Classics Of Weird Noir Cinema, Fargo Remains Entertaining, But Not Incredible.

The Good: Decent acting, Mood, Quirky characters
The Bad: Quirky for the sake of quirky, Mood, Most of the characters are unlikable
The Basics: Set in Minneapolis, MN and Fargo, ND, the classic noir film by Joel and Ethan Coen is all about setting and weird characters as opposed to having a truly original or engaging plot.


I’ve gotten to an interesting place as a film reviewer where I get the occasional request from readers with movies they want me to review. I get that there is a value to having a reviewer review a film that one already knows they like; comparing our own opinion to those of a reviewer whose other reviews we’ve read provides us with a baseline of sorts. When we read how a critic evaluates works we know, we can better evaluate how to take their ratings on movies we’ve yet to see. One of the films on the extensive list that one reader sent me that I had been meaning rewatch was Fargo.

Fargo was originally released when I was in college and I recall seeing it once before about a year after its original theatrical release. While my peers in the writing program at my college seemed to be universally agog about Fargo, I remembered seeing it and being decidedly more neutral to the film. Watching Fargo again today – for the first time in almost twenty years – what surprised me most about the movie was how I had the exact same ambivalence to it now. Around the same time that I saw Fargo, I watched The Big Lebowski and I did not like that Coen Brothers movie. Last year, I saw The Big Lebowski again and absolutely loved it; so it is surprising with all of the changes in my life and viewpoints that I would see Fargo again and have absolutely no change in reaction to the film. Fargo is good, but not great; it is written to be quirky for the sake of quirky and is supposedly based upon events that truly happened, though they are presented with the Coen Brothers (now) trademark sense of unsettling weirdness. But outside the silly setting and the ludicrous (but accurate) dialect of the northern mid-western American accent, Fargo is a remarkably straightforward crime film. Unlike something like Twin Peaks (reviewed here!) that delivers strange and appears to be set in a completely real world, but has supernatural elements infused with the weird setting, Fargo is just a bunch of lowbrow characters stuck in a barren and desolate place. The result is a violent comedy that is perpetrated by halfwits and solved by a slower-than-average police officer in a film that sets out to be weird and accomplishes that without any sense of whimsy to it.

In the icy wasteland of Fargo, North Dakota, Jerry Lundegaard delivers a car to Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud (two hoods for hire) as part of the payment he negotiated for them to abduct his own wife. The deal he Jerry strikes with the pair is that they will abduct his wife and Jerry will split the ransom with the two criminals, because he is in some financial problems and needs money from his father-in-law (who he won’t ask for the cash). Even as Jerry tries to get the money together to buy a parking lot of his own, Carl and Gaear break into Jerry’s home in Minneapolis to abduct Jerry’s wife, Jean. But Carl and Gaear are pretty inept and between Jean falling down the stairs and the pair running into a highway patrol officer who cannot be bribed by Carl, the abduction does not go as planned. After killing the patrol officer and two passersby who see Carl moving the officer’s body, Carl and Gaear try to lay low with Jean as their prisoner.

The Fargo police officer Marge Gunderson is called to investigate the triple homicide and she pieces together the story of Carl and Gaear without having any idea of the Lundegaard abduction. Following the clues left by the dead police officer, the pregnant Gunderson tracks down the car Jerry used as a down payment to the hoods. As she investigates the crime, Jerry convinces his father-in-law to make the payoff to the ransomers. But things go wrong for Carl when Wade (Jerry’s father-in-law) shows up to pay him off and in the gunfight that ensues, Carl is wounded and Wade is killed. As Marge closes in on Carl and Gaear, the two hoods have a showdown that causes Jerry’s whole plan to come unraveled.

Joel and Ethan Coen are masterful writers and even with Fargo, their direction is solid and the film is executed well. Utilizing minimal soundtrack, quite a few wide shots filled with snow and emptiness, Fargo is a very different-feeling film, even now. But what Fargo is not is exciting. The characters are largely unlikable and in trying to create a very specific time and place, the Coen brothers make a movie that feels like it is populated by mentally challenged criminals and law enforcement agents. The tongue-in-cheek comedy of Fargo comes at the expense of truly caring about any of the characters.

Actress Frances McDormand portrays Marge illustrates her incredible range. Completely devoid of the confidence and authority of her character from, for example, Transformers 3 (reviewed here!), McDormand makes Marge smart but understated and somewhat bland. William H. Macy plays Jerry as a complete loser without the geeky quality or simple lack of confidence with which he played so many of his subsequent recognizable movie roles. Steve Buscemi (Carl), Peter Stormare, and Harve Presnell round out the main cast in a very masculine film. Fargo is not a film likely to sell anyone on the merits of masculinity as all of the men in the film are corrupt, selfish, greedy, or complete milquetoasts. The performances, though, are adequate to make the characters seem like real people in the Coen Brother’s cinematic universe.

