as though this dream is the reality he is living. Such big talk, along with the luxury cars he borrows from the auto shop where Terry works, allows Ian to impress and begin dating Angela (Hayley Atwell), an actress with expensive tastes. To hold onto her, he must become the bigtime investor he claims to be.

Terry and Ian cling to the hope that their wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), always so supportive of his less fortunate sister and her family, will give them the cash they want. Howard is happy to help as long as the boys will do him one favor. He is under investigation and faces the possibility of losing everything and going to prison. If Terry and Ian will kill the the man ready to testify against Howard, all will be well for everyone.

As in MATCH POINT, Allen is fascinated with the wickedness humans are capable of justifying in the name of self-preservation. Terry relies too much on alcohol, pills, and gambling, and Ian's ambition outstrips his ability; however, neither are bad guys, just flawed individuals, until they accept the terms of Howard's proposal. CASSANDRA'S DREAM slowly ups the ante and provides the means for escape, but no matter how reluctantly they entered into the agreement, Terry and Ian make a choice that cannot be reversed.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM is fraught with uneasy tension as the brothers debate ethics and plot murder. The decision the characters ultimately choose seems as predestined as any in Greek tragedies, yet the film is chilling in depicting how Terry and Ian convince themselves that they have no other recourse. Divine supervision and reproach is absent in the universe Allen constructs, which is precisely why he theorizes people are capable of committing terrible acts.

McGregor shows Ian effortlessly slipping into amorality when tempted with the promise of a comfortable life. He's like the cat that eats the canary after a cost-benefit analysis. Terry, a car mechanic accustomed to dirty hands, doesn't have the compartmentalizing ability of his brother. Farrell's tortured performance is the film's guilty conscience. Seeing the insides of this rough-and-tumble actor gnaw at him brings the torment into sharp focus.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM is not a top-notch Woody Allen film, but this dark drama is a worthy addition to the director's career-long search for meaning in a world where randomness and cruelty often reign.

Grade: B