Attempting To Sell The Mundane As Extraordinary, Chasing Mavericks Absolutely Flops!

The Good: Decent enough acting
The Bad: Very obvious plot structure, Very predictable character arcs, Overbearing soundtrack
The Basics: Chasing Mavericks is an obvious sports movie that is bloated with ridiculously predictable character arcs that leaves viewers completely disappointed.


Sports movies are tough to make interesting or even feel original. Sure, there are ways to make the formula seem audacious or fresher than the formula actually is. Chasing Mavericks does not even make the attempt. In fact, the formula seems to be so rigidly executed that the subject of it makes the film seem anticlimactic. After all, at least a typical fight movie or sports movie has a prolonged game to play or more than one round of a fight to make it through. Chasing Mavericks is a long-feeling build-up to a short resolution that makes one feel like they have wasted their time.

Chasing Mavericks only has one real thing going for it and that is the strength of the performances in it. For a change, Gerard Butler does not appear as a character who is a sexist pig. He does, however, play yet another disillusioned character whose character arc is an obvious one that involves him reclaiming his past glory to become less of a curmudgeon. While Chasing Mavericks is based upon a true story, but I know nothing about that, so how it portrays the actual people involved is something I cannot comment upon at all. Instead, this is a pretty pure review of the film, Chasing Mavericks.

Years ago, Frosty Hesson surfed a massive wave that he survived and the act of which made him a local celebrity. Now, he is essentially the surrogate father to the neighbor next door, Jay. Frosty and Brenda do what they can to protect Jay, who at an early age shows an eagerness to learn to surf. When rumors of the return of Mavericks (25 – 80 ft waves) nearby surface, Jay makes it clear that he is going to try to surf them. Seeing his determination is likely to get him killed, Frosty reluctantly begins training Jay and, in the process, he begins to appreciate life again.

Jay, on the other hand, struggles to get into the physical shape he needs to survive. While he works out, he wrestles with helping his best friend (who is into drugs), while winning over the girl of his dreams. As Jay prepares for the chance to catch a Maverick and gain some celebrity himself, he and Frosty bond.

Chasing Mavericks is bad. On the surface, its problem is in how formulaic it is, but it does not take much digging to see that the fundamental problem is that it is filling a weak concept (young man trains to surf) out to be a feature-length movie. This would be a basic cable Movie Of The Week were it not for the presence of Gerard Butler and Elisabeth Shue in the cast. In fact, one has to imagine that the commercial breaks are all that might get it in a M.O.T.W. format up to the two hour minimum for a M.O.T.W. Chasing Mavericks is not so fortunate, so the writers filled with every cliché in the Disappointing Hack’s Playbook. We have the friend in trouble, obvious romantic subplot, mother who is disappointed with the direction the kid is going (until she sees just how incredible the one thing he is working for actually is), out-of-touch mentor figure who uses training the next generation to reinvigorate his own life and relationship, and the Basic Sports Story.

In fact, Chasing Mavericks left me utterly unwilling to waste my time with more throrough analysis; there is none to give. Chasing Mavericks is an obvious film that viewers of any two sports movies has seen before. It includes the pounding, youth-oriented soundtrack, young, good-looking actors, and utterly no surprises.

As for the performances, Gerard Butler is fine in Chasing Mavericks. He does not seem like the usual jerk he plays in so many of his films, nor as the powerful leader (a la 300, reviewed here!) type. Instead, he seems pretty much like an average guy who got lucky in Chasing Mavericks and he makes that work for the character of Frosty. Jonny Weston is fine as Jay, but given how close in ages the character is to the actor, it seems like very little of a stretch for a young actor to play a young (I use the term loosely) athlete.

Easy to pass by – because it’s about three months away from a $5 DVD bin ($1 Black Friday specials next year) - Chasing Mavericks is an utterly horrible, formulaic sports movie without a single hook to sustain a full feature film.

For other sports films, please check out my reviews of:
Rocky
The Blind Side
Chariots Of Fire

2.5/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where movies are organized from best to worse!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Razor Decision On The Roller Coaster Of Averageness: In Her Shoes

The Good: It’s complicated, read the full review
The Bad: It’s complicated, read the full review
The Basics: In a terrible movie where the characters go from unlikable to likable and back and the plot challenges, then becomes utterly cliche, only some decent acting makes it even bearable.


In Her Shoes is a movie that is possibly the most annoying film I've had to review in a long time. I write this because the movie starts abysmally, has a middle that made me think "I'm glad I stuck it out," then progresses into "saw that coming, saw that coming, saw that coming, isn't this over yet?!" In Her Shoes, in my ratings would be a solid five in the final analysis; perfectly average. This is one of the strongest possible "Not Recommend" movies I've rated in quite some time.