Sadly, the result is not enough to recommend. Whatever audacity exists in Fargo, it is undone by the mundane nature of the plot and mood of the film. The acting balances against the lack of interesting characters, though Fargo is packed with characters who have their quirks, but those eccentricities do not add up to anything at all exceptional.

For other works by the Coen Brothers, check out my reviews of:
True Grit
Burn After Reading
No Country For Old Men
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Big Lebowski
Miller’s Crossing

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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One Of The More Jarring, But Enjoyable, Films Blending Humor And Violence: True Grit Delivers!

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful writing
The Bad: Very simple plot and characters
The Basics: The Coen remake of True Grit is funny, violent and all-around enjoyable as a fourteen year-old girl goes searching for frontier justice in the American West.


Right up front, it is worth noting that I have never seen the original True Grit, so this is intended as a very pure review of the 2010 version of True Grit as re-imagined and recreated by the Coen Brothers. I am, it should also be noted, not a fan of Westerns in general. The only real draw for me to True Grit was that I recently rewatched The Big Lebowski (reviewed here!) and absolutely loved it. I like the weirdness of most of the Coen Brothers’ movies, so I thought I would give True Grit a chance.

And it was well worth the time and attention I gave it.

As a Coen Brothers film, True Grit is loaded with quips and witty dialogue and a wonderful sense of cinematography and good acting to boot. Within moments, I found myself enjoying True Grit more than the similarly hyped Lincoln (reviewed here!) and the blend of humor and character kept me engaged the whole film.

Mattie Ross spends almost no time mourning the death of her father when he is killed by Tom Chaney. Instead, she decides that when the law opts not to pursue Chaney, who fled the small city, she will hire a bounty hunter to track down Chaney and bring him to justice. She wants to employ the most ruthless U.S. Marshall she can find and that is Rooster Cogburn. Mattie watches Cogburn take the stand in another case where he killed two of the three suspects and she tries to hire him then. The quick-tongued Mattie wakes up the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, at the foot of her bed and learns that he has been hunting Chaney (under a number of aliases) across the South and West. LaBoeuf brings his knowledge of Chaney and Cogburn brings his ruthless determination (once Maddie prods him into it and gets him sober enough) to the hunt.

When the two men head out without her, Mattie pursues, which annoys LaBoeuf. Mattie works to keep Cogburn focused on finding Chaney in the wilds, frequently threatening everyone with legal actions. When they part ways with LaBoeuf, they hunt for Chaney through the wilds, following vague leads (like recovering the gold piece that Mattie’s father was carrying) and dead bodies (and strange living people) in their pursuit of justice. The pair and LaBoeuf hunt for Ned Pepper to find Chaney and bring their judgment upon him.

True Grit is all fun and amusement until it takes the predictably Coen-esque turn for the abruptly violent and shocking. True Grit is unfortunately gruesome when it is not being chuckle-out-loud funny. But the humor is quickly mixed with scenes where characters have bitten through their tongues and have other body parts chopped off. The most cerebral form of humor in the film comes from Mattie. Mattie is the smartest person in the film – explaining Latin legal terms to Rooster and outmaneuvering Stonehill to get the money to bankroll her quest for vengeance – and her naïveté plays off Cogburn’s drunken worldliness with great comedic effect. Indeed, her trying to get Cogburn to live up to his promise to bury one of the scoundrels is met with his observation that the man shouldn’t have died in such a cold climate where the ground was frozen over works because of Mattie’s wide-eyed optimism before and after.

When the Marshall and Ranger beg off, the mission changes as Mattie is captured by Pepper and Chaney. Even so, True Grit keeps a fast enough pace to be consistently engaging and funnier more than it is horrifying. The characters, who could come across as simply goofy are presented as quirky instead and that works for a story that is rooted in a dark quest for revenge.

Jeff Bridges deserves a lot of kudos for his role as Rooster Cogburn. He is hilarious as he slurs through the role, creating a character who is almost as funny as The Dude in the exact opposite way as his iconic Coen Brothers character. Jeff Bridges plays Cogburn as a drunkard and with a lack of focus that fades to a strong moral core that keeps him determined and willing to sacrifice everything for Mattie. Matt Damon is like no other role he has played as LaBoeuf and he manages to get through the entire film without his trademark smirk, illustrating that he can act.

True Grit is held together by Hailee Steinfeld. Steinfeld is the fourteen year-old Mattie and she is articulate enough to make the character completely viable. She has a presence on film on that is uncommon in young people. In fact, not since Dakota Fanning in i am sam (reviewed here!) has a girl so driven a film and stolen the spotlight. It is virtually impossible not to watch True Grit and predict that she will have (barring a Lohan-like collapse) a long and fruitful career.

