Running a too-familiar race

 

  A quarter of the way through The Running Man, a remake of an action-stuffed 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I had to pinch myself. "Wait," I thought, "Isn't this November, and if so, why am I watching a movie that looks as if it should have been part of the summer action sweepstakes.

  This second adaptation of a 1982 Stephen King novel -- published under the name of Richard Bachman -- moves quickly, but not quickly enough to make us forget we've already seen movies about deadly game shows run by authoritarians interested in controlling the masses and reaping profits. Need I mention The Hunger Games?

   Director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Last Day in Soho) tells the story of a reality-based show broadcast by an evil corporation called The Network. If any of the movie's contestants survive the hunt, they win $1 billion, a sum purportedly worth risking one's life for in a society in which few are privileged.

    A buffed Glen Powell plays a husband and father with anger-management problems. Powell's Ben Richards keeps losing jobs because he flies off the handle while sticking up for underdogs at work. 

    Desperate to find care for his sick infant daughter and financial relief for his overworked wife (Jayme Lawson), Richards auditions for non-lethal TV game shows. He plans to avoid The Running Man, but Network head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) talks him into competing in the deadly competition.

     From that point on, the movie is off and running, racing through one set piece after another while dragging along some overpacked thematic baggage behind it. 

     Let's get the message out of the way: All the Network cares about is ratings. If it needs killings to up the dramatic ante, it doesn't hesitate. The Network also uses doctored videos to turn the contestants into menaces who purportedly threaten the common good. The masses buy in.

      Set in a dystopian near future, The Running Man relies heavily on Powell, who may not have been the ideal choice for this kind of action movie. I don't mean that as insult. Powell was great in Top Gun: Maverick and in the dark comedy Hit Man, but a kick-ass star? I suppose the box-office will decide.

      In all, three contestants (Powell, Katy O'Brian and Martin Herlihy) compete, but it's hardly surprising that only the top-billed Powell remains standing through the escalating mayhem. McCone (Lee Pace), a masked Hunter, remains in dogged pursuit throughout.

    The move can feel pretty dogged itself. I'm talking structure, not pace. As he moves from New York to Boston, Richards receives help from friends and sympathizers. William H. Macy plays Molie, a guy who outfits Ben with armaments. Daniel Ezra portrays Bradley, a savvy guy who facilitates Richards' travels, and Michael Cera appears as a  well-equipped rebel with plans to fight the Hunters.

    Toward the end of the movie, Ben hijacks the car of a realtor (Emilia Jones), who believes he's the villainous fiend the Network claims him to be.

    It's tough to avoid cliches in this kind of movie. Colman Domingo portrays Bobby Thompson, the amped-up host of The Running Man, a showy role that doesn't offer much for Domingo to chew on.

      Aiming for the big finish, Wright concocts a dizzying  airborne showdown. By that time, I was wondering whether the movie hadn't fallen into a trap. If you don't have anything novel to say, try saying it louder.

      None of this is bad enough to condemn Running Man or good enough to praise it. The Running Man has the all-too-familiar markings of a movie that wants to be a summer blockbuster. But, as I said at the outset, this is November.

A small story with epic reach

 

  Director Clint Bentley takes on author Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, a 166-page novel that deals with large themes about the destruction of the American West, the trials of one tormented man, and his inability to make sense of tragic loss. 

  Perhaps to make Johnson's authorial voice part of the movie, Bentley makes heavy use of a narrator (Will Patton). Never intrusive, Patton's voice guides us through the story of Robert Granier (Joel Edgerton), a sturdy resident of the Pacific Northwest who ekes out a living as a logger.

   Logging takes Robert away from his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), and his infant daughter. He'd rather stay home, but money is scarce, and so are jobs.

   From the start, it's clear that Bentley and cinematographer Adolpho Veloso will celebrate the beauty of Northeast Washington, where the movie was filmed. Never purely decorative; the landscape and its trees have a near-hallowed quality. 

   For a time, Robert and Gladys live in a Western Eden, two people and a child in a small cabin Robert builds. All they want is to be together and live.

   Of course, there's no story in "just living." On a logging expedition, Robert becomes complicit in the death of a Chinese worker, hurled off a bridge by bigots who accuse the man of stealing. From that point on, Robert believes he's cursed. The events that follow suggest that he might be right.

