The Hunt Review

“The Hunt” is a frustrating movie. Not because it’s bad or poorly made but because its subject matter (and the way director Thomas Vinterberg presents it) is so compelling and absorbing that it invokes a strong emotional reaction while you’re watching it. Part way through I caught myself yelling at the screen in complete anger. That usually doesn’t happen during good movies. However, after you’re done watching and you cool down, the movie forces you to reevaluate what’s actually happened logically and objectively.

“The Hunt” is about how minor incidents can be blown out of proportion. It also shows how impressionable young children can be and how much power they can hold in certain situations. More importantly, “The Hunt” is about how these things can create a chain reaction that can practically ruin a person’s reputation and turn them into an outcast. That person is Lucas (Mads Mikkelson) a lonely man who works at the local kindergarten in his small Danish community. One day, there’s a minor incident between Lucas and a kindergartener named Klara (Annika Wedderkop).

Again, this is minor so nothing serious actually happens. But thanks Klara’s stubbornness, her impressionability and a little lie she tells to the head teacher Grethe (Susse Wold) things get out of control. Grethe thinks Lucas has molested Klara and decides to warn the authorities and the other parents. Without even trying to look closer into the situation the parents and community members shun Lucas. He’s fired from the kindergarten, he isn’t allowed to shop at the grocery store, and even his best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larson), who also happens to be Klara’s father, threatens him with death at one point.

This is what causes that strong angry reaction. Vinterberg paints Lucas as a good man; we’re on his side. The kids at the kindergarten love him and even though he’s divorced he’s still a good father to his now adolescent son. He didn’t molest Klara (if this is a spoiler to anyone I’m sorry but there’s no real mystery about the incident at hand) and so it’s simply not fair that Lucas is being treated this way. Why are these people not taking a closer look at the situation and are so quick to condemn him? He’s absolutely powerless. This is what I meant when I said how children can hold a lot of power in certain situations. It’s Lucas’ word against the word of an innocent little girl. He hasn’t a chance. So, you can do nothing but sit there, boiling with rage and sadness. “The Hunt” isn’t exactly a pleasant movie to watch.

However, the reason why this movie invokes such a strong response from you is because you’re watching the entire movie unfold from an outsider’s position. You’ve seen the actual incident but the other characters within the film haven’t. You know Lucas is a good man but the others don’t. They’re simply going on either what Klara’s said or what they’ve heard from other people. And this is what causes you to—after you’ve finished watching and have taken a few deep breaths—examine the movie objectively from different angles. Child molestation is a serious issue and there are many instances of actual molestation that go unnoticed and the children are ignored. At first you want to strangle Grethe, for the way she just dismisses Lucas and the way she holds on to the false notion that “children never lie” but you have to look at the situation from her perspective. She’s a kindergarten teacher, it’s her responsibility to watch the kids and make sure they’re safe and so when she sees that something’s wrong with Klara what’s she supposed to do, ignore her? You’re outraged at Theo for how quickly he turns on his best friend but at the same time Klara is his daughter, who’s he supposed believe, her or Lucas?

When the other random members of the community start dishing out hatred and shunning Lucas you want to yell “why are you believing the first thing you hear without giving it a second thought?” but even they can’t be completely faulted. When it comes to child molestation it’s gut instinct to take the side of the child.  Furthermore you have to see Lucas from a different perspective as well. He’s a nice, caring non-threatening man who spends a lot of time with young children. In the case of Klara Lucas sort of became a second father to her, someone she can trust. In a lot of real child molestation cases the perpetrators fit Lucas’ profile. People who come off non-threatening and trusting but deep down are sick and twisted. With all of this considered there are no villains in “The Hunt,” just frightened people and people doing what they think is best. The fact that the movie forces you to examine all angles and perspectives in a logical manner is the most fascinating aspect of the picture.

It also benefits from having a strong lead performance. Mikkelson has been in a few American movies (most notably the villain in “Casino Royal) and currently plays the psychopath Hannibal Lector in NBC’s “Hannibal,” and he settles right in to the benevolent and non-threatening role of Lucas. He’s good looking with a full head of medium length blonde hair but he also has a sort of blandness to him that makes him seem like a regular guy. His performance shows a wide range of emotions but isn’t over-the-top and he does a lot of the acting through his facial expressions.

At one point, he gets beat up by employees in a supermarket who tell him he can’t shop there anymore. As he’s limping away, with blood on his face, and with a look of such sadness and defeat on his face (like he’s been pushed to his absolute limit), it’s devastating. Later on, during a Christmas Eve church service he sits on a bench by himself surrounded by the whole town and as he sees them looking at him and whispering to one another he breaks down and causes a scene. It’s easily one of the most moving performances of the year.