True Grit becomes a little muddied in that Cogburn becomes obsessed with finding Ned, as opposed to keeping on Mattie’s focused quest for Chaney alone, but it might be the best film yet that blends humor and violence into an overall satisfying film.

For other films with Barry Pepper, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Seven Pounds
25th Hour
Battlefield Earth

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the reviews I have written!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Quirky Blend Of Bowling And Hostage Negotiations, The Big Lebowski Is Rightfully A Cult Classic!

The Good: Funny, Decent acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: Too often weird for the sake of weird (lack of purpose)
The Basics: Delightfully odd, The Big Lebowski is the film Thomas Pynchon would have made and has a visual style that helps define the greatness of the Coen Brothers.


I was clearly too young when I first watched The Big Lebowski. I know I saw it back after college, but I had no particular affinity (or even memory) of it. So, when the opportunity came for me to watch The Big Lebowski today, I leapt upon it. I think it might be ironic that the day I panned one of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novels, Against The Day (reviewed here!), the highest compliment I can give The Big Lebowski is that this film has a Pynchonesque quality to it. Thomas Pynchon is known for being quirky and meandering and in writing and directing The Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Coen create something distinctive that is the most Pynchonesque film I have yet seen.

Like a comedic, less violent version of Payback (reviewed here!), the Coen Brothers blend the story of a man looking for far, far less than others want or expect out of him (like Porter in Payback going through his ordeals for vastly less than most of the gangsters expect, the Dude is really just out to get his rug replaced in The Big Lebowski) with a ransom which may or may not be real. Including dream sequences, quirky characters, and surprisingly good characters, the only real problem with The Big Lebowski might well be that there are so many different collectible versions of the DVD/Blu-Ray and it is sometimes weird for the sake of being weird as opposed to being a cohesive story. It is, honestly, not much of a problem at all.

The Dude (Lebowski) returns home from buying half and half to get his face shoved in his toilet by thugs who demand to know where the money is. One of the thugs urinates on his rug and when they realize that he is not the millionaire that they are trying to shake down, they leave. Inspired by his bowling buddies, the Dude searches for the real Lebowski to get compensation for his rug getting urinated upon. After taking a rug from Lebowski’s house and going bowling (where his rule-bound friend, Walter, draws a gun on an opposing player), the Dude is summoned back to the Lebowski mansion.

Mr. Lebowski’s wife, Bunny, has been kidnapped and Lebowski wants the Dude to act as a courier for the ransom. When talking with Walter, the Dude posits that the rich girl has not even been kidnapped, which Walter decides must be true. Walter throws a false bag – without the ransom money – to the kidnappers, queering the deal. The Dude quickly finds himself threatened by Lebowski, Lebowski’s daughter (who is older than his new wife), a pornographer who Bunny owes money to and, in a completely different context, a pedophilic bowler named Jesus. In hunting down the money, which has been stolen, the Dude is tailed, menaces a fifteen year old and does battle with corrupt cops.

Like a Pynchon novel, The Big Lebowski is populated by ridiculous characters who represent archetypes and agendas that allow the ridiculous plot and plot turns to seem entirely plausible. The Dude is a former hippie, conscientious objector, whose big accomplishment is being an occasional bowler. He essentially becomes a detective due to the apparently wealthy Lebowski and works for a cut off three different people with agendas for the return of Bunny Lebowski. Walter is a psychopath who claims to observe the Sabbath and plays up his status as a veteran.

Thugs and nihilists go up against the Dude and Walter in a caper that includes ransom demands when there is no hostage, a person who cuts off a toe, and a fight that involves one man biting off another man’s ear. Impressively directed by Joel (and, in an uncredited capacity, Ethan) Coen, The Big Lebowski includes dream sequences complete with big dance numbers that have a trippy feeling that is fun to watch. In fact, outside David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!), it is hard to recall a film that so purely captures the blend of drug trips, reality, and dreams as The Big Lebowski. Unlike something like Mulholland Drive, though, The Big Lebowski actually tells a story and in that way, it makes for a eminently satisfying film.

In other words, outside the simple visual styling and the quirky characters, The Big Lebowski is enjoyable because things happen and there is a story to be pieced together. Like the best of Pynchon’s novels, there is substance and themes in The Big Lebowski presented in a way that has a sense of poetry. It is easy to see how the film became a cult classic.

Julianne Moore has a wonderful supporting performance as Maude Lebowski, where she is unlike any other performance she has had. Similarly, the exceptionally brief appearance by John Turturro as Jesus (who the previews might make one suspect has a substantial role in the film) performs with a wonderful sense of physical comedy, a looseness that makes him ridiculous in a way that he plays nowhere else. Steve Buscemi (Donny, the other bowling partner of the Dude), David Huddleston (Lebowski), and Philip Seymour Hoffman all have decent supporting roles that help play off the ridiculousness of Jeff Bridges as the Dude.

