David Mamet takes drama to prison

 

 David Mamet's Henry Johnson -- his first film in 18 years -- revolves around men who might be classified as either predators or prey. 

  First presented as a play in 2023, Henry Johnson relies on Mamet's ability to turn the tables on us and his characters, providing plot-twisting reveals that steadily raise the dramatic stakes. True to form, the movie delivers its bitter pill of a conclusion straight and without soothing chaser. 

    Four major scenes are given continuity by the work of Evan Jonigkeit, who portrays the title character. 

   In the early going, Henry asks his boss (Chris Bauer) to hire a newly released convict with whom Henry became acquainted during his college days. Our sympathies go to Henry, who seems intent on doing the right thing by someone who has, in his words, "paid his debt to society." 

  The unseen criminal, we learn, served time for manslaughter, having induced a miscarriage against the will of a woman he had gotten pregnant. Boss and employ bat around questions about guilt and punishment.

  If you know Mamet, you know that our initial impressions probably will be undermined. No need to say more except to note that Henry himself has laid the ground work that will turn him into a prisoner. On day one, he encounters Gene (Shia LaBeouf), a convict who spins shrewdly compelling monologues about matters of immediate and philosophical consequence. 

  LaBeouf deftly masters the flow of Mamet's dialogue, flourishing in the director's world. Jonigkeit ably creates questions about Henry's ability to survive in prison, but he's playing the movie's least interesting character, a bit of pawn in other men's power games.

   The drama concludes in the prison library, where Gene has helped Henry land a job. At this point, Gene tries to school Henry about what he sees as the manipulative intentions of the female prison psychologist. He challenge Henry to take action.

   Here, the story stretches plausibility, contriving to arm Henry and bring him into another conversation, this one with Jerry (Dominic Hoffman), a prison guard he holds captive. Near the end of his tenure, Jerry has seen everything the job has to offer. Hoffman's performance matches the others in its excellence.

   Every Mamet enthusiast knows that the once-heralded playwright, director, and screenwriter has shifted political gears. Once reliably liberal, Mamet now adamantly advances his brand of conservatism. I, too, have had difficult coming to terms with the "new" Mamet, but I still found myself caught in Henry Johnson's grip.

   My favorite Mamet movie remains Glengarry Glen Ross. Perhaps because its focus is narrower, Henry Johnson lacks Glengarry’s pathos, humor, and satirical sting. But Mamet's mastery over structure  can't be denied, and he knows how to push us to places we may not want to go.

    Maybe that's the point -- to rub our noses in the harshness the movie reveals. Whether this predatory world corresponds with the reality the rest of us perceive is open to question, but damn if Mamet doesn't compel us to at least consider the possibility.

The action in this 'Mission' delivers

 

  I enjoyed Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning (2023) but grumbled about the movie's two-hour and 41-minute length. And that was only Part I. 

 The second chapter, Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning, takes two hours and 51 minutes to conclude an epic battle between the IM force and The Entity, a hunk of super-AI intelligence that lingers from Part I and threatens to wipe out all of humanity. 

   Length and story aside, it’s unlikely that the audiences that flock to Final Reckoning will be discussing the dangers artificial intelligence poses to human life as they leave the theater.

   What will they be talking about? If you said “stunts,” you’re right on target.

    More on that in a moment.

   Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie begin Final Reckoning in a wobbly fashion, using flashbacks from previous movies as refreshers but also generating a bit of confusion.

   Once the movie settles in, the story becomes a springboard for a couple of major set pieces — one involving a sunken Russian submarine, the other centering on an airborne battle between Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Gabriel (Esai Morales), the movie’s primary villain. 

   Gabriel wants to rule humanity by controlling The Entity; Hunt wants to save humanity by destroying The Entity. The aerial action takes off with each character flying a biplane in a fight that's augmented by an antagonistic history between Gabriel and Hunt to which the screenplay alludes.

   Both nerve-wracking sequences are executed with  exceptional skill and without benefit of CGI. As Hunt plies the freezing depths of the Bering Sea to find a device needed to fulfill his mission, the sub threatens to roll off a steep ocean precipice into even deeper waters. Unmoored torpedos slam against the sub’s interior and threaten to clobber Hunt as he conducts his search.

   The aerial antics find Hunt hanging from the struts of his plane and executing high-flying moves that make you wonder how they were done.

