More Serious And Violent Than Funny, The Interview Is Erratic, But (Surprisingly!) Not Bad!

The Good: Character, Much of the acting, Moments of concept
The Bad: Overbearing soundtrack, Repetitive
The Basics: The Interview oscillates between smartly critiquing U.S. the media and intelligence communities and body-type/sex jokes and a violent series of confrontations that are unpleasant to watch.


After all of the controversy and threats from hackers and SONY pulling the wide-release of The Interview (check out the commentary on SONY’s actions here!), SONY has released The Interview in limited release and on-line. Here in Michigan, the local theater Michael Moore subsidizes is one of the theaters that got it in. The controversy means that instead of art theaters showing films like Inherent Vice this Christmas, they are screening what would have been a mainstream comedy instead. And, for all the hype and leaked internal criticism, The Interview is a very mainstream, shock humor comedy film.

And The Interview can only benefit from the hype that surrounded it. It is a Seth Rogen and James Franco film that suffers from a number of issues familiar to fans of the duo’s work; it is short, James Franco is essentially playing a mild permutation of himself (Franco has “serious” and “complete stoner” characters and this is “serious, but with lines that seem familiar from his drug-addled characters), and the humor gets mixed with violence. And, like Observe And Report (reviewed here!) and Pineapple Express (reviewed here!), the violence becomes troubling and is so over-the-top that is sucks the humor that preceded it right out of the film. The thing is, despite the violence and the jokes that don't land, The Interview is surprisingly watchable and is nowhere near as bad as it seemed like it would have been!  Unlike Observe And Report, for example, The Interview does not leave the viewer with a gut-wrenching sense of being horrified and grossed out, despite some pretty over-the-top blood spurts in the film's latter half.

With North Korea getting nuclear missile capabilities, the world is abuzz with journalists pounding the fearmongering . . . except Dave Skylark’s entertainment news show. On the night of their 1000th episode, Dave Skylark and his best friend, executive producer, Aaron Rapaport, break news that Eminem is gay. On the night that North Korea gets full nuclear capability, after Rapaport has had a run in with a former classmate who does not respect his style of entertainment journalism, Skylark’s show breaks a Rob Lowe baldness story. When Dave Skylark learns that Skylark Tonight is Kim Jong-un’s favorite Western-produced show, Skylark and Rapaport decide to try to get an interview with Kim Jong-un. Rapaport is sent to a meeting in the middle of nowhere, China, where the North Korean liaison, Sook, gives the executive producer the terms of the interview. While the terms are not journalistically ethical, Skylark convinces Rapaport to agree to the terms to get the interview at all.

When the duo agrees to the interview terms, Agent Lacey of the CIA approaches Skylark and Rapaport about the opportunity their trip represents: they are wooed to kill Kim Jong-un. While Skylark wants to take the North Korean dictator out in a blaze of glory, Lacey and the CIA train Skylark to deliver a ricin poison handshake, which will kill the Supreme Leader after twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, the poison looks like gum and the North Korean inspectors consume it, leaving the CIA struggling to come up with a back-up plan. They send a drone with a back-up supply of poison . . . which Rapaport has to smuggle back into the room in his butt. When Skylark is greeted by Kim Jong-un, he discovers how Jong-un is basically just a fanboy and when they spend the day together, Skylark bonds with the dictator and has second thoughts about killing him. After Skylark witnesses Kim Jong-un’s temper, he has a change of heart and embraces the mission . . . though the poison is no longer available to the guys.

The reason The Interview is likely to benefit from the hype is that there is a whole audience of people who are likely to see the film based on the controversy alone. Fans of James Franco and Seth Rogen films have never had so much free publicity. For two of America’s biggest comedic box office draws, the publicity the hackers gave the film is more than enough to make up for the drop in revenue for the film appearing on so many fewer theater screens. Unfortunately, the internal criticisms of The Interview that were leaked as part of the hack are mostly accurate. More than the premise problems, The Interview suffers because it is billed as a comedy and it falls a bit short on that front.

At the outset of The Interview, the film is not very funny because it is establishing the premise and characters. In establishing the characters, The Interview works to make Rapaport serious and smart and the movie makes most of its social commentary there. Despite a pretty overtly hilarious interview with Eminem, much of The Interview is concerned with making social commentary before it degenerates into a bloodbath. As a result, the scenes with Seth Rogen’s Rapaport are a smart dose of realism in an otherwise absurd film premise.