John Goodman is predictably wonderful as Walter. The real surprise, though, is Jeff Bridges as the Dude. Bridges, who frequently takes serious roles where he is able to play dignified, is incredible as the slacker, the Dude. Slouching through most of the movie, he presents the character as smart, but also incredibly able to reason at key moments and makes the whole role seem plausible. Bridges has a great physical presence and his expressions of surprise and disappointment are well-played.

The Big Lebowski is funny, clever, and well-presented and well worth watching for anyone who has an appetite for quirky and surprisingly smart.

For other works with Sam Elliott, check out my reviews of:
Marmaduke
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Ghost Rider
Thank You For Smoking
Hulk

9/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Quirky For The Sake Of Being Quirky, Burn After Reading Disappoints This Coen Brothers Fan.

The Good: Moments of humor
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Not overly funny or clever, Pacing, Nothing superlative on the acting front.
The Basics: Wasting the talents of those involved, Burn After Reading is a letdown by the Coen Brothers; involving a lost disc and a woman's attempt to make money off it.


Last night, I had the choice of rewatching a film I had seen before and loved or taking in Burn After Reading, the latest endeavor by the Coen Brothers. Given that I was a little tired, I opted for the shorter of the two movies and that led me to screen Burn After Reading. I have traditionally enjoyed the dark humor and quirky characters presented in Coen Brothers films and had seen a few previews for this movie which made me think it would be an enjoyable addition to their library. It was not.

As I contemplate Burn After Reading, I find myself thinking of David Lynch. Is it possible the Coen brothers want to be David Lynch? Lynch has a way of getting away with absurd and quirky for the sake of quirky. He pulled it off admirably with Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!) even though the film used a sense of random plot elements, purposely campy acting and obvious dream imagery intended to confuse viewers as opposed to telling a narrative with any real sense. The Coen brothers seem to want to do this at various points in Burn After Reading and they fail terribly. The story is confused (not confusing), pointless and ultimately unimpressive, leaving even a viewer who is predisposed toward the quirky and odd disappointed.

Osbourne Cox is an intelligence agent who is demoted and transferred within the CIA due to his drinking problem and erratic behavior. Rather than endure such humiliation, he leaves his job, much to the chagrin of his wife, Katie. Osbourne sets out to make a living by writing his memoirs, which he does with limited success while Katie makes moves to divorce him. In the process, Katie copies his memoirs onto a disc for her lawyer and that disc ends up left behind at a gym where Linda Litzke and Chad.

Linda and Chad come across the disc, access it and come to believe that it is not a memoir, but rather a collection of state secrets. They attempt to extort Osbourne for money for the disc and when he refuses to play ball, they take it to the Russians in hope of selling the information to them, all so Linda can get a boob job. Tragedy befalls Chad and Linda works to escalate things, mostly to impress Harry . . . and then the movie ends.

Outside that plot description, there are just minor details of character. For example, Harry, a Treasury Department worker, is having an affair with Katie and begins going out with Linda when he begins to tire of her. Linda works with Chad and under Ted, who has an obvious crush on her. Linda is motivated by a desire to make enough money so she can have cosmetic surgery. Only that last fact actually has a real effect on the plot and truth be told, it only explains why Linda does what she is doing.

Otherwise, Burn After Reading is a dark farce that is more about weird for the sake of weird than actually creating interesting, viable characters in absurd situations or absurd characters in realistic situations. Instead, the film is intentionally choppy, as if the Coen Brothers primarily learned from No Country For Old Men that they did not have to show vital parts of a story.

The unfortunate aspect of Burn After Reading is that the summary sections where an intelligence agent monitoring the situation discusses it with his supervisor are possibly the best, most direct, funniest portions of the movie. In these sections, the movie is recapped and events are filled in without showing them on screen. This saves the viewer from actually having to watch any of the primary characters do anything and this is, strangely, a relief given how tedious and unlikable they are.

Moreover, the acting in Burn After Reading is a terrible waste of the talent involved. Brad Pitt moves like his crazy character in Twelve Monkeys (reviewed here!) and talks like the character he portrayed on Friends for his guest shot there. Frances McDormand, who can usually be counted on for a solid performance seems to think that all she needs to do to be funny is bug out her eyes and talk in a slightly higher pitch. She plays Linda as the combination of an opportunist and an idiot and her acting is simply a bug-eyed, energetic recasting of her "Fargo" character in some ways. Regardless, there is something familiar and well within her established range in the way she plays Linda.