    Forget dialogue, Dead Reckoning is at its best when it allows action to speak louder than words. And keep this in mind: Each of these set pieces functions as a mini-movie: goals are set, obstacles arise, and a resolutions are reached.

    Much of the IM cast returns with notable contributions from Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, technician supreme. Hayley Atwell portrays Grace, a thief who has become part of Ethan’s crew and who flirts with the role of love interest. Ving Rhames returns as Luther Stickell, a character who serves as the voice of the franchise, offering an ode to Hunt and those heroes who, as he puts it, “live in the shadows.”

   Angela Bassett adds gravitas to the far-fetched plot machinations. As the president of the US, she must decide whether to trust the roguish Hunt or listen to the generals who want her to unleash nuclear Armageddon, part of the screenplay's growing accretion of risk. 

     The movie’s mildly ambiguous ending could signal the conclusion of a series that’s in its 30th year. Or it could suggest that there’s more to come — with or without Cruise in the lead. Cruise’s once boyish face shows the beginnings of jowls. At age 62, he may have had enough. 

    Whatever decision Cruise makes, it’s a good bet that audiences will follow. Sure, much of Final Reckoning proves uneven, but with this level of excitement, complaints seem beside the point.

A fun look at Cheech & Chong

   Movies rarely score a double triumph, connecting with their audience and with the national mood at the precise moment of their release. 

  That's my recollection of Up in Smoke (1978), the landmark Cheech & Chong comedy that focused on two pot-smoking guys who were too stoned to care about much of anything. They were also funny enough to create a near celebratory feeling among their fans, many of whom were as stoned as the protagonists of Up in Smoke, a road movie that became a kind of countercultural highlight reel.

  Up in Smoke was followed by eight other Cheech & Chong movies, the last an animated feature released in 2013. Although the Cheech & Chong filmography is decidedly mixed, the duo remained synonymous with pot-driven mirth.

   Now comes Cheech & Chong's Last Movie, a look at the individual and dual careers of Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong. Marin, now 78, has appeared in other movies; Chong, 86, has done solo work. He also became a cannabis activist, and, in 2003, served nine months in a federal prison for selling drug paraphernalia over the internet.

   Billed as a documentary, Last Movie revolves around a car trip through the desert taken by Marin and Chong, who recall their lives and comedy exploits. Some of the scenes feel staged or, at least, prearranged, but the two still have chemistry, and the movie -- rich with clips and period footage -- serves up a tasty hunk of nostalgia.

   Marin and Chong were an odd couple. Marin, a Mexican-American, grew up in South Central LA. He wanted to be a potter. Half-Chinese and raised in Canada, Chong enjoyed early success as a musician.

   Before the movies, Cheech & Chong made a hit comedy album under the tutelage of music producer Lou Adler, who produced and received a co-directing credit for Up in Smoke. The movie grossed $104 million worldwide, but Cheech or Chong had signed a famously bad deal that favored Adler and others.

    Adler, by the way, appears in the film, and Cheech & Chong acknowledge the important role he played in helping them transition from improvisational club appearances to a national phenomenon.

    Eventually, Cheech & Chong lost some of that loving feeling for each other, arguing about who would direct their movies and who was responsible for writing them. They never officially broke up, but they had issues.

    Whether director Dave Bushell has made a "pure" documentary or not, Last Movie proves entertaining and informative. It also reveals the evolving personalities of comics who made the kind of pop cultural splash few have been able to match. 

'Clown in a Cornfield' plays with cliches

  Fear the clown. If you're familiar with horror movies, you know clowns are often associated with terror. (See movies such as It.)  In Clown in a Cornfield, director Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs Evil) follows suit, slamming teenagers in a small Missouri town with an ample dose of mayhem.  

  The town's tie to a clown -- named Frendo -- began with the now defunct Baypen Corn Syrup Company. A small Baypen promotional jack-in-the-box featured a clown. When the clown pops up, death usually follows.

   Clown in a Cornfield is one of those movies in which we wait to see what means will be employed to slash away at the town's youth as Craig plays with cliches: A celebratory parade where blood will flow, for example.

    Throughout, genre cliches are preposterously magnified, like jokes with a hundred punchlines. The movie makes abundant use of chainsaws as weapons, and we know the local sheriff (Will Sasso) can't be trusted because sheriffs in these kinds of movies usually reveal their dark sides.