The discontinuity gets worse and goes in a different direction at the hour mark. Despite ridiculous dialog about “pulling out,” The Interview turns disturbing when the poisoned military officer starts to die. Putting himself out of his misery as the ricin kills him, the officer blows off his own head and the shot is one that rivals the on-screen carnage of The Walking Dead. After Skylark commits to the film’s premise, having realized he has been played as a tool of Kim Jong-un, the film turns heavyhanded and, frequently, violent.

The issue here is that The Interview starts surprisingly smart, making a subversive and intelligent commentary on the problems with the American media. The culture is groomed to be stupid and ignorant, focusing on media infotainment instead of substantive journalism. The Interview sets out with that in mind and in its latter half it actually proposes the smartest way to combat Kim Jong-un; destroy his propaganda machine. But then The Interview becomes unhinged. The long sequence focusing on Rapaport sticking the drone’s package up his butt and the protracted bit wherein Rapaport and Sook hook up try desperately to recapture a sense of humor for the movie.

All that is undermined by the film’s final half hour. As the actual interview occurs, violence breaks out. This follows on Skylark realizing he has been lied to, which is an insulting and obvious sequence that overstates what is on screen. As Rapaport tries to hold the control room and the interviewers attempt to escape, The Interview degenerates into violence. Despite that, The Interview does what it sets out to do, which is entertain and while it might not be incredible, it is not the complete lemon it might have been made out to be.

The Interview is a triumph of performances for Randall Park and Lizzy Caplan. While the film is a Rogen/Franco vehicle, it is Park and Caplan who get the film’s most substantive moments as actors. Lizzy Caplan has been in a ton of movies and television works, but she has not had such a substantive role near the top of a cast list like in The Interview. Caplan is serious and completely credible as Agent Lacey, even if her part in The Interview starts out as a display of her cleavage (which is addressed in the film). Randall Park plays Kim Jong-un and he gives a performance that is anything but monolithic. Park presents Jong-un as a master of propaganda and, surprisingly, never really goofy.

Perhaps the funniest lingering aspect of The Interview is that Katy Perry is utilized as a weapon. Beyond that, The Interview is a half-boring, quarter-violent comedy that fails to land more often than it hits, but has an ambitious premise and concept that takes a one-line idea and makes it work better than expected.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Voices
Love, Rosie
The Seventh Son
Song One
Match
Vice
American Sniper
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
The Imitation Game
Birdman

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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After A Good Start, The Campaign Becomes Stubbornly Mediocre.

The Good: Humor, Zach Galifianakis’s performance, Initial plot
The Bad: In the middle, it stops being as funny
The Basics: Not a bad Will Ferrell comedy, The Campaign starts as a smart treatise on American politics before degenerating into a very standard comedy film.


Now that the 2012 election cycle is finally over, my wife and I took in the latest Will Farrell magnum opus, The Campaign. My wife is a big fan of Will Farrell and I tend to enjoy politically-themed movies. For sure, I never expected The Campaign to be as civically-minded as, for example, Swing Vote (reviewed here!), but given how the comedy actually begins with some decent moments that imply the importance of political activism, the movie quickly raised my hopes. Sadly, though, for as good as The Campaign begins, it quickly degenerates into a very standard Will Farrell comedy.

Actually, The Campaign stops being funny right around the middle as it strives for absurd humor instead of keeping a tight, political comedy that worked. After a time, The Campaign simply drags and recycles its own jokes.

Cam Brady is a North Carolina Congressman in the House of Representatives who spews obvious slogans and has affairs with young women who show up at his ridiculous campaign rallies. Looking forward to his next unopposed election to the House, Cam is shocked when the odd local, Marty Huggins applies to run against him. Supported by the Motch brothers, who have an agenda to turn the district into a Chinese sweatshop district, Marty begins a campaign, ostensibly to make his former politician father less disappointed in him.

While the odds seem exceptionally long for Marty, calling Cam out on his non-answer at their first debate gives the outsider some real support. That support is quickly increased when Marty accidentally punches a baby following the debate. As the neck and neck campaign commences, both Marty and Cam try various tactics that further take their campaigns away from the issues and gut their integrity.