George Clooney is given top billing in Burn After Reading and he plays Harry, arguably the least significant role in the main plot. He is thoroughly unlikable as a slimy adulterer who talks his way into Linda's heart and . . . wait, yes, we've seen this before, too. The Coen brothers used him essentially the same way as the protagonist in O Brother Where Art Thou? And that the Coen brothers use John Malkovich to play a character with a short temper is hardly worth exploring. Even Richard Jenkins seems to have been more a function of casting as the love-struck Ted. One suspects the Coen brothers saw his work on the first season of Six Feet Under (reviewed here!) and said "That's our Ted!"

In other words, none of the performances in Burn After Reading are especially compelling, even Tilda Swinton, who I usually like. Perhaps this is because Swinton's character of Katie is usually relegated to listening to other people deliver their much more active lines leaving Swinton to perform mostly by staring fixedly at other characters. If it seems I am glossing over my usual analysis of plot and character, then I have not been clear enough:

The plot is a simple extortion character and outside a passing trait or two used to completely define them, none of the characters have character. They are types: Harry is the womanizer, Linda is an opportunist, Osbourne is the furious heavy, Katie is the wronged wife, Chad is the idiot sidekick and Ted is the honorable, love-struck guy. The rest of the movie is a series of quick cuts, quirky one-liners that fail to add up to anything substantive and jokes that are not nearly as funny as anything else the Coen brothers have done.

Instead, Burn After Reading is problematic in its pacing, rushed in its resolution and populated by characters who are thoroughly unenjoyable to watch. Life is too short and those who want something funny will do better by tuning into . . . pretty much anything else.

For other works by the Coen Brothers, check out my reviews of:
No Country For Old Men
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Miller’s Crossing

4/10

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

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Coen Brothers Take Us To Miller’s Crossing, A Mildly Nostalgic Trip

The Good: Excellent acting, Interesting characters, Cinematography, decent DVD extras
The Bad: Convoluted plot that does not go very far, Slow and drawn out
The Basics: When Tom, a counselor to a lead gangster, finds himself on the outs with his employer, his bookie and his woman, the viewer is treated to a beautiful looking film.


Lately, I've been seeing some works I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Perhaps the most anticipated work that I've finally sat down to is Miller’s Crossing. This 1990 cinematic outing by the Coen Brothers (possibly best known still for Fargo) was largely neglected by the major awards and seems to have become something of a cult classic. I remember seeing a real compelling preview for it years ago (not the trailer that is on the DVD, which is one of those terrible trailers which virtually shows the entire movie) and I'd been looking forward to seeing it ever since.

Tom Reagan, Prohibition-era gangster advisor, finds himself in a world of trouble when the boss he counsels, Leo, offends a rising gangster named Johnny Caspar simply by not taking his desire to kill a bookie seriously. Caspar fixes fights and places bets with Bernie Bernbaum, who then sells the information on who Caspar is betting on to others, who flood money into the pool and effectively alter the odds so there will be no payout. Caspar wants to kill Bernie, who is under Leo's protection and Leo blows him off.

Sadly, Leo neglects Tom's counsel in large part because he is in love with Bernie's sister, Verna. Tom is involved with Verna as well and this sets off a string of problems for Tom that are compounded by his gambing debts. Rejected by Leo, he finds himself approaching Caspar, evading Bernie, and in a weird relationship with Verna. When Caspar's lieutenant, the Dane, suspects Tom might be double-crossing Caspar, Tom must figure out how to save his own life, which involves setting all his enemies against each other.

Miller’s Crossing is a beautifully shot film that reminds the viewer of just how important cinematography can be to establishing mood and setting. One of the few DVD bonuses on this disc is a conversation with Barry Sonnenfeld, who discusses his shooting philosophies and ideas for how Miller’s Crossing was framed and created. It's worthwhile, educational and highlights how much thought went into the look and feel of this gangster film.

And the result is a beautiful-looking film. Miller’s Crossing is inarguably a wonderful looking movie. Few films leap right to mind as being assembled so well that what the film looks like tells so much of the story. Indeed, I would be tempted to spend an evening simply watching the film without sound just to soak in the color contrasts, the murky forest that stands starkly against the sharp, beautifully appointed - almost opulent - rooms of Leo's various palaces. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen and Director of Photography Sonnenfeld have a wonderful sense of style that is virtually lost in films outside the art house's now.

Sadly, while the look of the film is wonderful, the feel is anything but. Almost homogeneously slow with characters belaboring the complexities of the plot which is universally based on the concept of which character is betraying the others based on their relationships. So, for example, the Dane has a prominent place in the movie as Caspar's lieutenant, who is having a homosexual relationship with Mink, who is involved with both the Dane and Bernie. Tom manipulates the Dane's love of Mink with Caspar to sew seeds of distrust between the boss and his closest advisor. The webs that are woven between the various characters are all similarly complex and much of the time on screen for the characters is simply spent defining who is relating to who or how someone is tugging at a character based on those relationships.