Rose Feller is a lawyer in Philadelphia who one night has a fling with a partner at her firm. That same night, she needs to go to the rescue of her slacker sister, Maggie. Maggie is a pretty generic thieving pain-in-the-butt who has no direction, no manners and is essentially a real thorn in Rose's side. When Maggie has sex with the guy Rose had hooked up with, Rose kicks her to the curb.

What follows then is the story of Rose discovering she enjoys a more simple life walking dogs, dating a nice lawyer from the firm and living without Maggie. Maggie hightails it down to Florida and the grandmother she never knew she had to discover life as a working woman, living in a retirement community figuring out how to play to her strengths. Maggie and Grandmother Ella begin to relate and work together, though Ella comes to want to meet Rose as well. Rose's life becomes complicated when she becomes engaged to Simon, the second lawyer from the firm that she's with, and she begins to feel anxiety over Maggie not even knowing him.

And it all comes together in a kind of predictable, Lifetime, feel-good way that is sure to disappoint virtually any audience.

It did not surprise me to learn that In Her Shoes was based upon a novel by Jennifer Weiner, the story is so involved and the characters are so complicated. The problem with it, though, is that it has the set-up of a novel's complexity but the time frame of a film drama. As a result, there is a lot of build-up, some complicated themes that are underexplored and a resolution that is slapped together in a very predictable, Hollywood fashion.

Perhaps the best way to discuss what works and what does not work about In Her Shoes is to look at the three primary characters: Maggie, Rose and Ella. Maggie is utterly unlikable. For the first hour of the movie, every scene she is in is terrible, she is heartless, inhuman and boring when she's not being a skank. Then she's just cheap. There is nothing redeeming or interesting about Maggie and she drags the movie down with her presence and personality. She makes watching the movie into a loathsome experience that makes the idea of being covered in honey and set loose in a field of dung beetles have some appeal. That's how unpleasant In Her Shoes is when it is focusing on Maggie.

So, even though it does not take long for writers Weiner and Susannah Grant to reveal that Maggie is quasi-literate either through neglect of reading or some learning disability, we have no pity for this boring, slutty sloth. When she begins to work and play to her strengths - helping at the assisted living community, becoming a personal shopper for the seniors and stops drinking and having sex with anyone who moves - she becomes watchable and there are moments she is even likable. Unfortunately, the writers and director Curtis Hanson do not quit while they are ahead. They tack on the generic and obvious, Maggie deals with a death episode as well as the completely predictable reconciliation between Maggie and Rose.

Rose is the heart and soul of the movie and it is her that basically pushes the quality up out of the toilet enough to even make the film seem average. Rose is instantly likable and the audience feels bad for her having to deal with Maggie. Following Maggie's betrayal of her, it's wonderful to see Rose discovering something that satisfies her and makes her happy and sustains her. Simon is a good match for her and, despite how predictable the relationship is, the audience is glad to see her with someone who is so nice and good to her.

And therein lies part of the problem. Simon is a good guy, articulate and emotionally connected enough to tell Rose that he will not marry her if she cannot open up to him. The problem here is that Simon is emotionally connected enough that the things he objects to Rose not opening up to him with are all things that seem like they should have come up long before he proposed. The audience never sees any strain in the relationship until all of a sudden Simon is yelling at Rose about being emotionally withholding. It seems like a non sequitor, especially for characters who seem so genuinely emotionally balanced and connected.

Of course, the counter-argument here is that Rose is not terribly emotionally connected. In scenes with Maggie she is utterly cruel and the viewer is expected to simply say "Maggie has it coming" and she does. What doesn't work is Rose's reaction to Maggie late in the movie. She spends a portion of the movie fretting so much about Rose that it seems to divide her from her fiance and yet when she sees Rose, all of her old anger explodes right out with a whole slew of new vituperative remarks. This sort of erratic behavior makes it hard to stay on Rose's side.

The best and worst of the movie, though, comes in the form of Grandma Ella. Ella is smart enough to recognize Maggie for exactly what she is; a manipulator and a thief. She is cool enough to try to work with Maggie to develop a future for the young woman, which works well. But then, Ella falls completely into Geriatric Romance Plot #115 which demands that whatever senior male around the community expresses interest in her, she will end up with, regardless of chemistry, interest or common interests. Sadly, the viewer is expected to swallow this. The viewer is also expected to swallow the pretty much instant redemption Ella and former-son-in-law Michael achieve with one another upon their first meeting in over twenty years.

Ella's character arc, in combination with Michael's, creates an intriguing and well-assembled theme of the movie. Michael and Ella have very different views of what was right for Ella's daughter, Michael's wife. The movie brilliantly assembles the idea that Michael blames Ella for her problems and Ella blames Michael even though neither ever said anything to that effect. Both blame themselves for not being involved enough and project their fears on the other when talking about the condition Michael's dead wife (Rose and Maggie's mother) suffered. The audience gets this, but there's nothing to open the two of them up to that understanding in the movie and so their instant forgiveness of one another reads as very generic, very false.

