Unbroken

First Hit:  Unfortunately this film only focused on his suffering.

In many ways the story of Louis Zamperini’s life is too big and expansive for the screen.

This left Angelina Jolie with having to make a choice of what to present. She chose to share little of his joys and more on how he suffered. The major part of this film takes place while he is a prisoner of the Japanese in a POW camp located in Japan.

The punishment dished out Corporal/Sergeant Watanabe (the “bird” as prisoners called him) was relentless. He feigned niceness and respect from time to time, and then would turn around and punish Louis in horrible ways. The way this film was shot, broad vistas when in the plane or on the life raft to microscopic views of the torture. This isn’t to say that what Louis endured was brave beyond compare and therefore this is a major part of his life.

However, in the end, I was relieved that the film was over and very happy to read the post-closing credits and pictures of him, smiling and joyful – something that didn’t exist much, if at all, in the film.

Jack O’Connell as Louis was very good, but I felt as if something was missing within him that would make the story more real. Domhnall Gleeson as Pilot Phil was good as his friend and fellow survivor. Takamasa Ishihara was very good as Watanabe and provided a sick view of a torturer. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote this script, which was effective but very dark and one-sided towards gruesome punishment. Jolie’s direction was very pointed to the pain Zamperini suffered to the point of overload. Where was the man who was joyfully smiling at the end of the film.

Overall:  I felt that this film showed only a partial view of an amazing man.

The Tourist

First Hit: Who didn’t know that Johnny Depp was Alexander all along?

Yes it is mean to give away the whole point of the film in the first line of a review, but it is also mean to put two strong actors in parts that don’t work well together, in a story that is poorly created, build some fluff around it, then make it about life and death and hope we like it, let alone believe it.

In the scene where Elise Clifton-Ward (played by Angelina Jolie) strolls down the train looking for someone who is about the same height as Alexander (Depp) how would she have picked him? There is nothing about the “description” (about the same height) we are given about whom she should pick that would have had us believe that Depp’s character is Alexander’s look alike.

You can’t pick the height of someone sitting down. But, OK, we will live with this, but then there’s all this fluff about Depp being Frank Tupelo an American math teacher tourist who is just willing to follow, or more accurately be commanded by Elise to do what she wants.

First off Depp gave me no feeling he was a math professor and second he didn’t seem the meek person his role called for. Her goal was to set him up to be the real Alexander to throw the cops off. Why?

Scotland Yard wants Alexander because he owes 744,000,000 in taxes on money he stole from Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff) who gained his money from crime and being a ruthless mobster (why isn’t Scotland Yard after him?). Seriously, is this really a Scotland Yard crime? Even as both Scotland Yard and Shaw believe that Frank Tupelo isn’t Alexander they think Alexander will show up soon to see Elise.

But Elise is also a Scotland Yard undercover cop and some of the team wonders if she went rogue. Oh and Elise falls in love with whomever she is last with or that’s what we are told by Scotland Yard to have us believe she is falling for Frank Tupelo who is really Alexander. Confused yet?

Just watch the film some Sunday afternoon when it is on video enjoy the beautiful scenes of Venice and wonder what could have been.

Jolie is gorgeous as always and the scenes as she walks through the train and through the ball the staring is probably real. Jolie can be captivating. However, this isn’t much of a part and there isn’t much for Jolie to grab on to from an acting perspective. Depp is not very believable in his role as a math teacher tourist. There is an incongruence that just doesn’t make it work. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck directed this and I’m not sure why.

Overall: If you’re bored someday, pick up the DVD or use On Demand and watch some mindless fluff.

Salt

First Hit: Despite Jolie’s strong acting and excellent execution, the ending was predictable and telegraphed.

For a film to be suspenseful it has to be set up that way. It has to keep the audience wondering what will happen and make them believe what they are seeing is really the truth. Salt was not set up to do this.

I’d be surprised if anyone in the theater thought for one minute, that Salt (played by Angelina Jolie) would turn out to be a die-hard Russian spy wanting to kill the President of the US. With that resting in one’s mind from the get go, how could one buy into the story on the screen? I didn't.

Therefore the film became one about; can this obvious story be told well and would the acting and action be engaging? To those questions the answer is yes, it was engaging and it was fun to watch.

The story is about a Russian man named Vassily Orlov (played by Daniel Olbrychski and Daniel Pearce) who wants to cause havoc in the world because he prefers the cold war fight between the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. of the 1950's and 1960's to the present day friendship. To keep that old battle alive he kidnaps young kids in Russia and trains them to be obedient killers and spies.