Miller’s Crossing is a big film about relationships. The problem with it is that almost all of the dialogue belabors that, it is spent defining and explaining the relationships rather than illustrating most of the relationships. So, there is a vast amount of time of the movie spent with characters talking about other characters and musing on how they related. The result is a movie that feels like watching a house of cards being assembled where the person building the structure is belaboring what card is being placed now and what cards it is atop and proximate to.

Fortunately, it looks so good. But also, the characters are interesting. Despite a plot that is dependent on all sorts of character exposition in order to be even remotely sensible, Miller’s Crossing is populated by interesting characters. In one of the other extras, clips of television interviews (sadly, there is no commentary on this version), Marcia Gay Harden - who plays Verna - speaks about her joy at playing a very different female character. She is in a period piece, but playing a strong female character who is not the hooker-with-a-heart of gold, but rather a very independent, strong woman who is running her own game.

And Tom Reagan makes for a wonderful protagonist. Tom is an anti-hero, a gangster who is in deep debt from gambling who will not allow his boss to simply make good on his debts for him, despite the peril it puts him in. Indeed, Tom's big problem is his integrity on some level; he gives Leo good advice, which Leo simply ignores, and he is honest with Leo about his relationship with Verna, which puts him on the outs with his boss and plunges his life into real peril.

The peripherals and supporting characters are all easy to watch and enjoy. Indeed, Mink appears on screen only once and is stunningly memorable for his brief appearance. Bernie Bernbaum is deliciously manipulative and at moments utterly pitiable. Leo and Caspar both have the bearings of genuine leaders and the Dane is a surprisingly strong supporting player on a very full tapestry.

The joy of Miller’s Crossing has to be the acting. All of the performers in this film bring their "a game" to the movie. Gabriel Byrne is Tom and he plays the role unlike anything I've ever seen him in, though he does have a coldness to him that he played in subsequent roles. J.E. Freeman is brilliantly pokerfaced as Eddie Dane. Indeed, one of the coolest moments of the entire cinematic experience involved the Dane's using Verna as a human shield while taking out two bodyguards. Freeman uses his body fluidly and brilliantly in such a way that seems effortless and stylistically wonderful, yet utterly real and a part of the world created for this movie.

Marcia Gay Harden, who I loved in The Spitfire Grill (reviewed here!), once again illustrates her complete range of talent by providing a performance that is strong and opposite almost every other film I've seen her in. Here she is a major player and she holds her own in a very manly movie. She and Byrne have great on-screen chemistry which sells their relationship perfectly.

The one to watch, though, is Jon Polito. I was familiar with Polito before this film solely from an episode of Millennium called "Omerta" from its third season (reviewed here!), where he played a quirky reformed gangster. The role was wonderful and weird and when Polito opened Miller’s Crossing, he was instantly recognized by me. Usually, I judge an actor and their performance on how different it is from their established cannon of works. Polito wonderfully and expertly plays essentially the same character I had seen before in Millennium in a very different context. He manages to balance humor and efficiency wonderfully and despite the similarities in characters and performances, Polito steals every scene he is in.

It's just enough to recommend this film. As someone who has watched hundreds of movies in the last year, it's hard to find something I still find new and intriguing and I suspect if I had less experience with films, I would have enjoyed Miller’s Crossing a lot more. It's an enjoyable film, but it belabors itself because it is complicated, but not long, though it feels long in parts. It is beautifully shot, with a wonderful score and interesting characters. The performances are great, but most of the work was done in the casting; this movie has a truly great ensemble and is likely to delight those who are tired of giant a-list heavy films. This is a rather manly film, but it is not brainless guy fare and may be accessible to women who like a good gangster film that is a bit quirkier than the average drama.

But it's not for the faint of heart; this is a bloody movie obsessed with relationships and how messy they can be. I'm glad I watched it, finally, even if I did find myself wishing for more.

For other movies with gangsters, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Godfather
The Whole Ten Yards
The Untouchables

6.5/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here We Are!

The Good: Funny!, Well-written, Good protagonist, Cinematography, Soundtrack and use of it.
The Bad: Flat peripheral characters, No superlative acting
The Basics: O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a clever, funny film that focuses on one man's attempt to return to his wife in the Deep South.


Well, readers of my reviews know I'm almost constantly looking for a comedy I'm willing to recommend and often falling drastically short of such. My main beef with comedies these days are I tend to find them predictable, not funny or something I know will not hold up on further viewings. And then there's O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a comedy I can and will recommend.