The Campaign has some smart issues, but it buries them so far down as to make one think they were more of an afterthought. For example, writers Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell insert the idea that the Motch Brothers run the company that makes the voting machines. This is a very real problem, as made obvious by politics in Ohio. Yet, The Campaign refuses to actually address this serious issue. It appears near the climax of the film as a single, visual joke and it does not quite work as well as it could have because it is not followed up on with anything remotely resembling intelligent discourse.

Such is the real folly of The Campaign; it starts off with decent issues – the corruption of American politics by big business and the importance of people actually joining in the political process – but then ignores them in order to make silly jokes that slowly bleed the film dry. Using Cam to hit a dog late in the film feels less clever than like a motif and the fact that Mitzi goes through with sleeping with him seems unfathomable, despite the fact that the writers do continue to have her character frustratingly mention that she wishes Marty was around more.

The Campaign is seldom about actual character development; it is very predictable on that front and in no way audacious.

Fortunately, the acting in The Campaign is solid. John Lithgow seems professional in a way that I’ve not seen him in other films of late. Far away from the doddering, aging characters, like the one he played in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (reviewed here!) , Lithgow seems like exactly what he is supposed to: a businessman in the prime of his power.

Zach Galifianakis shows a delightfully ridiculous side as Marty Huggins that is different enough from his other fool or ridiculous characters that makes him seem distinctive and worth watching. The best that may be said about Will Ferrell is that he is not simply recapping his usual George W. Bush impersonations as Cam Brady. Ferrell’s character is a smart parody of John Edwards and he plays it well.

Ultimately, The Campaign is fine, but in no way exceptional. It is a fine cap to this year’s political season and worth one viewing, if not purchasing for one’s permanent collection.

For other political comedies, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The American President
American Dreamz
Man Of The Year

5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Man's Comedic Journey Into Faith-Exploration: Religulous, The Gospel According To Bill Maher!

The Good: Funny, Insightful, Makes point well
The Bad: Lack of on-screen citations
The Basics: Funny, smart and well-presented, Religulous exposes the fallout between reason and faith and explores the potential costs for that divide.


It has been a while since I went on a real documentary film kick. I enjoy documentaries, but it has been a while since I just watched a whole bunch of them. In fact, the last one I saw in the theater was probably Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!). This does not mean that I have not paid attention to political discourse of various types or increasing my education. As far as the former goes, I have recently read the Ann Coulter library (Godless: The Church Of Liberalism is reviewed here!), as for the latter, I've read a lot of other things. So when I was able to go to a screening of Religulous, I leaped right on it. It's been too long since I took in a documentary.

Religulous is a documentary by Bill Maher exploring the state of religion in the world today. Going into Religulous, I knew nothing about the film, save that it was a Bill Maher movie and a documentary on religion. I assumed, then, that it would be funny, satirical and generally enjoyable. After all, I have tended to enjoy Bill Maher's sense of humor on his various shows. And so it was.

Bill Maher begins in Megiddo, Israel, the site of future Armageddon with a film that looks at religion around the world. Telling his personal story of his religious life, Bill Maher recounts his childhood as a Catholic with a Jewish mother. At thirteen, he left the church and in the course of interviews, Maher explores religion as it is written in the Bible, Koran, and Torah and the expressions of that faith in the world. This takes Maher through the Bible Belt to a trucker's chapel, to the museum of creationism, to Israel and Amsterdam.

Everywhere Maher goes, he interviews religious leaders and practitioners of every major religion. In the Vatican, he interviews a priest, in Israel, he interviews an orthodox Jew and in Salt Lake City, he interviews ex-Mormons. Everywhere he goes, he attempts to answer the question "Why is believing things without proof good?" He compares religions and attempts to debunk the absolutism of virtually every faith.

Religulous is a tough film to discuss because it has a very direct thesis that it starts out with and it sticks rather close to it. As a result, Maher's point that there is a fundamental lack of rationality in religion is reached more or less instantly when he illustrates that people of faith believe things that they cannot possibly explain or justify. For example, Maher corners an Arkansas Senator who observes that there is no i.q. test to be in the Senate. Maher manages to be appropriately surprised and there are several moments that Maher or the people he is interviewing sit shocked or dumfounded.