   Did I mention that the town's fortunes have been declining since the local plant ceased operations? 

   The story focuses on Quinn (Katie Douglas),  the daughter of a widowed doctor (Aaron Abrams) who has fled Brooklyn, NY, for a more rural environment.

   Douglas does well as a newbie kid who fits right in with town's outcasts, and Kevin Durand proves amusingly creepy as one of the parents. 

  At times Craig's approach seems nervy. At other times, it feels self-conscious. But he keeps the film moving and gives it intermittent kick.

  Like many current horror films, this one presumes the audience will take pleasure in being in on the joke, happy to smile knowingly at the graphic invention with which successive murders unfold.

  Craig goofs on genre cliches to be sure, but -- for me-- cleverness can't entirely conceal the familiarity of the drill. Blood is shed, kids are slaughtered, and, by the way, pass the popcorn.

 

Another look at 'Bonjour Tristesse'

  In 1958, director Otto Preminger released Bonjour Tristesse, a film starring Jean Seberg, Deborah Kerr, and David Niven. I never saw that movie, but I've read that it received a better reception in France than in the U.S. 

   Now, the Francoise Sagan novel that inspired Preminger's film has attracted the attention of writer/director Durga Chew-Bose, who again travels to the Côte d'Azur for a story that embeds sharp psycho-sexual undercurrents in an atmosphere of soothing summer softness.

    The story centers on Cecile (Lily McInerny), an 18-year-old who seems to be gliding along nicely until she feels the need to meddle in her widowed father's relationships. 

    Claes Bang (The Square) portrays Raymond, a father who's spending the summer with Cecile and his girlfriend (Nailia Harzoune). He allows Cecile to flounder and make mistakes. He prefers not to give advice. 

    The trio’s emotional balance destabilizes when Anne (Chloe Sevigny) turns up. An assertive long-time friend of Raymond's late wife, she tries to manage Cecile, who seems to need guidance.

     The movie's conflicts sharpen when Anne and Raymond abruptly decide to marry. Cecile, who has her first sexual experience with a young law student (Aliocha Schneider), objects and schemes to derail the impending nuptials.

     Although the screenplay builds toward a tragic and provocative conclusion, the movie remains surprisingly placid. A story that may have seemed daring in the 1950s seldom feels charged with the fresh urgency you'd expect from a movie about a vacation stuffed with so much psychological baggage.

      Note: Sagan, who died at the age of 69 in 2004, was 18 when the novel was published. Note: This edition of Bonjour Tristesse isn’t a period piece; it’s set in the present.

A disappointing second helping

   

       During the sequel, Another Simple Favor, Anna Kendrick's character, a stout-hearted supermom and online influencer, mentions Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diabolique (1958). Don't be misled. Another Simple Favor is no match for Clouzot's devious classic. Not that it needed to be.

    Kendrick, a gifted comic actress, and Blake Lively, fine here as a self-possessed schemer, generate the requisite love/hate sparks, but the movie goes too far in substituting acceptance of the preposterous for suspension of disbelief.   

   Complications begin to accumulate when Lively's Emily, newly released from prison, reenters the life of Kendrick's Stephanie, who was snared in Emily's web of deceit in first film and wrote a book about it.

    Stephanie, who should know better, agrees to serve as maid of honor at Emily's impending wedding. Apparently well rehabilitated from her time in prison, Emily is scheduled to marry a wealthy guy (Michele Morrone) who lives sumptuously in Capri. Turns out he’s a Mafia boss.

   Another Favor benefits from the Capri setting where the wedding occurs and where Stephanie and her literary agent (Alex Newell) are flown on a private jet full of hard-partying guests. Nothing like luxe surroundings to amp up escapist fare. There's a reason you can't imagine a season of The White Lotus in a budget motel on the Jersey shore.

  A heaping basket full of plot twists tends to mangle a talented supporting cast. Elena Sofia Ricci plays the mobster groom’s mom. Allison Janey portrays Emily's aunt, and Elizabeth Perkins earns chuckles as Emily's addled mom.

    Henry Golding briefly reprises his role as Emily's former husband, a character the screenplay contrives to bring to Capri along with his now teenage son Nicky (Ian Ho).

    Once again, a series of murders pushes Stephanie into amateur-sleuth mode, providing formulaic echoes of the movie's predecessor.