Maybe Vinterberg and co-writer Tobias Lindholm made Lucas too decent of a man. Maybe they should have given him some rough spots so we aren’t completely on his side the whole time, but at this point I’m just nitpicking. Any movie that elicits such a strong initial reaction from you and then forces you to go back and examine it more closely, from multiple angles, is rare. And Vinterberg does it all without any melodrama—everything feels natural-- which is even more of a rarity.

A-

Blue Jasmine Review

I’m a Woody Allen optimist. Like Quentin Tarantino or Christopher Nolan or Darren Aronofsky, I eagerly await the next Woody Allen picture and even if it’s not all that great or memorable (which has been the case with most of his work of late) I still eagerly await the next film hoping that it will be better. Now, yes I think at this point in his life and career the 77-year-old director probably won’t have another truly great film like “Annie Hall” or “Hannah and Her Sisters” or “Manhattan” but that doesn’t mean he’s now incapable of making a near great film or at least a good one.

Since 1982 Allen has been writing and directing a film a year, which is a good thing and a bit of a bad thing. It’s good because it shows how much he loves making movies. He doesn’t make them because they’re going to earn large amounts at the box office, he does it for himself. It’s a bad thing because such a short time frame doesn’t give Allen a lot of time to work on his scripts and as a result most of them end up being thin and forgettable. But that doesn’t faze Allen; unlike a lot of great directors he doesn’t feel the need to top himself with every movie. He’ll come up with an idea and go with it and if the movie doesn’t make much of a splash it’s OK, he’ll try again next time. And for every one or two forgettable movies he makes there’s usually one that’s worth talking about.

After two forgettable romps, in 2009 (“Whatever Works”) and 2010 (“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”), Allen achieved massive success (both critically and box office) with “Midnight In Paris,” a delightful little movie that was part fantasy, part romance and more importantly his love letter to Paris. Then in 2012 he made “To Rome With Love” and we were back to paper thin, forgettable Woody. But now, with his latest “Blue Jasmine” Allen is back to form and while it isn’t entirely successful it comes awfully close.

 First and foremost it should be said that “Blue Jasmine” is a serious movie. So for those of you who just loved the pleasant and funny “Midnight in Paris,” be warned that this new movie is nothing like it. It’s character driven for sure, but more importantly it’s mostly a tragedy. It’s about a woman’s gradual decline into mental illness and delusion. It has perhaps one of the darkest, saddest endings I’ve ever seen in an Allen film.

At the same time however, that doesn’t mean the movie is completely humorless and cold. There is plenty of humor (through dialogue) but it comes as a result of the serious drama unfolding on screen and this makes the movie very watchable. Allen’s screenplay crackles with energy and hot emotions, his direction like always is minimal but effective, letting the actors and the emotions speak for themselves in each scene.

“Blue Jasmine” is about Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), a woman who--after enjoying a life of wealth and security while being married to a real-estate investor named Hal (Alec Baldwin)—suffers a midlife crisis. As it turns out Hal was into some shady dealings and through circumstances explored throughout the film Jasmine loses it all. She’s forced to move in with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who works in a grocery store and lives in a cramped apartment with two kids in San Francisco. It’s a big adjustment for Jasmine and to say that she’s a mess is an understatement. At first she comes off neurotic, uptight, bitter and kind of a spoiled brat. When she isn’t outright mean to Ginger--telling her that she’ll never achieve anything better than what she has now and criticizing the working class stiffs she dates or has dated in the past --she’s putting on a false grateful act while further degrading Ginger under her breath. In other words she‘s not exactly likeable and you’re ready to detest her for the rest of the movie. But as the film goes on and you learn more about how her life of decadence came crumbing down (through flashbacks) you see that there is something mentally wrong with Jasmine. This crisis has knocked a screw loose in her head. She’s taking pills, has violent mood swings and there are a couple of instances where she’s seen talking to herself. This is where most of the humor comes from; she’s so pathetic at times that you can’t help but laugh.

So you begin to feel sorry for her. The reason why she’s so nasty to her sister is because she’s trying to find some way to cope with her crappy situation. She’s resentful that she has to go to her sister for help. And, despite all of her unpleasantness she does try to put her life back together. She gets a menial secretary job and takes a computer class so she can get an online degree in Interior Decorating. She meets another wealthy man named Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) and the two sisters do share a few pleasant moments together. But at the same time it’s not like her condition just magically goes away--like it would in a more conventional Hollywood movie--and it gets progressively worse as the movie goes on.

