RoboCop

ROBOCOP (José Padilha, 2014)

OmniCorp is making a fortune using robotic law enforcement overseas, and CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) can’t wait to deploy it on the streets of the United States.  Sufficient Congressional and public resistance requires finding a solution to persuade the masses that his machines provide a safe method of policing.  The lack of a human element in decision-making is the sticking point for many, so the way to alleviate public fears is to enhance a wounded officer with the latest technological advancements.

With so much riding on the experiment, the perfect candidate is needed to inhabit the suit.  They find him in Detroit cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), who is just a head, hands, and thorax after being targeted in a car bombing.  His grieving wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) consents to the procedure as a way of keeping him alive but fails to consider that doing so turns him into corporate property.  As Alex’s intellect and emotional capacity prove problematic in testing, leading OmniCorp scientist Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) is instructed to program the human element out of him.

The 1987 ROBOCOP satirized corporate greed and questioned putting trust in technology.  Director José Padilha and screenwriter Joshua Zetumer’s ROBOCOP consigns the biting humor to segments with Samuel L. Jackson’s cable news blowhard stumping for the adoption of robotic security forces.  Reflecting the times, the challenge in this version isn’t whether such science should be used for law and order but who is controlling it and to what end.  For instance, in the near future drones are almost certain to become more widely employed, so the question becomes how they are incorporated without infringing on the rights and safety of citizens.  Other thematically relevant information is lobbed into the new ROBOCOP, but overall the film plays as though it lacks a point of view.  It seeks to get credit for providing food for thought without digesting.

The talented cast, which also includes Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jennifer Ehle, and Jackie Earle Haley, add class to what has the potential to be savage material.  Like the new, shiny ROBOCOP with the latest special effects and slick production values, the actors are simply adornments.  Respected actors, snippets of sociopolitical commentary and flashy computer effects are collected badges to claim something vital is present.  It looks good but lacks the personality or depth.  

With more focus placed on the forces manipulating him behind the scenes and the family that misses what he was, it can seem like the RoboCop character is an afterthought in his own film.  Part of the appeal of Peter Weller’s version was seeing a cyborg lawman push around the city’s scumbags in ways a mere man would be incapable of doing.  Through no fault of Kinnaman’s, this RoboCop isn’t cleaning up the city so much as he’s trying to solve his own murder and get his emotions to override his programming.  What Murphy looks like when the suit is removed is a great and disgusting reveal, yet there’s little identification with what remains of the man who’s an unwilling tool of the powerful.

Grade: C

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY opens in the thick of the Cold War.  It is the early 1970s, and British intelligence, referred to as The Circus, has its upper level shaken up by a failed mission in Hungary in which one of their own is killed.  Agency head Control (John Hurt) is ushered out, as is his close colleague George Smiley (Gary Oldman).

It’s not long, though, until Smiley’s retirement is interrupted with a request to lead a secret investigation into another agent’s claim of a mole at the top of The Circus.  Could new chief Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) or his loyal men Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), or Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) be double agents for the KGB?  
While Smiley interviews accusing agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) and other former Circus employees, his trusted inside man Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) acquires what he needs from headquarters and is his eyes and ears around the office.  

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY begins with a flurry of information that can be overwhelming to sort out at first, but director Tomas Alfredson encourages focus and patience as practiced by Smiley to make sense of it all.  The gloriously drab visuals, save for some splendid wallpaper and soundproofing, lay bare the difficult work of rooting out answers amid the ambiguity of the characters’ actions.  Yet the information in the frame is carefully ordered in verticals and horizontals, suggesting that while a pattern of rogue behavior may not stand out, it can be spotted with careful examination.

After all, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is concerned with the art of observation, especially when the stakes are high.  Being able to read people and relationships, catch glimpses in reflected surfaces, and pluck details from notes and audio tapes is critical to the task at hand.  Alfredson’s marvelous precision in showing how an agent might do difficult espionage work is as thrilling as any overblown James Bond setpiece.  Guillam’s plan to smuggle records out of intelligence headquarters doesn’t have him hanging off of buildings but dazzles with an elegant beauty and daring found in the simplicity with which the scheme is conceived and executed.  Whether the spies are functioning in realistic ways or not, their activities have the ring of truth to them, a quality likely indebted to the novel’s author John le Carre, which is the pen name of a former MI6 agent.

As Smiley, Oldman is the epitome of quiet cool.  He’s the studying man putting the pieces together because he can fade into the background.  He doesn’t say much, but his demeanor speaks volumes.  Peering out from his glasses, he sees and processes until the time to take action arrives.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY conveys a lot with a little.  The exceptional concluding montage, which leaps between the past and present and features devastating match cuts of tears, reveals untold riches about the characters and the secretive lives they lead in the business of intelligence gathering.  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is low key, which is only appropriate, but it is also electrifying when it cuts through the noise to the buried truth.   

Grade: A-

The Book of Eli

THE BOOK OF ELI (Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes, 2010)

In the futuristic parable THE BOOK OF ELI Denzel Washington's title character appears to be one of the last righteous men remaining thirty-one years after the apocalypse. Food and water are scarce. Small luxuries, such as wetnaps and shampoo, have high trade value. This lone wanderer travels under what seems to be divine protection as he continues across the desolate landscape on a long, slow journey west.

Among Eli's few possessions is a latched, leather-bound Bible that he wraps in a cloth and is willing to guard at all costs. To his knowledge, he may possess the last copy of the Good Book and is looking to deliver it to those he deems worthy.

Eli's path leads him into the town ruled by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who has his men ceaselessly searching for a Bible. Carnegie wishes to use the religious text as a weapon for controlling the town's population and taking over other communities. When he learns that Eli may have a Bible, he stops at nothing to obtain it.

Drawing upon the tradition of post-apocalyptic films, directors Albert and Allen Hughes don't deliver much in the way of novelty or surprises in THE BOOK OF ELI. The brothers use familiar cinematic language to strive for and achieve a mytho-poetic vision of a future in desperate need of a savior. Conjuring images of the Wild West via the Old Testament, the directors and cinematographer Don Burgess find stark beauty in the American wasteland's dusty, bleached landscape and blown out sky.

Remarkably little happens in THE BOOK OF ELI, but the Hughes brothers inflate and sustain the tone so that the confrontation feels like nothing less than the battle for humanity's salvation is at stake. Armed with charisma, Washington gives Eli the purpose and certainty of a prophet. It's the kind of resolute performance expected of the charismatic star, and he does not disappoint. Despite an unimposing stature, Oldman's oily antagonist derives power and intimidation through his capacity for wicked intelligence.

As a testament to the importance of the written word in its lowercase and uppercase meanings, THE BOOK OF ELI makes for an odd but compelling action film in defense of literacy and Christian faith. Both can be distorted and employed for nefarious reasons, but when utilized properly, they have the ability to inspire and elevate.

Grade: B

(Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)