First and foremost, the film is funny. It's actually laugh-out-loud funny in parts. The allusions to Homer's The Odyssey are sometimes overt (Big Dan Teague as a reference to the Cyclops) and other times subtle but hilarious. For example, I laughed aloud when I realized the reference to The Odyssey in the scene with the KKK was to the scene where Odysseus thwarts the cyclops. In The Odyssey, the protagonist hides under sheep. In Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, the protagonists hide as Klan members, thus the gag is that the KKK are a bunch of sheep, which I think is both true and hilarious. It works out quite well in the film, but without knowing The Odyssey, that specific humorous poke, for one, is lost.

That is not to say one must be a mythology scholar to get the most out of the film. In addition to The Odyssey, the allusions are to Southern U.S. mythology. If one is not versed in that, which I've never been, one loses some allusions as well.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a film about Ulysses Everett McGill, a Southern gentleman and his two companions from the chain gang, Pete and Delmar. Ulysses organizes an escape from the chain gang with the other two and attempts to get through Mississippi to his wife. Along the way, the trio encounters many obstacles including Southern Baptists, seductive washerwomen, and a vicious bible salesman. In addition, the three fugitives are hunted by the sheriff from whom they escaped.

The film is a modern (Depression Era) adaptation of the Greek classic The Odyssey. Ulysses is an intellectual and a con artist of sorts, attempting to be something he probably is not. He swindles his companions into the jail break on false pretenses and his constant elitism over a specific type of hair pomade indicate a desire to be a different class of man than the felon he is. His wife, Penny, seems to recognize the truth, though she clearly needs convincing.

The film is a journey and the peripheral characters tend to be allusions more than actually fleshed out individuals. They are an eclectic collection of classic (Big Dan as the Cyclops) and American (George Nelson and Tommy Johnson in lieu of Robert Johnson) history and mythology. These characters are less drawn out and more fitting an image than I usually prefer.

Outside of the cameo by Michael Badaluco (of The Practice, here he appears as the psychotic George Nelson), none of the acting is particularly wonderful. I have high expectations for John Turturro and he probably slid right under them or met them, but did not exceed them. George Clooney, on the other hand, I have no expectations for and he met them, but did not exceed them. He plays an excellent character, but seemed to bring little to the role. Of all the actors in the film, I expect a lot of Michael Badaluco and he delivered more than I anticipated. His character is so very different from Jimmy on The Practice and he pulls it off so perfectly; it's truly what a great actor does.

Ulysses, however, is well defined as a character and the reasons to watch the film are clear. It's an intelligently-written comedy. It's refreshing. The soundtrack fits the film perfectly and while it is almost always noticeable, it is never overbearing. The washed look of the film is also wonderful. It gives everything a dry, burned appearance that is appropriate to the story and character.

And in the final analysis, it's funny and I know when I see it next, I am going to enjoy it at least as much as I did the first time. Finally, a comedy I want to rewatch!

For other films with John Turturro, please visit my reviews of:
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Transformers
The Luzhin Defence
Rounders

8.5/10

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

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Worthy Best Picture Focusing On The Effects, Not The Causes: No Country For Old Men!

The Good: Great acting, Interesting characters, Good pacing
The Bad: Minutia, DVD bonus features
The Basics: A great, dark, often disturbingly funny, film, No Country For Old Men puts an ordinary man on the run from a psychopath sent to recover two million dollars he ended up with.


Last year, I started a new program at my local library. Every two weeks, my local library screened movies that won the Best Picture Oscar. My local librarian asked for ideas for programs now that the library has a film license and it is what I came up with for her. For our first night, we watched the prior year's Best Picture Oscar winner, No Country For Old Men.

Based upon a novel by Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men was adapted to screen by Ethan and Joel Coen, the brothers who brought the world to Fargo. This review is of the film, not the novel and having not read the novel, there will be no comparative analysis. And while this film was not a perfect film, it was one that was worthy of the Best Picture Oscar and it stacked up well, certainly against some of the other Best Picture winners (some of which I have outright despised).

In the aftermath of a prisoner escape and a drug deal that ended in a bloodbath, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell begins an investigation into the connection between Llewelyn Moss - the only man to walk away from the drug deal - and Anton Chigurh. Moss, not a participant in the shootout, merely discovered the bodies, tracked one of the participants and ended up with a case holding two million dollars of drug money. Having returned to the scene of the crime, Moss attempted to do the right thing - save the life of one of the Mexicans who was dehydrating - only to become a target himself.

Sending his wife away (haplessly into the hands of the Mexican drug dealers who are looking for the money), Llewelyn is relentlessly stalked by Chigurh, a flat-out psychopath who is armed with a pneumatic bolt and a shotgun. As bounty hunters are called in to find Moss and the money, Chigurh hunts Moss, the bounty hunters and his employer indiscriminately, while Sheriff Bell becomes more and more distressed over the way the case is headed.