Salt, who is a US Russian diplomat’s daughter, is one of them. To carry out his plan he sends these well trained people into the US to live their lives and to be ready to march on his orders to perform the covert functions they were trained to deliver.

Jolie is good and keeps the whole film interesting. She is both athletic and beautiful. You believe she can to all the things she does in the film; from beating the crap out of people to saving the world from total destruction. Liev Schreiber as Jolie’s boss Ted Winter is strong as the man who cares but also has his own secret. Chiwetel Ejiofor, as Peabody the government agent overseeing the problem of spies, is his usual strong self. Olbrychski is great as the Russian activist who wants the world to be different than it is. Phillip Noyce did well with the given script but the problem is that the script is too obvious to work as a suspenseful thriller.

Overall: It is entertaining in an action sort of way but it is not suspenseful as the ending becomes glaringly obvious as the film rolls.

Changeling

First Hit: This true story is very well written, directed, acted, and photographed. It is simply a very good film.

Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins a mother of a quiet, mindful 9 year old boy who disappears from their home before she comes home from working an extra shift as a supervisor in the telephone company.

What creates additional guilt for her is that she had promised her son to take him to a movie that Saturday and reneged from this promise to work overtime. As she was leaving to rush home to her son, her boss stopped her to share that he wanted to promote her to a new position because of her good work.

In having this conversation, she misses the trolley home and therefore gets home later than she had planned. Arriving home her son is gone and after searching the neighborhood, she calls the police who tell her they cannot do anything until 24 hours have passed.

The next day the police show up and take their report. A number of months go by when she receives a call from the police saying they found her boy in Indiana and they are shipping him home to LA. On the appointed day the police, her and the press are there to meet the train.

When the child appears, Christine tells the police captain that the boy they’ve brought to her is not her child. The captain objects and in a beautifully acted 3 minute scene Christine ends up agreeing to take the boy home because there is enormous pressure, in front of the press, to show that the police are doing their job. From this set up the film unfolds in an incredible story of power, corruption, deceit, and justice.

Jolie is fantastic in this film that is filled with both overt, large scale emotions and subtle emotions. In every way her performance is strong and consistent. John Malkovich is good as Reverend Gustav Briegleb a minister who is campaigning to clean up city hall and uses his weekly radio program to target the LA Police Department for their corruption. He comes to the aid of Jolie and supports her through the process of searching for her son. Jeffrey Donovan is strong as the steely, controlling and contained Captain J.J. Jones whose job it is to find Jolie’s son and control the spin as Jolie refutes the found boy as her son. Eastwood directs this cast through this story with patience and clarity of vision. The cinematography is wonderful and the 1920s and 1930s time period is captured nicely.

Overall: This is a very fine film with a compelling story, great acting, and fine execution.

Wanted

First Hit: Some good acting but a dumb premise.

The story is about Wesley (played by James McAvoy) who is tired of his life. He is stuck in a job he hates working for a woman who is abusive while his live-in girlfriend is having sex with his best friend and work mate. He is also susceptible to instantaneous anxiety attacks.

To show us how invisible he is, we watch him Google his name and nothing comes up, there are no entries for his name. While purchasing his long standing prescription for anti-anxiety drugs; Fox (played by Angelina Jolie) walks up to him, tells him she knew his father, that his father died the night before, and that the man pointing a gun at him at that moment is going to kill him.

From this moment on Wesley’s life is going to change. He is scurried off to meet a group of characters led by Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman). The group is called the “Fraternity” and they are assassins. The Fraternity’s roots go back hundreds of years and they get their assignments from a cloth weaving loom (Yes, a bit far-fetched). Wesley decides to become part of the group because he wants to avenge his father’s death by a rogue assassin.

Wesley goes through some arduous training and become a great assassin because it is in his genes to be able to slow time and action down.

McAvoy is a strong actor and shows his abilities by being able to shift from being intimidated, to extremely anxious, to anger, and then to smooth clarity in just seconds. Jolie is very adept at being a strong beautiful woman who lives on the edge. Freeman plays the smart heavy as only he and his voice can. The acting is good but the story way too far fetched by making a loom decide who lives and dies. Lastly, although it might be a neat trick and cinematically cool to let people curve a bullet’s path, I can just imagine people trying to curve bullet shots like they do in the film. It isn’t going to happen and I think some innocent real people are going to get hurt.

Overall: Some of the visuals were fun to watch. The acting was, at times, very good, but overall the premise wasn’t believable and therefore the film fell short of being good.