It’s a fascinating character brought fully to life by Blanchett. Her performance is one of tremendous highs and tremendous lows (that’s a positive thing), one minute she’s petty and nasty, the next she’s a babbling mess, then she’s confident and ready to get back on her feet and then she’s back to being petty and nasty. It’s a performance that highlights Blanchett’s immense range and talent. She’s the main reason why the character works and why you remain so invested in the film. If there’s anything in “Blue Jasmine” that’s going to be talked about (especially as we get closer to awards season) it’s Blanchett’s performance.

Jasmine is the center of the picture and so everything else sort of revolves around her, which is fine, but it also doesn’t allow for additional characters to fully blossom, particularly Ginger. Amidst all the trouble involving Jasmine, Ginger is having her own troubles. The two sisters are adopted and we learn that Jasmine was favored over Ginger by their parents. Ginger’s never had a lot of luck with money and men and the one opportunity she had to do something more with her life financially she got screwed over by Hal and his shady dealings. At only 98 minutes and with Jasmine being the center focus there just isn’t enough time to really develop Ginger’s character and as a result the stuff she goes through --involving her current relationship with a loudmouth mechanic Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and her fling with another man played by Louis C.K—feels trivial in relation to Jasmine’s story.

I’m not sure general audiences will react as strongly to “Blue Jasmine” as they did to “Midnight in Paris.” The movie is not light comedy but instead drama with some humor thrown in. And the ending is not happy which I realize will turn a lot of people off. Furthermore, audiences may find Jasmine too deplorable to get behind and that’s perfectly fine. But it’s these aspects that give “Blue Jasmine” a strong sense of authenticity. There aren’t always happy endings in life, people aren’t always sweet and likable and furthermore people don’t always learn their lesson and change their life for the better. Sometimes—as in the case of Jasmine—they just get worse and worse. Allen’s unpredictability—going from such a light and fantastical film like “Midnight in Paris” to such a heavy and tragic film like this one—is the main reason why I still eagerly anticipate his next picture.

 B+

Planes Review

The new Disney animated film “Planes”—which takes place in the world of “Cars,” which as you remember was made by Pixar, but Pixar is not involved in this new film. Make sense? --was originally going to go straight to dvd but Disney was so impressed with some of the completed sequences they decided to release it theatrically. I think I can guess a few of those sequences they were impressed with but that doesn’t change the fact that “Planes” (directed by “Simpsons” director Klay Hall) still feels like direct-to-video fare. The story is paint-by-the-numbers and the characters are paper-thin. On a whole the movie is astonishingly average. No surprises, hardly any thrills and superfluous 3D. It’s not bad by any means but it doesn’t even attempt greatness, or even goodness for that matter.

The story is essentially the inverse of the “Cars” plot. Instead of a cocky young racer from the big city who has to slow down and learn how to race again in a small nowhere town, we have Dusty (Dane Cook) a scrappy little Crop Duster from a nowhere town. Dusty aspires to be a racing plane one day but he’s not built for racing and he’s afraid of heights. There are supporting characters but as I said in the previous paragraph they’re so paper thin that I don’t even have the energy to describe them. Just think of the supporting characters in “Cars” with slight differences. At 92 minutes “Planes” is brief, it wastes no time getting started and it never meanders off course. The humor consists mainly of puns associated with the fact that this is a world of vehicles (“a vehicle interest story” a car reporter says at one point) some of which are worth a chuckle. And the animation is decent but doesn’t even come close to the immense detail seen in “Cars.”

And…yeah that’s it. The movie is extremely underwhelming but it strives for such mediocrity that I can’t bring myself to pan it. Plus it’s a harmless kids’ movie, what’s the point? I guess kids will like it although a majority of the ones who attended my preview screening were antsy, there was one girl sitting down near the handicap seats who practically spent the entire movie standing up, grasping the hand railing.

C

Elysium Review

Neill Blomkamp’s latest dystopian future film “Elysium” has a good concept and is well made but in the end Blomkamp doesn’t take it anywhere very interesting or refreshing. It’s not a bad film by any means, I was never flat out bored, though I couldn’t help but feel a little let down by its outcome. This is the same way I felt about Blomkamp’s 2009 feature film debut “District 9.”

 The setup is solid. The year is 2154 and Earth (from what we can tell) has been reduced to slums full of crime and poverty. That’s where ninety nine percent of the population lives. However, not too far from Earth there lies a floating space sanctuary known as Elysium. This is where the one percent live perfect lives; no crime, no sickness (there are machines somewhat reminiscent of tanning beds that heal all diseases), nobody gets old.  