No Country For Old Men is a bloody, graphic drama and what is likely to frustrate most people about it is not that, but rather how the film is about effects, not reconstructing events. So, for example, the shootout that Llewelyn stumbles upon, is long over and the viewer is never treated to the actual action. No, the story is told, much like a silent film, by Moss walking among the bodies and wrecked vehicles and silently putting it all together. In this fashion, the Coen Brothers directed a true masterwork of details. Attentive viewers will get all of the information they need from flat tires, bulletholes and body positions.

In fact, what robs No Country For Old Men of perfection is in the details that the Coen Brothers get wrong. I can live with the way the sun rises insanely quickly as Llewelyn Moss flees the Mexicans who are after him at night. Having been to the Southwest, the sun changes night to day with a speed that is impressive. But after laying out an aftermath that tells a clear story in details, that the Coen Brothers clearly used two different takes to get Moss into the riverbed as he flees is terrible in that the sun is shown both on the horizon Moss is fleeing into and behind his pursuers as he flees. This is unspeakably sloppy for a film trading on details.

My only other beef with the movie is its presentation on DVD: No Country For Old Men appears with three short featurettes that detail the adaptation from the book and the making of the film. There is no commentary track, no deleted scenes and for a film that is as dense and intriguing as this one, viewers deserve more for their permanent collections.

That said, this is a legitimately great film in the three major categories by which I judge films: plot, character and acting. The plot seems simple in many ways, until one considers what the movie is truly about. While it initially appears that this is a simple, if slow, chase film, No Country For Old Men is less about the chase and more about the decline of civilization and the effects that random acts of violence have upon individuals and society.

To that end, important events are not shown in the film. There is no need to reconstruct the crimes Chigurh is brought in on, the shootout in the desert or even the death of a significant character which is not shown. The movie is about erosion and decay, watching the mold spread, not the laying of the spores. In that way, the film is dark, creepy and preoccupied with mood in such a way that makes is undeniably horrific and compelling. It is also not for children or those who are squeamish. Despite omitting key scenes on screen, No Country For Old Men has quite a bit of on-screen violence and gore (usually from gun violence).

As far as character goes, there are three essential characters in the film: Moss, Bell and Chigurh. Sheriff Bell, who is arguably the character the themes of the film converge around, is not the most intelligent or stalwart police officer ever. For sure, he is good and decent, but he is not relentless, certainly not in the way either Moss or Chigurh are. Instead, he sees the world changing and rather than confront it, he allows this case to be his breaking point and his surrender represents a fundamental shift in the priorities of society. It is not noble, we infer, to die for the cause. Neither is it noble to give up and let evil walk away, but what No Country For Old Men might well be arguing is that nobility itself is dead.

Anton Chigurh is, perhaps, one of the best, most uncompromising villains in recent cinema. Unmotivated by anything other than dark will, he is monolithic in his quest for Llewelyn, the money and the cause he might (or might not) see as righteous. He believes himself to be the ultimate hunter, the one tool that ought to be used to find Moss and the money. As such, he's not motivated by much more than a survival instinct and is not much of a talker. Still, he rules this film and from the moment he first appears on screen, there is no doubt in the viewer's mind that he is a stone cold killer.

Llewelyn Moss is a pretty classic antihero. Stumbling upon the case filled with two million dollars that he knows came from a drug deal gone south, Moss takes the money and it takes him a while to go back and do the right thing. In fact, trying to save the life of the lone survivor of the massacre is done against his better instincts and what gets him into so much trouble. Still, he does his best to keep his wife safe and there is some honor in his attempt to get away with both his life and the money, no matter how ill gotten the gains.

From that perspective, Josh Brolin, who plays Moss, is to be celebrated. His time on screen is electric and the viewer empathizes most. Unlike Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Bell, who we want to be heroic, we simply want Brolin's Moss to get away. Brolin plays Moss perfectly in the first half hour as a quiet tracker and he has the bearing of a man with experience hunting and observing. Brolin is upright, has great - subtle - body language for the strong, silent types and his ability to quietly track and observe, to walk through and with a look point out the important details makes much of the film work. Brolin provides a distinctly different performance from his other roles, like in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (click here for that review!).

It is easy to see, though, why Javier Bardem has received so much praise - as well as the Best Supporting Actor award - for his role as Chigurh. Bardem quickly creates a memorable screen psychopath and the only comparison for his performance would be that of Steve Railsback as "Duane Barry." Like Railsback in that role, Bardem uses his voice and eyes to emote in ways that are far more menacing than waving a gun or yelling ever could be. He is the quiet killer and his role as the unyielding Chigurh is frightening and uniform.

Anyone looking for a great, violent film focusing on the decline of society will find something to love in the complex, layered No Country For Old Men.

For other films that include gunplay and bounty hunters, please check out my reviews of:
The Bounty Hunter
Zombieland
Attack Of The Clones

As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, which is available by clicking here!

9/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page for an organized list!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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