   If you haven't seen the first movie, you probably needn't bother with Another Favor, which has been directed by Paul Feig, who also directed the earlier effort. 

    I was traveling when the original opened and only caught up with it recently. Hardly a classic, the first Favor was better than I expected; the second, worse than I had hoped. 

    *Another Simple Favor is now streaming on Prime Video.

He's determined to surf

 

   In The Surfer, Nicolas Cage plays a character who tries to surf on a thug-ruled Australian beach. If you're expecting Beach Boys music and sunny California dreamin', look elsewhere.

   So what's Cage -- known only as The Surfer -- doing in Australia? The Surfer grew up in the town where the beach is located. He was 15 when his father died and his mother relocated to LA. Now,  he's back.

   A successful investment exec teetering on the cusp of divorce, The Surfer wants to surf the beach with his teenage son. He also wants to buy the house in which he spent his early years, a gesture that suggests he's hoping to rediscover lost hope and innocence; i.e., his youth.

    The locals -- led by Scally (Julian McMahon) -- humiliate The Surfer in front of his son (Finn Little) and suggest he'd be wise to leave town and abandon his dream of home ownership.

   Not to be deterred, The Surfer endures a series of torments administered by the surfers, who behave like a cult members. These bros have created the ultimate gated community --only they're the gate. Their families sometimes join them for beachside barbecues.

   A beach bum who lives in his decrepit car (Nicholas Cassim) seems to be one of the sole townies who survives outside the surfing tribe. He blames the surfers for killing his dog. They probably had something to do with his son's death.

   Gradually deprived of his possessions (including his Lexus, cell phone, clothing, watch, and wallet), The Surfer begins to look like a vagrant who's relegated to using the beach's filthy public restroom. Forced to scrounge for food, he contemplates eating a dead rat and swallows bugs for nourishment.  

    One question underlies the tense proceedings: How much humiliation can one man stand? 

   When The Surfer finally strikes back, director Lorcan Finnegan plays his hole card, concentrating on warped notions about manhood that underlie the violent behavior of the surfers.

   Rather than deepening the movie, late-picture revelations turn the story into a kind of perverted frat-boy drama about the need, according to the surfers, to degrade those who seek their acceptance.

   Nothing wounds a movie faster than reasonable questions. It was never clear to me, for example, why The Surfer -- a supposedly savvy businessman -- didn't pursue legal recourse beyond asking a corrupted local cop for help. Hasn’t this guy ever heard of lawyers?

   For me, this undertow of disbelief kept the movie from gaining maximum impact, even when Finnegan self-consciously stirs things up with a signature line. "Eat the rat."

   Having said all that, it should be noted that The Surfer is watchable enough, less a failure than an attempt to draw from the well of fury Cage can unleash but which he does  here with moderation -- at least for him.

'Thunderbolts*' stakes out its own turf

 

   An aggressively bountiful stream of Marvel movies has created a specialized kind of viewer. Loyal fans and aficionados have become astute at parsing the intricacies that connect the numerous characters that populate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

   An essential question raised by every new Marvel movie, then, revolves around whether its appeal extends beyond those who have submitted Marvel dominance.

   Thunderbolts* leans toward the middle when considering its appeal for the uninitiated.  It's difficult for me to call it must viewing, but I enjoyed the movie more than most recent Marvel fare, primarily because of a solid ensemble, a few memorable comic moments, and a commitment to the idea that six misfits are equal to one superhero.

    Here's the deal: A dejected group of MCU characters has been exploited by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). If the Congress learns about these assassins, de Fontaine won't survive an already contentious impeachment hearing. 

    Fearing exposure, de Fontaine contrives to gather these Marvel losers in one place and eliminate them.

    A freshman congressman named Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) wants to topple de Fontaine. In addition to his Congressional day job, Bucky is trying to forget his life as Winter Soldier, an assassin with a prosthetic arm that, at one point, he pulls out of his dishwasher. Nice touch.

    Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) becomes the standout character among those de Fontaine wants to terminate. Raised to be a deadly killer, Yelena, a.k.a. Black Widow, sees her life as empty, a meaningless blip in the encompassing void of an indifferent universe -- or some such.

    John Walker (Wyatt Russell), a bargain-basement Captain America, helps round out the group. Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and Ghost (Hanna John-Kamen) also join the gang.

     All of these characters have Marvel backgrounds but you don't need to know much more about them than you'll learn from watching Thunderbolts*. 