“District 9” was an allegorical look at South African Apartheid, except instead of the Afrikaners being oppressed it was an extraterrestrial race known as Prawns. This time Blomkamp is targeting the upper class. The Elysium residents are neatly dressed unsympathetic robots, while the Earthlings are oppressed. One of Elysium’s prominent residents, a politician named Delacourt (Jodie Foster) is especially unsympathetic towards the Earthlings and takes harsh measures when they try to sneak into the sanctuary. In an early scene, Delacourt calls on the help of a mercenary Kruger (Sharlto Copley) to shoot down three ships full of Earthlings desperate to get into Elysium. Forty-six people are killed and she doesn’t even bat an eye. She’s bad news.

So, enter Max (Matt Damon) our lower class everyman turned hero to set things right. One day while working at his menial factory job (where they build the very robotic police officers that keep them down) he’s exposed to a deadly amount of radiation and is given five days to live. His boss, John Carlyle (William Fitchner), a resident of Elysium sent down to supervise, couldn’t care less so Max decides he needs to get to Elysium and heal himself. Of course it’s not that simple, it never is. In order to get an illegal ticket and I.D. he and few other criminal types (but they’re part of the oppressed Earth population, so they’re the good guys) must hijack John and extract information from his mind containing a plan that could possibly bring equality to both the populations. But the mission won’t be easy, not with Kruger and his cronies on his tail. As cool as the mind hijacking is (they extract the information using a flash drive type device which they can then plug into a computer) it’s one of those science fiction-y ideas that warrant its own movie. Blomkamp has enough here already, so it’s not entirely necessary.

As I said before, “Elysium” is well made. Blomkamp’s direction is sleek and moves at a comfortable pace. On just a simple sci fi/action movie level “Elysium” can be quite entertaining and I’m sure fans of “District 9” will like this one just as much, or maybe more. The production design by Phillip Ivey is spot on, capturing the neat cleanliness of Elysium and the rugged, dirt covered slums of Earth. There are plenty of cool gadgets and futuristic technology (bullets that explode before they hit you, flash drives that can be inserted into human heads) that general audiences will eat up. And Damon is always a reliable actor for these everyman-turned-action-hero roles. He plays Max with unshowy honesty, yet he doesn’t take the role too seriously, sprinkling in some humor here and there. Like with Denzel Washington’s recent performances, Damon can play Max in his sleep and that’s not a bad thing at all.

My main problems with “Elysium” have to do with the way Blomkamp approaches the concept. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with doing it from the point of the view of the oppressed lower class but at the same time it’s too easy. The Earthlings are the victims and the Elysium-ites are cold, heartless monsters. I would have liked to see Blomkamp approach it from a different angle, maybe from the point of view of someone on Elysium, or at the very least bring some more dimension to the orbiting sanctuary. We never really get to see how the world works and how its residents interact with one another and what they do everyday. They can’t all be bad, right?

Aside from her character being a one-note villain, Foster’s entire performance feels phoned in. It’s not to say she’s all-bad but it didn’t seem like she was putting much effort into it. Maybe that’s a result of under writing, but I hardly got anything out of her except for a predictable (and slight) feeling of anger because of how bad she is. As for Copley? The man is no doubt a talented up and coming actor that will keep on getting talented. In the three movies he’s been in, “District 9,” “The A Team” and this he plays completely distinctive characters. Too bad the character of Kruger doesn’t give him much to do except to be menacing bad guy.

Which is a shame because there is potential there for a better-developed character. In fact, I think Blomkamp could have made him the hero (or antihero) of the story. Even though he’s bad he’s also just a hired gun for Delacourt, he too lives in the slums with the rest of the oppressed. Making him the protagonist would have added some additional grittiness to the picture and would have made a more nuanced hero. As good as Damon is, Max is too clean (even though he has a criminal history). Right away when we see Damon we know we’re going to like him and root for him. Kruger on the other hand is scummy and repulsive (sporting long hair and bushy beard, with scars on his face) he’d have to earn the audience’s trust and respect as a hero.

I respect Blomkamp as a filmmaker. After only two films he’s shown that he has talent and I appreciate that he’s trying to bring ambition and intelligence to a big budget summer sci fi actioner (in the same way Ridley Scott did with “Prometheus” last year and Christopher Nolan with “Inception” in 2010) but with “Elysium” he isn’t ambitious enough. It’s easy to make villains out of the wealthy and victims/heroes out of the poor but I would have liked to see a more nuanced view of these coexisting worlds and their inhabitants.

C+