As far as the argument Maher is making, he makes it well: Christianity is not an original religion in many of its concepts. Many things that are claimed by Christians are antithetical to the concept of "love thy neighbor." Faith is not rational. Maher makes the point and much of Religulous is about driving that point home with every major religion. As a result, there is an extensive sense of repetition in the film. As far as scholarly actions go, Religulous manages to be remarkably straightforward in that it is attempting to not isolate any one religion. He breezes through interviewing an orthodox Jew who attended Iran's holocaust denial seminar delivered by the president of Iran, just as he makes his points with Islamic leaders rather quickly. As a result, he manages to find a decent cross-section of various Christians who defend and dissent on the absolutism of their faith.

Because the film spends a lot of time repeating or reiterating the same point, Maher keeps the pace up by injecting the film with humor. Maher includes his ironic asides, slips in quips and asides and has snarky comments printed on the screen to make jokes. The humor includes intercut films of religious and secular films that illustrate disasters brought by people of faith, usually driving home a point about the irrationality of faith alone. Maher's humor is abrasive and obvious and he never tries to hide his bias, which makes it easy to differentiate between the humor and the lesson that he is attempting to communicate. The humor is quick-witted and fast and is grounded in the same style of basic logic and the non sequitors that exist in the conflict between reason and faith.

Some might argue that Religulous is anti-religious propaganda. Having seen religious propaganda, like George W. Bush: Faith In the White House, Religulous is clearly not the same thing. Like Fahrenheit 9/11, Bill Maher's Religulous frequently allows the people being questioned to state their view. They state their beliefs, Maher asks about them and while he comments on many of them, most of what damns the people being questioned is their inability to answer questions about their faith. Maher gives people a voice and a space and questions people's beliefs and he may make snarky comments, but at the end of all things, he allows people to express themselves and their own words prove Maher's point: religion is not rational. Maher simply pokes fun at that concept by exposing and commenting on the differences between faith and reason.

Maher is anti-religious, but he is quite straightforward that he does not have all of the answers. So, his commentary and anger at people of faith is not about having a generalized disdain for religion. His problem clearly is about the use of religion as a tool of power. Maher loathes the control religion exerts over the people and the potential for destruction that the lack of reason has in a world with nuclear arms.

Religulous is directed by Larry Charles, who brought the world Borat and much of the style of Religulous follows that "on the road" feel. Maher and Charles and the film crew get into places like the Vatican and famous mosques, sometimes getting thrown out or insulted. There is a spontaneous feel to much of Religulous and as a result, it flows along well as a result.

The truly bothersome aspect of Religulous is that there are on-screen snarky comments, but few (if any) citations. As a result, there are moments when Maher references lines in the bible or Koran and calls out people of the respective faiths on their ignorance, without illustrating the exact lines he is referencing. Fighting the blind faith with the documents they claim to know or believe in without illustrating the lines exactly as they appear in the holy documents seriously undermines the strength of Maher's argument. Sadly, as a result, there are several moments when Maher and the people he interviews degenerate into "yes it is," "no it isn't" type arguments.

Religulous might well seem like it is preaching to the choir, no pun intended, and it is. However, what saves the film in the latest moments of the movie is Bill Maher's wrap-up. After effectively proving what those who stand against religion when used as a tool for legislation or absolute education or control over personal behaviors, Maher issues a call to arms for those of no religious faith. He calls for the supposed 16% of Americans who do not identify or agree with any religion to stand up and stop being a silent minority. After all of the arguments - many of which are known to people who stand against religious extremism - this call to arms is sensible and energizes those who watch the film and are able to agree with Maher or at least open to questioning the execution of their own faith.

And that's reason enough to watch the movie. Laughter is good, standing up is better. Fortunately, Religulous brings viewers both.

For other documentary reviews, please visit my reviews of:
The Cream Will Rise
Babies
Oceans

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Primarily Bad Movie: Primary Colors Fails

The Good: Adrian Lester's acting, Kathy Bates' character, Occasional line of dialogue
The Bad: John Travolta, Plot, Characters, Most everything
The Basics: A huge disappointment in the crappy impression of Bill Clinton that John Travolta does, Primary Colors left me wanting the two hours, twenty-four minutes of my life back!


When I was much much younger, I got an aquarium for my birthday and I had fish for many years. At that point in my life, I wanted to be a marine biologist and my parents liked that idea. When I was twelve, I went away to a sleepaway summer camp and my parents got rid of my fish because I, in their esteemed view, hadn't been taking adequate care of them. That was their right, I suppose. Earlier this year, I was visiting my father and I got my aquarium back from him. I've put together one model in my life and my idea with all of this was, I didn't want to have to dust the model because it has fragile parts. My thought was, I would get the aquarium, clean it up, get some glass for the top and enclose the model after making a little diorama base for it. It's a good idea, but my old aquarium still has scum from that time well over a decade and a half ago when it was put in the basement.