Ultimately, the problem with In Her Shoes is in the resolution. Everything comes together in a nice, feel-good way that most anyone can see coming a mile away. In fact, the closest the movie came to making me interested or excited in the latter half hour was in the last few frames of the film. Director Curtis Hanson is sloppy in a way that almost made me interested - and then just bugged me. One of the last shots of the movie has Rose looking out the rear window of a car as she drives away from Maggie. Maggie is standing in the middle of the road and there are lights from a car growing in the distance behind her. I sat up and thought, "Is this truly going to surprise me?!" The camera cuts to a close-up of Maggie and the lights behind her are gone. My hopes that she would be flattened and shock my expectations for this predictable movie were crushed by a director who simply did not notice a car coming when he put the movie together.

Cameron Diaz plays Maggie and her performance is erratic. She is unremarkable both when she is simply easy and drunk and when she is assembled and redeemed. The only time Diaz provides a performance that is interesting is when Maggie is struggling. Diaz clearly conveys Maggie's literacy problem well before it becomes a central issue and that's decent acting. But beyond that, there's nothing distinctive Diaz brings to the role.

Shirley MacLaine is well cast in In Her Shoes and she gives a better performance than in Rumor Has It (reviewed here!). She is likable, complex and her character seems very strong and real. It's a shame the character was not more consistent to give MacLaine more sensible things to do, but here she plays the role dead on for a streetsmart old lady who sees the opportunity to redeem herself for past problems by "saving" Maggie. MacLaine has a bearing and dignity that sells the audience on the part, even when she's simply filling a "type."

It is Toni Collette who rules the movie as Rose. Collette has a vulnerable quality that she expresses through her body language and eyes that is very strong and the audience is able to empathize with. Even when she is delivering venomous lines, Collette makes the viewer believe in her underlying humanity (a vibe we do not get from Maggie) and she keeps the film centered. It's a shame that Collette is forced to deliver lines that suggest that she is not good looking because the bearing and dignity with which Collette carried Maggie makes the character quite attractive. All in all, Toni Collette's performance makes the movie bearable when the film is plodding along over two hours. Her performance is so good that I did not even recognize her from the terrible Little Miss Sunshine.

It's a shame that this movie were not either longer and better developed or less predictable because then it might have been something special. As it is, once Ella comes into the movie after almost forty minutes, once all the pieces are in play, this film becomes so predictable a chimpanzee could have written it and it wouldn't take much more to direct it.

For other works with Toni Collette, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Jesus Henry Christ
Towelhead
About A Boy
Changing Lanes

5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Writers Of Yore, Movies Of Today: Wonder Boys Is A Good Film!

The Good: Funny, Witty, Insightful, Well-acted, Good script, Intelligent
The Bad: Main protagonist's affect, Cliche in points
The Basics: Excellent acting, interesting characters, and a reasonably good plot contribute to an all around wonderful film with Wonderboys!


Lately, I've found myself enjoying movies that involved people creating things. I have a real love, for example, of movies about writers, politicians and creative people. While some of the best of them are very new, like The Social Network (click here for that review!), others are a bit older, like Gods And Monsters (click here for my review!). One of the other ones I stumbled upon a few years ago was a movie less about creation and more the inability to. That movie was Wonderboys and it was surprisingly good.

Grady Tripp is a man with a problem. Fortunately, it's not a terribly difficult problem for the viewer to diagnose; Grady is a writer whose first and last novel was a critical success seven years before and no one has seen his second novel. We see Grady typing or considering the novel and each time, he feints.

Grady is surrounded by eccentrics in his midlife crisis, which is the weekend of the local bookfest. Grady has been left by his wife that very morning, this time for good. Apparently, this is a regular habit, or so his mistress, the chancellor of the college where Grady works, says. Sara, despite her love for Grady, is still in love with her pompous husband and spends the weekend debating which man is better for her. Fortunately, at no time does she threaten either of the men in her life's job.

Unfortunately, the same may not be said for Grady. While at a party at Chancellor/mistress Sara's house, Grady encourages his deeply introverted student, James Leer, to express himself. Unfortunately, the pep talk results in Grady getting bitten by Sara's husband's dog and James killing it. This is pretty much of the extent of the plot, though there is also intermingled Hannah, Grady's student border who has obvious designs on him, and Terry Crabtree, Grady's editor who is determined to see Grady's second novel. Terry often comes along with Grady and James on their misadventures into the weekend of self-discovery.