    Know, though, that each Thunderbolt acknowledges a personal history that includes many bad deeds and a fair measure of regret.

    It takes time for director Jake Schreier to distinguish between each of the movie's non-superheroes and, more importantly, to get them to function as a team.

    When the characters meet at the underground facility to which de Fontaine has directed them, the movie introduces an oddball character named Bob (Lewis Pullman). Bob doesn't know how he arrived in the high-tech bunker, but it soon becomes clear that he's been the subject of secret biological experiments arranged by de Fontaine.

      Pullman delivers the film's pivotal performance as a character for whom the internal battle between good and evil becomes literal. Bob, whose name becomes the subject of the movie's best joke, also must learn about the temptations of possessing extreme power. 

     Comic relief and bonhomie arrive courtesy of the bearish Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour); Alexei operates a limo service and refers to himself as Red Guardian. 

     Alexei, who once served as a father figure for Yelena, becomes a cheerleader for group activities. He likes the name, Thunderbolts, which was taken from Yelena's losing childhood soccer team. The others consider it "meh."

    Existential concerns aside, there's plenty of action, the best of it set in New York City, which at one point is shrouded in a creeping dark shadow that looks as if it might have been at home in a Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic. 

    It takes time for the movie to settle in and scenes in which the characters flashback to their formative days aren't always elegantly handled, but the actors -- especially Pugh and Pullman -- find some depth and a few scenes evoke real emotion.

    You'll note the movie's title contains an * (asterisk). You'll have to see Thunderbolts* to discover why, but as Marvel movies go this one entertains and isn't afraid to be corny when it needs to be.

     What do I mean? When was the last time a Marvel movie resolved a major problem with a group hug? It happens here.

   

      

A wan drama fails to spark

 

    Set in post-Korean War America, On Swift Horses wrings much of the life out of a story about two characters trying to find their places during a sexually repressive American moment.

    The movie begins with Lee (Will Poulter) visiting his girlfriend (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Kansas while on leave from the Korean War. Lee hopes to return from the war before settling down with Edgar-Jones's Muriel, who agrees to marry him.

     Chances for a successful marriage seem doomed from the start, partly because Muriel ignites more sparks with Lee's brother Julius (Jacob Elordi), who also served in Korea but isn't returning to the Army.

    Director Daniel Minahan creates expectations for a tale about a love triangle but soon shifts gears, alternately following Julius and Muriel as a way of exploring gay issues against a 1950s backdrop.

    When the story moves to San Diego, Lee -- now home from battle -- tries to realize his middle-class dreams and Muriel begins suffocating under the strictures of a life she doesn't want.

    Sexual identity forms the basis of the connection between Julius and Muriel. Julius knows he's gay; he senses Muriel is attracted to women, even though she has yet to act on her desires. For a time, Muriel tries to maintain her image as a typical married woman but soon begins an affair with Sandra (Sasha Calle), a woman who lives nearby. 

    Sometimes playing hooky from her job as a waitress, Muriel also spends time at the track, socking away her winnings, presumably for the marital split she (and we) know will culminate when she begins dipping her toes into the gay world, circa 1950.

      For his part, Julius heads to Las Vegas instead of joining Lee and Muriel in San Diego as he initially had promised. Skilled at poker, he lands a job identifying cheats at a gambling joint. He also begins a romance with a co-worker (Diego Calva), a young Mexican man with more ambition than Lee and a willingness to cut corners. Danger lurks.

     Elordi doesn't seem to have shed the Elvis vibe he brought to Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (2023); his performance -- or so it struck me -- sometimes plays as if it were culled from poses of the 1950s. Edgar-Jones convinces as Muriel wobbles her way into a new life.

    Credit Poulter, whose character is stuck in a factory worker's life, for bringing depth to a role that plays second fiddle to the two main characters.

   Burdened by a structure that shifts between Muriel and Julius, a slow-moving story benefits from the supporting work of Calva and Calle. Either of their characters might have given the movie a more compelling center.

    Adapted from a novel by Shannon Pufahi, On Slow Horses struck me as a wan version of a Todd Haynes  journey into '50s sexuality (see Carol). Minahan pushes a big pile of dramatic chips onto the table but can't cash enough of them in. For a movie fueled by repression, social pressure, and awakening desire, it's a bit of a slog.