The point to this whole story? Since I returned the aquarium to my possession and my new house, I've not gotten around to cleaning it. Removing old calcium deposits from glass is an annoying, painstaking chore. It involves using a sharp razorblade as delicate tool to scrape off the deposits and streaks and grime.

What does this have to do with the film Primary Colors? After the first forty-five minutes of this awful, awful film, I looked around my room, saw the aquarium and got out a razorblade to clean it while watching the rest of the movie. You know what? The second half of the film was no better and my aquarium finally got cleaned; I have hopes the model will soon be enshrined.

So, what's so bad about Primary Colors? First, it has John Travolta. It has John Travolta upstaging everyone else who appears in the film whom I know to be competent in other works. A perfect example would be one of my favorites, Maura Tierney. She's always upstaged by Travolta, the camera always goes from her to him and it's sad.

Second, John Travolta's character and his acting. If you were an adult during the first Bush administration back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, you might recall Dana Carvey's wonderful impersonations of George Bush. If you were even halfway astute, you might have realized that soon after Carvey's impersonation became popularized, the VAST majority of Bush impersonations became impersonations of Carvey impersonating Bush rather than actually impersonating Bush. John Travolta's character is an impression of Bill Clinton. The problem is, while he has most of the mannerisms down, he has nowhere near the charisma. Both the character and the actor fail to portray anything nearly as genuine as Bill Clinton did. Worse still is the acting; during a crucial scene near the very end, Travolta loses his Clinton-esque accent and mannerisms and delivers a speech as John Travolta. The only thing worse than his Clinton style character impersonation is Travolta being himself.

Primary Colors is an example of a turn of the old phrase "What if we threw a party and nobody showed?"; What if you had a party filled with great guests and then tied and gagged them all? The film is filled with great actors and actresses: Maura Tierney, Kathy Bates, Billy Bob Thorton, Emma Thompson, and Adrian Lester (more on him later), but they are given horrid lines, usually bland characters (most of whom are caricatures of decent people from the Clinton administration), and stuck in a tired, predictable, plodding, depressingly simple plot.

The film, quite simply, is about Jack Stanton and his rise from Southern governor and political obscurity to Democratic presidential candidate. The film focuses quite a bit on the political machinations behind his campaign as well as his relationship with his wife. The real crux of the film is the character Henry, who is enlisted to run the grassroots campaign as the movie opens. The problem is, too often the story shifts away from him and the camera focuses on Jack.

Henry is the bright spot of the movie. The shining glimmer of hope in an otherwise murky film that feels like an un-funny Saturday Night Live sketch dragged out too long. So long it doesn't even know it's dead. Henry is played by Adrian Lester and his acting makes the character. His acting allows us to overlook the oversimplified idealism shattered story that is the essence of Henry's character arc. The closest hope the film has outside Lester's exceptional work interpreting an otherwise standard character, is in the character of Libby played by Kathy Bates. She's one of those people that was a hippie back in the day, filled with idealism and still has a glimmer in her eye about the political process and the goals of her politician. It's from her character that the film's few decent lines are delivered.

The problem is her character is also corrupted beyond believability. As one of the most important events in the film nears, she declares that Stanton's choice will be a test that will either make or break her faith in him. She declares this, he fails the test and she doesn't just leave. One might argue that the action she takes is more extreme and meaningful, but I would argue that the philosophy with which she speaks about the test before the verdict comes indicates her move would simply have been to throw her allegiance to another candidate. That is to say, she speaks of such principles and the focus and diction is on a desire to have an ideal that it's too hard to suspend the disbelief for what she ends up doing. It reads wrong. Whatever the "historical truth" beyond her character might have been, the specific lines she used indicate a different action that made sense for her character to take.

The simple truth about Primary Colors is is that it is a formulaic political film and it's populated by bad everything. It's poorly written, unimaginatively directed, filled with good actors delivering bland performances; it's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's not much of anything. The only plus side I can find in the film in the final analysis is that perhaps you'll get to that project you've been putting off while watching it. I know I'm happy my aquarium is ready to have its diorama built inside it.

For other political works, please check out my reviews of:
The West Wing
Charlie Wilson's War
The Hurt Locker

2.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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