Wonderboys succeeds for most of the film, that is, so long as it's exploring the connections between the various characters, it's a winner. It's truly significant and wonderful. As Grady grills James Leer about his past and tries to figure the dour kid out, we, the viewer, are intrigued. It's fun, it's interesting and it's relevant. The people are realistic and intriguing.

Only when the film tries to make conclusions, to resolve itself, does it fail to satisfy. None of the characters rise above their origins in the conclusion.

However, up until that, there is a lot to enjoy. The cast is excellent. The writing is particularly strong, the dialogue is highly realistic. The voiceovers, as Grady narrates the film, are sharp and precise. I'm usually annoyed by voiceovers. I wasn't here.

Michael Douglas is fantastic as Grady, James Leer is expertly played by Toby Maguire. The true scene stealers are Robert Downey Jr. and Frances McDormand. Downey Jr. plays Crabtree with quirky grace and precision. McDormand plays Sara in one of the most interesting and well-acted roles in the film. She is obviously tormented and conflicted and McDormand plays those emotions up perfectly.

I have a beef with the cliche of the writers using drugs and alcohol. That and the ending are the only detractions I could find with the film. So, in short, it's worth seeing. It truly is.

For other films with Michael Douglas, please check out my reviews of:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
The Game
Wall Street

8/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page!

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


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Confident And Excellent: L.A. Confidential Is Suitably Impressive!

The Good: Impressive cast, Good acting, Well written, Good direction
The Bad: Mostly "Hollywood" stuff, Pacing
The Basics: Well plotted, acted and directed, L.A. Confidential is more than just a classy detective story.


When I first started reviewing movies, I was a bit light on details. That has a lot to do with the site I wrote for. There, one of the mantras was to not simply recap the plot, but to evaluate it instead. As such, some of my oldest reviews say almost nothing about the film's plot and with the load of reviews I have to move, going back and watching all such movies would be a tremendously daunting task. L.A. Confidential is one such review that I found I glossed over many details on, though I recall truly enjoying the movie. I've done my best to bring the review up to my current standards . . . without rewatching it. Enjoy!

I was biased going into this film as I'm a fan of Kevin Spacey's work and just the opposite for Russel Crowe. Given that, I'm pleased to say I wasn't terribly disappointed. If anything, I have to say Guy Pearce deserves top billing for his character Exley. This film was actually the first one I saw Pearce in and it was no surprise to me that he would eventually dominate the opening of The Hurt Locker (click here for that review!).

For the life of me, I can't see why Kim Bassinger won an Oscar for this film. Her character has very little in the way of dialogue, she's a peripheral character. I think Pearce ought to get her award.

Outside the troubling backstage stuff, the only true problem with the film is how quickly it unwinds. Allow me to explain.

L.A. Confidential is essentially about three characters. Exley is a young upstart snitch in the L.A. police force who, after turning on his coworkers, is promoted to lieutenant. Spacey plays Jack Vincennes, a hollywood-tied cop who gets demoted as a result of Exley coming forward. Russel Crowe, in perhaps his best acting ever (though he is still ape-ish throughout the film) plays a deeply violent cop named Bud. Bud illustrates a remarkable protective instinct where women are involved and he avenges all violence to women whenever possible.

When Bud's ex-partner is killed, the three primaries are on the case. Exley attacks the case with vigilance and a methodical pattern, Bud attacks it with vengeance, and Jack uses his underworld source - played by Danny DeVito - to try to find the killers as well.

The bloodbath that opens the case is only the first in the film and the movie expertly weaves together the psychological aspects of the characters who are trying to make sense of the crime with the sociology of Los Angeles.

L.A. Confidential is a well-woven tale at the beginning. The three characters play off each other and their motivations and methods are interesting. Spacey and Devito spend much time on the screen interacting and it seems often pointless, but like everything else in the film, it comes together.

The characters are interesting and they're well acted and they're doing interesting things both in the methods they use and in that the case they're working on is an interesting one. When the murder seems resolved quickly enough, the three protagonists begin to question the conclusion and the true action and plot begin there.

This is a film that is best to go into cold. Don't read about the plot. Experience it.

The only serious defect within the plot comes not in the resolution but in the build-up to it. There is a long build-up establishing the case(s), the various players involved and who and what they are. When one element becomes apparent, all of the connections almost immediately reveal themselves. Thus, watching the film is like watching a loaded mousetrap. The trap sits there, a mouse sniffs around for some time, it tentative, then BANG! It's over.

The film is worth seeing because it has excellent actors acting well, bad actors acting their best, and compelling characters. The external search for the killer(s) is easily viewed as a metaphor for the internal searches the cops are doing throughout the film into their own psyches and goals. The plot winds and twists, but it pays off.

For other mysteries, please check out my reviews of:
Sherlock Holmes
No Country For Old Men
The Other Guys

9/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing by clicking here!

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


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