    Principal among such catastrophes is a massive forest fire that consumes Robert's home, taking the lives of his wife and child. Robert was on his way home from a logging expedition when he saw smoke clouding the sky. He arrived too late to save his wife and daughter.

     Even in the early going, Bentley breaks the movie's bucolic moods with shots of trains sparking and roaring through the landscape. A recurrent train dream slices into Robert's sleep, an engine of destruction.

    The perils of logging come into sharper focus when Robert gathers around campfires with fellow loggers. These rough-hewn men include Apostle Frank (Paul Schneider) and Arn Peebles (William H. Macy). The men acknowledge the danger of their work: A falling branch can take its revenge on those who swing the axes. 

    Some of Robert's dreams evoke memories of his cherished domestic life.  Robert and his daughter share beautifully tender moments, and when Robert and Gladys are together, their love bubbles with laughter.

     A bearded Edgerton gives a solid performance as a man who, throughout most of the movie, knows little peace, but who also knows how to bear his troubles. He's a man of limited knowledge, but Edgerton suggests depths Robert can't quite grasp.

     Late in the film, Robert meets Claire (Kerry Condon), a widow who works as a lookout for forest fires. She lives in a tower that affords an overview of the territory Robert only has seen in pieces, and she expresses a deep and moving sympathy for Robert's plight. 

      The movie covers Robert's life from around 1917 to 1968. The scenes in the '60s struck me as  jarring, perhaps intentionally so. Robert's best days were lived before the frontier vanished. Still, there's a mood-breaking awkwardness to the these scenes I found difficult to digest.

      I also wondered what the film would have been had Bentley (Jockey, Sing Sing), working from a screenplay he wrote with Greg Kwedar, eliminated the narration and let Robert's journey grow and flow on its own. 

     Still, as I've said, Paton's narration can be viewed as part of the film's fabric, helping Bentley to play a trick that gives the movie its poignance: He takes a subject of epic scope and tells it in small strokes that mark the life of a man who'll never see how his life fits into the big picture. But, then, who among us ever will?

     

       

Law from the backseat of a limo

Matthew McConaughey, an actor who’s had as many downs as he’s had ups, seems to do well in courtrooms. His “breakthrough” movie – 1996’s A Time to Kill – cast him as an attorney, and so does The Lincoln Lawyer, a pulpy, improbable and moderately entertaining new thriller.

In The Lincoln Lawyer, McConaughey portrays Mickey Haller, a slick, marginally ethical attorney who delights in either getting his clients off or cutting them the best possible deals. The title of the movie stems from the way Mickey conducts his business, from the backseat of a black, chauffer-driven Lincoln Town Car.

Directed by Brad Furman and written by John Romano, The Lincoln Lawyer tells a story that relies on the kind of twists and turns that seem to occur only in legal thrillers – either on screen or on the page. The movie is based on a 2005 novel by Michael Connelly, a veteran cop reporter, who now plies his trade writing fiction.

McConaughey keeps the movie on track, giving Mickey plenty of conniving spirit and immodest charm as he deals with a variety of low-life clients – from prostitutes to gang bangers to drug dealers. Mickey has built a solid reputation among Los Angeles' criminal class. He is not admired by the police.

Fortune – in the form of a major payday -- smiles on Mickey when he’s asked to represent Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), a rich guy whose mother (Frances Fisher) wants to keep him out of jail. A high-priced hooker has accused Roulet of beating her senseless.

Is this woman for real or is she seeking to drain the rich kid’s pocketbook?

The movie quickly answers that question as it morphs into a cagey game in which a hard-partying attorney -- perhaps for the first time – finds himself asking pointed ethical questions.

The movie boasts a strong supporting cast. Marisa Tomei portrays a prosecuting attorney who happens to be Mickey’s former wife. John Leguizamo shows up as a corrupt bail bondsman, and William H. Macy (sporting the long-haired look of an unrepentant hippy) plays an investigator who helps Mickey, sometimes making well-placed payoffs.

Fair to say that the entire supporting cast is a bit under-exposed as the story lurches from point A to point Z, sometimes speeding too quickly past the rest of the alphabet. Let’s just say the plot loses credibility as the movie progresses, maybe because Lincoln Lawyer isn’t quite smart enough to pull off its plethora of dodges, feints and last-minute revelations.

But McConaughey and crew keep Lincoln Lawyer in the game. Sans any desire to probe deeply, Lincoln Lawyer slides by quickly, but contains a few too many contrivances to make us believe it knows how things really work.